The World's Top 100 Places to Drink

1. 50 Best #2 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
3. 50 Best #12 · North America's 50 Best Bars

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Winner · Outstanding Bar
2. 50 Best #44 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. 50 Best #6 · North America's 50 Best Bars

Julia Momosé's Japanese-inspired dining bar on West Lake holds a James Beard Award for Outstanding Bar and the Spirited Awards title for World's Best Bar, which tells you something before you've even sat down. Staff in sharp black uniforms somehow manage to feel genuinely warm rather than stiff, and the tasting menu now matches the cocktail program's precision, leaning into Japanese flavors and technique. Come for the drinks, stay through dinner, and plan to linger longer than you intended.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 3 Pins
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Winner · World's Best Bar
3. James Beard Awards 2025 · Winner · Outstanding Bar

1. 50 Best #12 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #9 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. James Beard Awards 2025 · Winner · Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service · Ignacio "Nacho" Jimenez

Walk-ins only, no reservations, queues that can stretch an hour on a busy night: that's Bar Leone's terms, and half of Central seems happy to accept them. The cocktail bar holds the top spot on both Asia's 50 Best Bars and the World's 50 Best Bars lists, the first Asian bar to claim the global title. The drinks lean toward simple and timeless rather than theatrical, which somehow makes the whole thing harder to pull off.

1. 50 Best #1 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #1 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. 50 Best Roku Industry Icon Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Bars · Simone Caporale

1. The Pinnacle Guide 3 Pins
2. 50 Best #8 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. 50 Best #1 · Europe's 50 Best Bars

A former textile warehouse in the semi-central city holds a Michelin-starred cocktail bar and restaurant that Europe's 50 Best Bars ranks seventh in the world. The ground floor runs as a bistrot and cocktail bar, while twelve seats upstairs, half of them at the kitchen counter, host an experimental tasting menu that travels from Romagna to Spain without quite settling anywhere. The chef stops by every table, which at twelve covers is less a gesture than a genuine conversation.

1. 50 Best #7 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #6 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

1. 50 Best #4 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
3. 50 Best #9 · Europe's 50 Best Bars

The dining room is styled after a yacht interior, which could read as a gimmick but lands as a mood. Providence is a three-Michelin-star seafood tasting menu restaurant on Melrose, where Michael Cimarusti builds multi-course meals around wild-caught American fish and whatever the farmers market offers that morning. The James Beard Award for Outstanding Hospitality is on the wall, and the front-of-house earns it. North America's 50 Best lists it at number 32.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Stars
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
3. James Beard Awards 2026 · Winner · Outstanding Hospitality

1. 50 Best #39 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #1 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Winner · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar

One cocktail bar split into two very different moods. Elementary faces the street with draft Old Fashioneds and Aquavit on tap, a One Sip Martini menu, and prices that won't require a sit-down afterward. Pass through the partition and Tayēr goes darker and quieter, with seasonal menus that change fast and ingredients that lean toward the unusual. The brutalist concrete and exposed steel read warmer than they should. Ranked fifth on the World's 50 Best Bars.

1. 50 Best #5 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. 50 Best #12 · Europe's 50 Best Bars

The martini trolley arrives tableside like a small piece of theater, the bartender waiting while you choose your gin, your bitters, shaken or stirred. This is a cocktail bar inside one of Mayfair's grand hotels, all platinum silver leaf walls and candlelit grey marble, and it holds a Forbes Five Star and a spot on the World's 50 Best Bars. Bar snacks run through the afternoon; canapes take over by evening. Dress accordingly.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. 50 Best #6 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. 50 Best #41 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. 50 Best #35 · North America's 50 Best Bars

1. 50 Best #9 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best Altos Bartenders’ Bartender Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. 50 Best #3 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars

The entrance is a fake barbershop front on Queen Street, complete with foreign currency in the window as the only signal you're in the right place. Head downstairs and you're in a dim, prohibition-themed cocktail bar with curiosities on the walls and a menu built around freezing techniques: cryo-concentration, freeze-drying, the works. It's on Europe's 50 Best Bars and The World's 50 Best Bars lists, which the pandas on the walls take in stride.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. 50 Best #34 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. 50 Best #20 · Europe's 50 Best Bars

Taxidermy on the walls, vintage booze ads by candlelight, and hip-hop on the sound system: Satan's Whiskers is a Bethnal Green cocktail bar that looks grungy from the outside and somewhat like hell from the inside, in the best possible sense. The menu changes daily, so regulars who've memorized the classics are always slightly off-balance. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Bars and has done the top-slot thing at Top 50 Cocktail Bars more than once.

1. 50 Best #21 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. 50 Best #11 · Europe's 50 Best Bars

1. 50 Best #59 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #4 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. VinePair Bar Program of the Year · The Next Wave Awards

1. 50 Best #20 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
3. 50 Best Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Bars

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. 50 Best #27 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. 50 Best Rémy Martin Legend of the List Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Bars

1. 50 Best #17 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #5 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best International Cocktail Bar

1. 50 Best #15 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #4 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · World’s Best Cocktail Menu

1. 50 Best #30 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #19 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

1. 50 Best #14 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #4 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Europe

1. 50 Best #13 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best Michter's Art of Hospitality Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · International Bartender of the Year · Alonso Palomino

Gerald Scarfe's caricatures cover the walls of this cocktail bar inside the Rosewood London, turning a room full of leather-bound books and low couches into something between a drawing room and a satirist's fever dream. The fire is real, the wood panelling is deep, and live jazz runs nightly. It holds a spot on The World's 50 Best Bars, and the crowd around the fireplace rarely whispers.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. 50 Best #31 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. 50 Best #47 · Europe's 50 Best Bars

The bar is an island in the middle of the room, bartenders working every side of it with no stools, no counter, no customers in the way. That setup tells you something: this Eixample cocktail bar takes the craft seriously enough to rearrange the furniture around it. Rotovap stills and custom glassware do the heavy lifting, and the whole project landed Sips at number three on the World's 50 Best Bars list.

1. 50 Best #3 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. 50 Best #3 · Europe's 50 Best Bars

1. 50 Best #23 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #5 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. MexBest Best of the Best: Nominados · Premios MexBest

1. 50 Best #10 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Latin America & Caribbean
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – Latin America & Caribbean

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. 50 Best #64 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. 50 Best #14 · North America's 50 Best Bars

1. 50 Best #16 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #2 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best International Cocktail Bar

1. 50 Best #43 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #22 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Winner · Best U.S. Bar Team
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Winner · U.S. Bartender of the Year · Kapri Robinson

The cocktail menu here is built around local collaborators, a banana jam from LoCoFarms turning up in one drink, a pickled kale riff on the G&T in another. Argo is the cocktail bar inside the Four Seasons in Central, so the room is polished and the prices are committed. It lands on Asia's 50 Best Bars and The World's 50 Best Bars lists, which means the out-of-towners are easy to spot, though the bartenders treat everyone the same.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. 50 Best #56 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. 50 Best #11 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars

1. 50 Best Campari One To Watch Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #54 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. 50 Best #2 · North America's 50 Best Bars

Bentwood chairs, a marble bar, and jazz on Sundays give this College Street cocktail bar the plausible deniability of a Parisian café. The drinks are where things get interesting: curry leaf and rum, cognac stirred with masala chai, combinations that sound like a dare and drink like they were inevitable. North America's 50 Best Bars places it at number eight, and the hospitality matches the ambition. The garden patio fills up fast.

1. 50 Best #55 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #8 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

1. 50 Best #19 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · International Bartender of the Year · Rob Libecans
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best International Bar Team

1. 50 Best #75 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #23 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Esquire The Best Bars in America

1. 50 Best #25 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #8 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. 50 Best Michter's Art of Hospitality Award 2026 · Europe's 50 Best Bars

1. 50 Best #46 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #33 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Winner · Outstanding Bar
2. James Beard Awards 2025 · Nominee · Outstanding Bar
3. 50 Best #63 · North America's 50 Best Bars

1. Spirited Awards 2025 · Winner · U.S. Bartender of the Year · Christine Kim
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. 50 Best #39 · North America's 50 Best Bars

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. 50 Best #47 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. 50 Best #2 · Europe's 50 Best Bars

The house martini arrives before you've settled in, which tells you everything about the bar at this Shoreditch Town Hall restaurant. It's a place to drink while the open kitchen fires on all cylinders around you, the kind of pre-dinner perch that makes waiting feel like the point. The room carries the weight of the old civic building without taking itself too seriously, and the team moves like they've done this a few thousand times.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars
2. 50 Best #86 · The World’s 50 Best Restaurants
3. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Spirited Awards 2025 · Winner · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar
2. Punch Industry Icon
3. Food & Wine The 10 Top Bars in the US

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Winner · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar
2. 50 Best #67 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Esquire The Best Bars in America

The chef's counter overlooking the kitchen is the seat to book at this sleek, third-floor tasting menu restaurant from Patrick Kriss. Six or ten courses move between European and Asian sensibilities without announcing the pivot each time. The bar takes walk-ins and treats them accordingly. A Michelin star sits on the shelf. Somehow the room, all burgundy and diffused light, never tips into solemnity.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. Canada's 100 Best #7 · Best Restaurants

1. 50 Best #11 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. 50 Best #18 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #9 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. 50 Best #53 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #6 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – APAC

1. 50 Best #62 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #13 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

1. 50 Best #49 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #19 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · World’s Best Cocktail Menu

1. 50 Best #15 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Esquire Martini of the Year: Clemente Martini · The Best Martinis in America
3. VinePair Bartender of the Year · The Next Wave Awards · Sebastian Tollius

Bitter melon, green curry, and tequila sharing a glass is either a terrible idea or a stroke of genius, and Coa has built a following on exactly that tension. This agave cocktail bar in Central pulls from local Hong Kong ingredients to make mezcal and tequila feel native to the city, with long queues to prove it. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Bars list, and the room stays packed enough that the team has clearly figured out how to scale without cutting corners.

1. 50 Best #38 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #17 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best International Cocktail Bar

A converted firehouse on Freret Street, bare concrete underfoot and a long bar anchoring the room, Cure is a cocktail bar that made Uptown worth the cab ride from the Quarter. The bottle-green banquettes fill with locals who already know what they're ordering. Food & Wine ranked it the top bar in the country, and North America's 50 Best Bars puts it at number 21. The drinks are the argument; the room just makes it easier to stay.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. 50 Best #21 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Food & Wine #1 · The 10 Top Bars in the US

1. VinePair Food & Beverage Program of the Year · The Next Wave Awards
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. 50 Best #27 · North America's 50 Best Bars

1. Time Out The Turkey Leg Sandwich · The 18 best sandwiches in the world right now
2. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The man who ran the American Bar at the Savoy for nearly eight years now runs this sleek Mayfair cocktail bar a short walk from Green Park. Erik Lorincz built Kwãnt around drinks that don't resemble anything else in London, layering fermented teas, misos, and awamori into compositions that feel genuinely considered rather than merely unusual. It ranks on the World's 50 Best Bars list. The room is calm and grown-up, which lets the cocktails do the talking.

1. 50 Best #79 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

An old-school institution in DIFC where regulars rattle off their order without glancing at the menu, which tells you most of what you need to know. LPM is a French-Mediterranean restaurant and bar with white walls, bright art, and a Mediterranean breeziness that somehow survives the Dubai setting. The bar sits at No. 60 on The World's 50 Best Bars list, and the cocktail program draws on Jean Cocteau's life, which is a more interesting premise than it sounds.

1. 50 Best #60 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. 50 Best #27 · MENA's 50 Best Restaurants

Jacketed bartenders with accents spanning small Slovakian towns to big Italian cities set the tone at this cocktail bar in The Rocks. The hospitality runs flamboyant, the kind where staff practically compete for your affection and the host seats everyone like a penthouse guest. Named one of the World's 50 Best Bars, Maybe Sammy drinks from a European hotel-bar playbook that Sydney had no idea it was missing.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. 50 Best #42 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

The bar program here landed at No. 36 on the World's 50 Best Bars list, which is a lot for a restaurant inside a Four Seasons to live up to, and yet the kitchen keeps pace. Mimi Kakushi is a contemporary Japanese dining room and cocktail bar where sushi, wagyu, and donabe rice pots share the evening with drinks that have made the global circuit. The crowd arrives dressed for it, and the room obliges.

1. 50 Best #36 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #35 · MENA's 50 Best Restaurants
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Restaurant Bar – Middle East & Africa

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. 50 Best #93 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. VinePair Food & Beverage Program of the Year · The Next Wave Awards

The big red barn door on Lady Lawson Street opens into a former warehouse where exposed stone, timber beams, and a working wood stove set the tone for a Michelin-starred tasting-menu restaurant that takes Scandinavian-influenced, hyper-seasonal Scottish cooking seriously. Fermentation, foraging, and a genuine zero-waste ethos run through everything, including a cocktail list, named Cocktail List of the Year at the 2026 National Restaurant Awards, that makes things from its own meads and ferments.

1. National Restaurant Awards 2026 · Cocktail List of the Year · The National Restaurant Awards
2. National Restaurant Awards 2026 · Best Restaurant in Scotland · The National Restaurant Awards
3. Michelin Guide 1 Star

Counter seating runs the length of the kitchen at this Michelin-starred tasting menu restaurant on the 30th floor, which divides opinions even as the food rarely does. Vicky Cheng's French-Chinese philosophy shows up in dishes like dried abalone tucked into a pithivier, the kind of pairing that sounds like a dare and eats like a resolution. A six-course option now sits alongside the longer menu, and wine pairings are worth the add.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. 50 Best #70 · Asia's 50 Best Restaurants

1. 50 Best #45 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #18 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best International Hotel Bar

There's no sign on Eldridge Street, just a faux tailor's shop window with a glowing "A" and a buzzer you'll wait at long enough to second-guess yourself. This is the cocktail bar that opened in the old Milk & Honey space after Sasha Petraske moved on, and it runs on the same no-menu, tell-us-what-you-like philosophy. North America's 50 Best Bars lists it, and the wait outside on any given night suggests people have read that list.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. 50 Best #72 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. 50 Best #37 · North America's 50 Best Bars

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Bars
2. 50 Best #70 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Esquire The Best Bars in America

1. 50 Best #3 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Top 4 Finalist · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar
3. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Best New Bar

1. 50 Best #16 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2025 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Bar Team
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar

A neon-pink exclamation mark glows above the door of this Michelin-starred contemporary Italian restaurant, wedged between a laundromat and a medical center in Buena Vista. The room is small and forest-green, and the staff seem to be enjoying themselves as much as anyone eating there. The menu calls itself Italian, then wanders somewhere more interesting, with house-made pastas and combinations that raise an eyebrow before they make total sense.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants
3. Eater 38 Essential Restaurants in Miami

Live music fills the room most nights at this Cuban cocktail bar and restaurant on Calle Ocho, where the décor slides between Havana and mid-century Miami without quite landing in either. Michelle Bernstein and cocktail veteran Julio Cabrera run the place together, which means the food and the drinks get equal attention. It holds a spot on The World's 50 Best Bars list, and the James Beard Foundation named it an Outstanding Bar Semifinalist.

1. 50 Best #82 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #42 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar

Soy sauce in a martini garnish is the kind of move that either makes you put down your phone or pick it up to photograph the menu. Hope & Sesame is a Cantonese cocktail bar that runs sous-vide infusions and centrifuges alongside familiar pantry flavors from the region, landing on Asia's 50 Best Bars at number seven and the World's 50 Best Bars at twenty-nine. The room has expanded recently, which tells you something about how the city feels about it.

1. 50 Best #29 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #7 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. South China Morning Post 2026 · 100 Top Tables

Tableside martinis have been a feature of this jewel-toned, Art Deco cocktail bar inside the Fairmont Royal York for longer than most regulars have been alive. The cocktail menu takes its plot points from Michael Ondaatje's Toronto novel "In the Skin of a Lion," so drinks arrive with actual literary backstory, which is either charming or a lot, depending on your mood. North America's 50 Best Bars ranked it nineteenth on the 2026 list.

1. 50 Best #19 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. 50 Best Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award 2026 · North America's 50 Best Bars

A metal beaded curtain on the fourth floor of a downtown Marriott is not where you expect to find one of the country's better cocktail bars, and yet here we are. The menu arrives illustrated like a small field guide, one drawing per drink. The cocktails run from riffed classics to things you won't find elsewhere, with bar snacks serious enough to anchor a full evening. It won the Spirited Award for Best U.S. Hotel Bar in 2025, and a James Beard semifinalist nod followed.

1. Spirited Awards 2025 · Winner · Best U.S. Hotel Bar
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Hotel Bar

The courtyard of a Renaissance palazzo serves as the lounge bar, where a long counter anchors an ambitious cocktail program alongside tapas-style bites. Venture deeper and there are proper dining rooms, the chef's cooking shaped by stints in Australia, Japan, and France. The medieval cellars below host an intimate reservation-only experience pairing avant-garde food with mixology for four guests. Ranked in The World's 50 Best Bars, this is Florence doing something genuinely hard to categorize.

1. 50 Best #22 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #21 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Bars
2. 50 Best #76 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Esquire The Best Bars in America

1. 50 Best #28 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #16 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

You ring a brass lion's-head doorbell to get in, which sets the tone. ÓX is a 17-seat tasting counter in Reykjavík where a four-hour dinner unfolds inside what feels like two grandmothers' homes colliding: a retro cocktail bar and a kitchen hung with upcycled cupboards. The cooking leans into intensity over prettiness, Icelandic ingredients pushed hard for flavour rather than dressed up for Instagram. It holds a Michelin star.

1. White Guide Global Masters Level · White Guide
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Winner · Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service · Kevin Diedrich
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Nominee · Outstanding Bar
3. 50 Best #41 · North America's 50 Best Bars

1. VinePair Bar Program of the Year · The Next Wave Awards
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. 50 Best #77 · North America's 50 Best Bars

Dark green walls, framed art, and a room that somehow feels like midnight at noon, ViceVersa is a Neapolitan pizza and cocktail bar tucked just off the lobby of the Elser Hotel. The thin-crust pies are the anchor, but the bar program is the real argument for staying. The affogato martini landed on Esquire's radar, and the place sits on North America's 50 Best Bars list. A James Beard nominee for Best New Bar in 2025, too.

1. 50 Best #46 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Esquire Affogato Martini · The Best Martinis in America
3. Punch Best New Bars

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Winner · Outstanding Bar
2. 50 Best #81 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Honolulu

1. 50 Best #30 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Esquire The Best Bars in America
3. The Banchets Winner · Bar of the Year

1. 50 Best #26 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. 50 Best #40 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #32 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. 50 Best #71 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best Altos Bartenders' Bartender Award 2026 · North America's 50 Best Bars · Freddy Andreasson
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best International Cocktail Bar

1. 50 Best #61 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Latin America & Caribbean
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – Latin America & Caribbean

1. 50 Best #63 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #28 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Europe

1. 50 Best #35 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #43 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. White Guide Exceptional Level · White Guide

The bar counter runs along stainless-steel fish scales, with a fluorescent seascape glowing behind it, which tells you everything about the commitment level here. Salmon Guru is a serious cocktail bar on one of Madrid's liveliest streets, ranked among the World's 50 Best Bars, with a menu that runs from impeccable classics to stranger, chipotle-forward originals. Grab a counter seat if you can; the booths are fine, but the bar is the point.

1. 50 Best #37 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #46 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. 50 Best #32 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #15 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. 50 Best #24 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

The cocktail menu here is built around restraint, which sounds modest until you taste what that actually means. Three Sheets Soho is a neighbourhood cocktail bar from the Venning brothers, landing on both the World's 50 Best Bars and Europe's 50 Best Bars lists. Seasonal rotations sit alongside signatures, oysters come free with a Martini order, and the whole room feels like it's trying less hard than it should be able to at this level.

1. 50 Best #80 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #41 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. Top 50 Cocktail Bars 2026 · #11 · Top 50 Cocktail Bars

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. 50 Best #92 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. 50 Best Sustainable Bar Award

The elm counter runs eight metres and seats a dozen, which matters because where you sit shapes what you drink at this Japanese cocktail bar in Shoreditch. Counter seats unlock the full menu, split between seasonal pours and "Evergreen" cocktails built on fermentation, carbonation, and centrifugal clarification. The seasonal side nods to Japan's 72 micro-seasons. Ranked fifth on Top 50 Cocktail Bars, it pulls a crowd that knows the difference.

1. 50 Best #23 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
2. Top 50 Cocktail Bars 2026 · #5 · Top 50 Cocktail Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best New International Cocktail Bar

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Bars
2. Wildsam The 50 Most Essential Bars in America
3. Midwest Living 2024 · Best of the Midwest

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Bars
2. Esquire Sadōtini · The Best Martinis in America
3. Philadelphia Magazine 2025 · Best New Cocktail Bar · Best of Philly

The shelves behind the bar hold more jars of powdered acids than bottles of spirits, which tells you a lot about what kind of cocktail bar this is. Tucked beneath a wine bar in Centro, Angelita runs on the bartender's own four distillates and a small roster of bottled cocktails, with rotary evaporators doing work alongside the shakers. It landed on Europe's 50 Best Bars list, and the crowd dresses accordingly.

1. 50 Best #51 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. 50 Best #45 · Europe's 50 Best Bars

The bar inside this 18th-century townhouse in the 8th comes with a lawn, stone animals grazing silently outside the windows, and the ambient feeling that you've somehow left Paris entirely. That's before you've ordered anything. It's the kind of cocktail bar that arrives pre-loaded with atmosphere, tucked inside a Michelin-starred restaurant, so the drinks program has something to prove and generally acts like it knows that.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. 50 Best #78 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #48 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. The Infatuation The Best Bars in Mexico City

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. 50 Best #47 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Houstonia The Official 50 Hottest Bars in Houston

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. 50 Best #24 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – Latin America & Caribbean

The bar at Botanist sits just inside the Fairmont Pacific Rim, intimate and posh enough that dressing up feels like the point. This is fine dining with a serious cocktail program, and the drinks lean into a nature-obsessed identity, including a glass-fronted lab where the team produces things like a martini built with kombu and sea asparagus. North America's 50 Best Bars placed it at number 38. The kitchen behind it runs hyper-local West Coast tasting menus alongside à la carte.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. AAA Four Diamonds
3. 50 Best #38 · North America's 50 Best Bars

1. VinePair Brewery of the Year · The Next Wave Awards
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Outstanding Bar
3. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar

A scale model of Concorde suspended from the ceiling sets the tone at this rooftop fine dining room inside The Peninsula, named after the Surrey racetrack and decorated accordingly. Claude Bosi's team turns out precise, unhurried cooking built around British ingredients, Lake District lamb and Cornish squid given the kind of attention that earned the restaurant two Michelin stars. Floor-to-ceiling windows open onto a terrace with views to match the ambition.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Esquire Martini of the Year: Chandelier Martini · The Best Martinis in America
2. Esquire The Best Bars in America
3. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar

1. 50 Best #44 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Punch Best New Bars
3. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Best New Bar

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. 50 Best #34 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. 50 Best Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award 2026 · Europe's 50 Best Bars

1. 50 Best #88 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #5 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – APAC

The bar sits above Shanghai Tang in Central, sharing a floor with a Michelin-starred Cantonese kitchen and rotating gallery walls that have hosted Ai Weiwei. Vintage furniture meets marble in proportions that feel less like a design decision and more like a confident argument. The terrace is modest in scale but heavy on pot plants and personality, and the cocktails are looked after by someone who clearly takes the whole thing seriously.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide
3. South China Morning Post 2026 · 100 Top Tables

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. Food & Wine The 10 Top Bars in the US
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar

1. 50 Best #69 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best International Hotel Bar
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Hotel Bar – Middle East & Africa

1. Spirited Awards 2025 · Top 4 Finalist · U.S. Bartender of the Year · Libby Lingua
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar
3. Imbibe Where to Drink in Phoenix

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. 50 Best #25 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – Latin America & Caribbean

The cocktails here come with QR codes explaining the science behind them, which sounds gimmicky until you're reading about rooftop honey and sea-salt chocolate fish scales at midnight. Lab 22 is a Cardiff cocktail bar that takes a genuinely theatrical approach to the glass, with bartenders who have been known to breathe fire in service of a drink. Ranked in the Top 50 Cocktail Bars, with Bar Team of the Year 2026 to its name.

1. Top 50 Cocktail Bars 2026 · Bar Team of the Year · Top 50 Cocktail Bars
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. Top 50 Cocktail Bars 2026 · #24 · Top 50 Cocktail Bars

1. 50 Best #52 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #20 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. MexBest Mejor bartender: Ganador · Premios MexBest · José Luis León

Burlap sacks on the walls, porcelain behind the bar, and a cocktail menu organized like a history syllabus: Trading Post, Crown Colony, Banana Republic, and on through to the present. Nutmeg & Clove is a cocktail bar that uses Singapore's past as its entire creative brief, so ordering feels less like choosing a drink and more like picking an era. It holds a spot on both Asia's and the World's 50 Best Bars lists.

1. 50 Best #50 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. 50 Best #24 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The name nods to gin, but Origin is a rum bar at heart, with 75 expressions on the menu and a cocktail list organized around five Singapore districts. It sits in the lobby of the Shangri-La, which gives it a certain hotel-bar grandeur, though the drinks stay firmly grounded in place. Asia's 50 Best Bars has it at number 60. Dress like you know where you are.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
3. 50 Best #60 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. 50 Best #34 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Eater Best Night Out · The 2025 Eater DC Award Winners

The basement of Hotel Georgia has cycled through a jazz bar, a techno club, and a medieval pub before landing here, which feels like an upgrade for everyone involved. Prophecy is a cocktail bar with serious intentions: drinks that look effortless and take months to develop, a mood-coded menu, and digital art shifting on the walls. It landed on North America's 50 Best Bars list. Come dressed; this one earns the low lighting.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. 50 Best #32 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Golden Owl Awards Winner · Best Cocktail Experience

1. 50 Best #89 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Esquire Amis Martini · The Best Martinis in America
3. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar

1. 50 Best #33 · The World's 50 Best Bars

The coral reef ceiling by Damien Hirst sets the tone before you've ordered anything: this is Mayfair doing Asian-inspired food and cocktails with a straight face and a very large budget. The room is all bronzed mermaids and mirrored walls, and the crowd dresses accordingly. The bar program is serious despite the spectacle, and the kitchen sends out sushi and robata to tables full of people who booked weeks out.

1. Top 50 Cocktail Bars 2026 · Rising Star · Top 50 Cocktail Bars · Jelena Bulatovskaja
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. 50 Best #55 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Esquire Silver Service Martini · The Best Martinis in America

A red mirrored hallway leads you down into this speakeasy-style cocktail lounge beneath a north Scottsdale restaurant, which is exactly the kind of entrance that makes people feel they've earned their drink. Inside, gold ceilings, red velvet drapes, and live music set a mood that commits fully to the bit. The cocktails lean sweet-and-savory strange, and small bites keep the evening going. Phoenix New Times named it Best Bar in 2025.

1. Industry Excellence Awards Bar of the Year
2. Sunset Better Bars · Where to Eat and Drink
3. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner · Iconic Speakeasy Experience