The 31 Best Places to Drink in Boston

Dark wood, sink-in seating in bold colors, and cocktail names that tip you off early: this is a cocktail bar that wants you to stay longer than you planned. The menu leans playful and genuinely inventive, and the room has enough tucked corners for a long conversation. A James Beard Best New Bar semifinalist and an Esquire Best Bars pick, it earns both without trying too hard about either.

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America
2. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Best New Bar
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Top 10 Nominee · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar

1. The 50 #86 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Eater The Best Bars Around Boston
3. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service · Oscar Simoza

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Nominee · Best New Bar
2. Eater Best New Bar
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. East

The Koji Club is a sake bar of about sixteen seats in the Allston Speedway, where the bottle storage doubles as a coat rack and a rice cooker sits behind the bar like it pays rent. The staff will walk the sake-curious through the list, so no one gets quizzed. The snack of choice is a bowl of rice with furikake, miso, and pickles. It's dim and cozy, and it's on the Esquire list of best bars in America.

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America
2. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Boston
3. Eater The Best Bars Around Boston

A two-dozen-seat Thai tapas room in Brookline Village where the menu reads like a love letter to northern Bangkok filtered through a genuinely curious kitchen. Small plates and creative cocktails share equal billing, the Michelin Bib Gourmand crowd sitting close enough to see what everyone else ordered. The New York Times and Boston Magazine have both circled it, which tracks for a spot this compact running this confidently.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. The New York Times The 25 Best Restaurants in Boston Right Now
3. Boston Magazine #13 · Top 50 Restaurants in Boston

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

Sichuan Garden fed Brookline Village for two decades before the family's son, a bartender with a James Beard-nominated bar pedigree, took over the front of house and made it a cocktail bar. The drinks lean tropical, lots of rum and agave, threaded through with Sichuan flavors that have no business working this well together. The Spirited Awards named the bar team a Regional Top 10 Honoree, which tracks.

1. Eater The Best Bars Around Boston
2. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Boston
3. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Boston

1. The 50 #88 · North America's 50 Best Bars

1. Wildsam The 50 Most Essential Bars in America

Backbar is a cocktail bar tucked down a concrete hallway behind a steel door in Union Square, which is how you know the drinks are serious. Weekends bring a line of people waiting to find out what the menu is themed around this month, sometimes an animation studio, with drinks named for scenes. Tell the bartender your mood and let them handle the translation, because the ingredient lists read like a botany final.

1. Eater The Best Bars Around Boston
2. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Boston

This is a narrow natural-wine bar near Downtown Crossing, the sort of place that introduced a lot of Boston to tinned fish and has been quietly smug about it since. The list is long and a little nerdy, but the bartenders will talk you through it without making you feel graded. Half bottles of nearly everything let you change your mind twice. It was a James Beard semifinalist for its wine program, and on Wednesdays there are fancy hot dogs.

1. Eater The Best Bars Around Boston
2. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Boston
3. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program

Pisco is doing serious work here, with Esquire naming the pisco martini among the best in the country. La Royal is a handsome Peruvian restaurant and bar in Cambridge where the menu wanders across the full breadth of Peruvian cooking, including Chifa, the country's Cantonese-inflected tradition. Ceviches are sharp and citrus-forward, and the room has a genuine going-out energy. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Restaurant.

1. Esquire Pisco Martini · The Best Martinis in America
2. Esquire #31 · The Best New Restaurants in America
3. Boston Magazine #24 · Top 50 Restaurants in Boston

1. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. East

1. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. East

The freezer martinis section of the menu says a lot about Eastern Standard's priorities. This Fenway cocktail bar has been around forever and carries itself accordingly, all dark wood and low hum, the kind of room that makes a dirty martini feel like the only logical choice. The classics-heavy list also wanders into margarita territory, with a Tajin-dusted mezcal version alongside fruitier options, and the white negroni is never far from someone's hand.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. VinePair Brewer of the Year · The Next Wave Awards · Liz Nicol

The sunchoke doughnuts with XO gouda are reportedly un-removable from the menu, which tells you something about this Davis Square wine bar. The list leans toward small producers and natural winemakers, and the staff actually know it. Small plates from the kitchen are the kind of thing a food scientist might dream up on a generous budget. A James Beard Outstanding Bar semifinalist for 2026.

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar
2. Boston Magazine #16 · Top 50 Restaurants in Boston
3. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Boston

1. Eater The Best Bars Around Boston

Bubble Bath Back Bay is a penthouse cocktail bar atop the Citizen M hotel on Newbury Street, with skyline views most Boston bars can only dream of. It's built for ending a shopping day with visitors in tow, someone cradling a prickly pear mezcal drink while bags pile up at their feet. Order champagne, or let the caviar cart roll up and serve it with potato chips and cannoli. It's The Infatuation's pick for the best bars in Boston.

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Boston

Gray's Hall is a South Boston wine bar that has the energy of a friend's living room, if your friend kept a natural-leaning wine list and a small-plate menu that includes a burger. It comes from the team behind American Provisions, the neighborhood's sandwich-and-bottle stop, so the instinct is to feed you while you stay put. Staff stay unbothered even when the place fills up, and a loyal local crowd keeps it that way.

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Boston

1. Eater The Best Bars Around Boston

My Girl is a glamorous cocktail bar tucked beneath Yvonne's, with gold leaf, rosy marble, and passion fruit martinis that clearly expect you to dress for them. The Sox hat stays home. Reservations help at prime time, though the place hits its stride after 10, when Boston finally decides to stay up late and live music takes over Thursday through Saturday. The Infatuation put it on its list of the best bars in the city.

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Boston

1. Eater The Best Bars Around Boston

1. Eater The Best Bars Around Boston

Rebel Rebel is a tiny natural wine bar tucked into the shipping-container-sized stalls of Bow Market, and it works as a salon as much as a place to drink. Talks with food writers, chocolate pairings, and a Beaujolais Nouveau party where pot-au-feu comes out of a cauldron are all on the calendar. It's casual, the glasses are small-producer pours, and it has been a James Beard semifinalist for wine and beverage programs.

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program
2. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Boston
3. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program

This is a tiny sushi counter downstairs from a Japanese listening bar, where the walls come with a vinyl collection and the rules come with a certain hush. It's the kind of room where nobody talks over the record, and the tuna rolls are taken seriously by people in dark jackets who have strong feelings about turntables. It's small, so plan on cozy, not spread-out. The Infatuation has it on their Best Bars In Boston list.

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Boston

The Druid is an Irish pub in Inman Square, the kind where the bartender's accent comes standard and the Guinness gets poured with the patience of someone who has seen impatient people. Live music turns up often, and it sometimes becomes an impromptu session of fiddles and bodhrán drums in which several generations of strangers simply know the same songs. Expect pub prices, wool sweaters, and a table you will not want to leave.

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Boston

1. Eater The Best Bars Around Boston

Trina's is a pinup-flavored Somerville dive where the corners are dark, the beer runs from local IPAs to buckets of High Life Ponies, and the staff has been pouring so long they're basically load-bearing. Bartenders from other bars turn up for the Monday industry brunch, which is the closest thing to a seal of approval a bar can get. There's mac and cheese with a buttery Ritz crust and a mango margarita with a BBQ-spiced rim.

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Boston
2. Boston Magazine 2025 · Best Non-Seafood Tower · Best of Boston

1. Eater The Best Bars Around Boston

1. USA Today Restaurants of the Year
2. Eater The Best Bars Around Boston
3. Eater The 38 Essential Restaurants in Boston