The 100 Best Places to Drink in the World

The entrance is a secret door, which is either thrilling or exhausting depending on your mood. Once inside, Handshake is a dimly lit speakeasy in Juárez where the cocktail program leans heavily on vintage spirits and the whole room feels like someone's very expensive idea of the 1920s. It holds the number two spot on the World's 50 Best Bars list, which the regulars probably know and definitely don't mention.

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

A brandy crusta in a 19th-century Creole cottage on the edge of the French Quarter sets the tone for this cocktail bar, which took home the James Beard Award for Outstanding Bar in 2024. The room is unhurried and genuinely romantic, the kind of place that makes ordering a second drink feel like the responsible choice. The drinks lean into New Orleans' deep cocktail history without feeling like a museum.

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

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. AAA Five Diamonds
3. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

1. The 50 #12 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #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. The 50 #1 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #1 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. The 50 Roku Industry Icon Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Bars · Simone Caporale

Jon Yao's tasting menu restaurant lives in the Row DTLA, where polished concrete and an open kitchen set a spare stage for cooking rooted in Taiwanese heritage and San Gabriel Valley muscle memory. The ten courses are not shy about seasoning, and the drinks program, a James Beard winner in its own right, pulls equal weight. Kato holds a Michelin star and a spot on North America's 50 Best, and Yao won the James Beard for Best Chef: California.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Winner · Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program
3. The 50 #49 · North America's 50 Best Restaurants

Santiago Lastra's Michelin-starred Marylebone restaurant runs on a single conviction: Mexican soul, British ingredients. Nearly everything on the tasting menu is sourced from the UK, with sea buckthorn standing in for lime where lime won't grow. The wine list leans into Slovakia, Georgia, and Croatia rather than the usual suspects, and the final courses move downstairs to a mezcaleria that smells exactly like you'd hope.

1. The 50 #49 · The World’s 50 Best Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. National Restaurant Awards 2026 · #52 · The National Restaurant Awards

1. The Pinnacle Guide 3 Pins
2. The 50 #8 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. The 50 #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. The 50 #7 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #6 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

You get in through the freezer door at the back of a pastrami shop, which tells you most of what you need to know about Paradiso's priorities. The narrow wood-panelled cocktail bar beyond it has a DJ, elaborate glassware that borders on theatrical, and a second secret room behind the bathroom mirror, because one hidden bar was apparently not enough. It sits at number four on the World's 50 Best Bars list.

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

1. The 50 #39 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #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. The 50 #5 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. The 50 #12 · Europe's 50 Best Bars

The menu at this cocktail bar is organized like a tasting dinner, moving through starters, mains, and afters, with combinations like beef and onion or almond and ylang-ylang landing in your glass instead of on a plate. Seating is arranged so guests face each other across a lit surface, giving the room the feel of an omakase counter or possibly a very stylish interrogation. Ranked in the World's 50 Best Bars, it helped push Bangkok's bar scene toward the savory and strange.

1. The 50 #15 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #4 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. The Infatuation The 20 Best Bars In Bangkok

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. The 50 #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. The 50 #41 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. The 50 #35 · North America's 50 Best Bars

The cocktail menu here is formatted as a magazine, which tells you something about how seriously this bar takes its own mythology. Tucked inside the Amara Hotel in Tanjong Pagar, Jigger & Pony manages to feel nothing like a hotel bar, which is a quiet miracle. The focus falls on reimagined classics, done with enough precision that the place holds spots on both Asia's 50 Best Bars and The World's 50 Best Bars.

1. The 50 #9 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 Altos Bartenders’ Bartender Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. The 50 #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. The 50 #34 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. The 50 #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. The 50 #21 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
3. The 50 #11 · Europe's 50 Best Bars

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. The 50 #31 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. The 50 #47 · Europe's 50 Best Bars

Crimson walls, floor cushions, and sculptures that look borrowed from a warehouse no one was using anyway: Schmuck is a cocktail bar on 1st Avenue that landed at number four on North America's 50 Best Bars in its first year open. The Barcelona sibling to Two Schmucks, it splits into a lounge side and a communal kitchen table side, so you can either settle in or make friends faster than planned.

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

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

It's an English pub in the Marais that decided the pint wasn't enough, so the cocktails arrive in small etched glasses while meat pies and wood paneling keep everything honest. A stuffed animal head presides over the tables. The after-work crowd and casual gossip groups ordering half-sized drinks keep things cheerful, and it sits at #7 on Europe's 50 Best Bars, which no one seems to be discussing loudly.

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

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

Bar Nouveau is a two-level Art Nouveau cocktail bar in the Marais, tucked away from the shopping and the crowds. It's an unusually good place to be overstimulated by museums and have nobody ask you to decide anything, since the menu is short and the classics are the point. Upstairs is intimate, downstairs is a moody den, and it sits at #17 on the World's 50 Best Bars list. Go early or late if you'd like a table.

1. The 50 #17 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #5 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. The Infatuation The 22 Best Bars In Paris

Danico is a cocktail bar tucked inside the Italian restaurant Daroco, reached through the covered Galerie Vivienne, a former Jean Paul Gaultier shop whose staff still wear the striped shirts. The menu rotates every few months and picks one country, so you might get Japan's sake and whisky. It's on the World's 50 Best Bars list, with couples, pre-opera drinkers, and out-of-towners at the bar.

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

The name translates as moonshine, which tells you where this cocktail bar's priorities lie. Himkok distills its own aquavit, gin, and vodka on the premises, grows its herbs in a purpose-built greenhouse out back, and delivers much of it via tap. The whole operation is tucked into an old Oslo brick building that sprawls into a warren of bars and cozy corners. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Bars list.

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

1. The 50 #13 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 Michter's Art of Hospitality Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best International Restaurant Bar

The name means "place of fire" in Nahuatl, and the Roma Norte agave bar commits to that fully: monochrome earthy materials, sparse dramatic lighting, burning incense, and a design meant to feel like walking into an ancient tomb. It's moody in the way that actually works, where the atmosphere doesn't fight the drinking. North America's 50 Best Bars ranked it fifth, and The World's 50 Best Bars placed it at 23.

1. The 50 #23 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #5 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. MexBest Mejor Bartender: Ganador · Premios MexBest · Eli Martínez Bello

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

The custom-designed everything, down to the furniture, signals that True Laurel takes itself seriously, which would be more insufferable if the drinks weren't so good. This cocktail bar and restaurant from the Lazy Bear team lands at number 14 on North America's 50 Best Bars list. Small plates rotate with the seasons, and the bar program is tight, inventive, and the clear reason most people show up.

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

The back bar glows a warm amber orange, and most of what's in your glass started life as something that might otherwise have ended up in a bin. Zest is a seasonal cocktail bar in Cheongdam built around a zero-waste philosophy: house-made tonic, upcycled local produce, and a menu of signatures leaning on Korean spirits you won't find everywhere. It holds a spot on The World's 50 Best Bars.

1. The 50 #16 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #2 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Seoul, South Korea

1. The 50 #43 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #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 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. AAA Three Diamonds

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. The 50 #56 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. The 50 #11 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars

The shelves behind the bar are stacked floor to ceiling with jars of homegrown spices and homemade infusions, which sets the tone. This intimate eight-seat cocktail bar on the ninth floor of a Shinjuku building runs on ingredients Hiroyasu Kayama grows on his family's farm, yuzu, wormwood, fennel, all finding their way into farm-to-glass drinks built on amaro, whisky, gin, or house-made absinthe. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Bars list.

1. The 50 #18 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #9 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Tokyo

Black-and-white photos of a man named Mauro watch over the room while his grandsons run the bar below him, which tells you most of what you need to know about Bar Mauro. This Italian cocktail bar in Roma Norte pours vermouth and amari the way Milan used to, somewhere between a classic aperitivo hour and a very considered modern lounge. Ranked second on North America's 50 Best Bars, it also holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Bars list.

1. The 50 Campari One To Watch Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #54 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. The 50 #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. The 50 #55 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #8 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin

1. The 50 #19 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best International Bar Team
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best International Cocktail Bar

The building was once a carriage house, then a sculptor's studio, and now a three-level Japanese cocktail bar in Gramercy where the drinks are as considered as the history. The team behind it spent years at Angel's Share before going solo here, and it shows in every measured pour. Nikka whisky and yuzu turn up alongside immaculate riffs on classics. Named among North America's 50 Best Bars, and the room earns the quiet confidence.

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

Dark wood and deep emerald velvet set the scene at this cocktail bar inside Bratislava's Radisson Blu Carlton, where the menu splits between riffs on classics and a showier gallery section served in bespoke glassware. It ranks among Europe's 50 Best Bars and holds the World's 50 Best Bars Michter's Art of Hospitality Award, which tracks: the bartenders here treat a drink order like correspondence they've been waiting for.

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

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

Scotch Lodge is a dark, wood-paneled whisky bar with towering walls of bottles, marble counters, and the kind of lighting that forgives everything. It won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Bar. Drinks come smoky and layered, the kitchen turns out silky pasta and fried brie sticks, and someone in the corner is usually having a quiet moment with a rare pour. Dress like you've read a book, then decline to mention it.

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

The fried chicken sandwich at a cocktail bar is either a cry for help or a statement of intent, and at Service Bar it's the latter. This relaxed U Street neighborhood bar keeps the classics balanced and the housemade drinks genuinely inventive, pulling from ingredients most menus wouldn't dare touch. The Spirited Awards named it U.S. Bartender of the Year in 2025, and North America's 50 Best Bars has it at number 39.

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

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. The 50 #47 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. The 50 #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. The 50 #86 · The World’s 50 Best Restaurants
3. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The cocktail menu at this Mission bar changes twice a year, each edition built around a new theme, the kind of concept that sounds like a gimmick until you're on your second drink and deeply invested in 1960s counterculture. Trick Dog won the Spirited Award for Best U.S. Cocktail Bar in 2025, and the room fills with people who know exactly which round they're on. Loaded fries upstairs hold everything together.

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

A cocktail bar that calls itself a nerdy cocktail bar, a natural wine bar, and your favorite dive bar, and then has the audacity to be all three. The Old Bay Martini landed it on Esquire's radar and the Spirited Awards named it the top U.S. cocktail bar, but the room itself is the tell: hot dogs share menu space with wine you've never heard of, and nobody in here seems to think that's unusual.

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

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

A cocktail bar inside a converted hanok, the traditional Korean timber house, that has landed on both Asia's 50 Best Bars and the World's 50 Best Bars lists. The concept is soju, treated seriously, with the bar team building signature cocktails from both classic and fruit-forward versions of Korea's national spirit. The low wooden rooms do most of the atmospheric heavy lifting, and the drinks handle the rest.

1. The 50 #53 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #6 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. The Infatuation Where To Eat & Drink When You're Visiting Seoul

Athens' first tequilaria, Barro Negro built its identity around agave spirits long before the city caught on. The shelves lean heavily toward tequila and mezcal, sipped neat or shaken into Margaritas, and the bar holds the world's first Paloma Embassy designation, which is as good a reason as any to start there. Ranked on both Europe's and the World's 50 Best Bars lists, it pairs a serious drinks program with tacos, making the argument that this was always a food group.

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

A cocktail bar inside the Four Seasons Bangkok that has quietly pivoted to Mexico, so the drinks now run on agave, spice, and cultural mythology. Expect a Frida Kahlo-inspired sour and the kind of Santana highball that sounds like a joke until you taste it. Non-drinkers get tepache and horchata instead of the usual sad sparkling water. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Bars and Asia's 50 Best Bars.

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

Perched above Eleven Madison Park and co-conceived by Daniel Humm and painter Francesco Clemente, this cocktail lounge wears its inspirations visibly, with Clemente's murals covering the walls in the spirit of Zurich's Kronenhalle Bar. Every cocktail on the menu is vegan and built with serious technical ambition, fermented ingredients and infused oils included. It landed at number fifteen on North America's 50 Best Bars in 2026.

1. The 50 #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. The 50 #38 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #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. The 50 #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. The 50 #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. The 50 #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. The 50 #60 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. The 50 #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. The 50 #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. The 50 #36 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #35 · MENA's 50 Best Restaurants
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Restaurant Bar – Middle East & Africa

A cocktail bar in Los Feliz that treats the agave category as a field guide rather than a menu category. While most bars stop at tequila and mezcal, Mírate goes deep into hyper-regional Mexican distillates, fermented pulque, tejuino, and tepache, much of it personally scouted by the beverage director. It landed at number 28 on North America's 50 Best Bars. The classics framework keeps things approachable; the spirits list is where things get interesting.

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

1. The 50 #45 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #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. The 50 #72 · The World's 50 Best Bars
3. The 50 #37 · North America's 50 Best Bars

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

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

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. The Infatuation #7 · The 25 Best 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. The 50 #82 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #42 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar

1. The 50 #71 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #10 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. MexBest Best of the Best: Nominados · Premios MexBest

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. The 50 #29 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #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. The 50 #19 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. The 50 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. The 50 #22 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #21 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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

1. The 50 #28 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #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

Pacific-leaning flavors, from calamansi and shiso to li-hing mui, anchor the cocktail menu at this Union Square-adjacent bar that rebuilt itself after a fire and came back more focused. The drinks draw on Asian and island influences without feeling like a theme park about it. A 2026 James Beard Award winner for Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service, and ranked on North America's 50 Best Bars list, PCH draws a crowd that takes its glass seriously but doesn't dress like it.

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Winner · Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service · Kevin Diedrich
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Nominee · Outstanding Bar
3. The 50 #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. The 50 #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. The 50 #46 · North America's 50 Best Bars
2. Esquire Affogato Martini · The Best Martinis in America
3. Punch Best New Bars

The fine dining room inside Zurich's Widder hotel holds two Michelin stars, and the kitchen earns them by moving between classical French technique and genuinely global instincts without the whole thing feeling like a mood board. Chef Stefan Heilemann runs a set menu in four to six courses, with a vegetarian path alongside. The staff are unusually relaxed for a room this serious, which helps.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Polished wood, tattooed bartenders, and leather aprons as far as the eye can see. Bar Leather Apron is a serious cocktail bar tucked into Fort Street Mall, and it won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Bar in 2023, which is the kind of thing that makes sense once you sit down. The menu leans on local, seasonal ingredients, so the drinks read like a farmers market with a liquor license. Go slow; this isn't a round-of-shots situation.

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

Velvet booths, globe lights, and wallpaper that belongs in a Left Bank salon set the mood at this Fulton Market cocktail bar, one of the few standalone drinking spots on a street that is otherwise all restaurants. The Paris-in-the-sixties premise runs through everything: French wines, classic martinis, caviar with chips. Named to North America's 50 Best Bars and a James Beard semifinalist, Bisous earns its kisses.

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

Named for the part of Vietnam that was once a French colony, CoChinChina is a cocktail bar in Palermo where the drinks come from Inés de los Santos, a name serious bar people say without needing to explain. The interior runs deep, with distinct rooms to discover and a hidden private room somewhere in the back. Food leans Franco-Vietnamese, bánh mì and all. Ranked 26th on the World's 50 Best Bars list, it draws the kind of crowd that knows exactly where it is going.

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

Comptoir De Vie is a cocktail bar in Montorgueil built around a twelve-seat blue-green enamel counter, where even the washable wool coasters are French and artisanal. The drinks come paired with small plates, so dinner and a nightcap quietly merge into one long, pleasantly expensive sitting. It landed at #34 on Europe's 50 Best Bars, and the people perched at the counter tend to be asking about the grass spirit.

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

Infusing jars line the walls and the menu is organized by production technique, which tells you everything about the kind of cocktail bar Dr. Stravinsky is. Fermentation and distillation are the house obsessions, so expect kombucha, kefir, and a vodka distilled with soil turning up in your glass. It has a spot on the World's 50 Best Bars list, and the lab-equipment decor makes that feel less surprising than it should.

1. The 50 #83 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Barcelona

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

The name comes from the physics of waves, sound and ocean both, which tells you something about how seriously this cocktail bar takes its own ideas. The bartender behind it ran both Vesper and Backstage before opening here on Thong Lo's second floor, and the drinks carry that pedigree, landing on Asia's 50 Best Bars at number five. Playful without being gimmicky, and worth lingering over.

1. The 50 #88 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #5 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
3. The Infatuation The 20 Best Bars In Bangkok

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. Eater The 38 Best Hong Kong Restaurants

Exímia means the constant search for perfection in Latin, which tells you something about how seriously the team takes their cocktail bar on the second floor of Itaim Bibi. The drinks are a deep dive into Brazilian history and native ingredients, without a caipirinha in sight. Landing on The World's 50 Best Bars list, this is a place that makes the case for Brazil through the glass, anthropology and all.

1. The 50 #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. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. The 50 #13 · North America's 50 Best Bars
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – Latin America & Caribbean

Art-nouveau wallpaper, candlelight, and a room that feels borrowed from another century set the mood at this cocktail bar tucked into a quiet Naples street. The drinks move between classic recipes and the team's own inventions, all handled with the kind of care that earns a spot on Europe's 50 Best Bars. Wednesdays bring live jazz, which suits the speakeasy atmosphere so naturally it almost seems suspicious.

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

Röda Huset, or The Red House, is a Nordic cocktail bar spread across three floors of a genuinely red building in central Stockholm. The drinks are built around Swedish produce, elderberries, local plums, cold-pressed carrots, and foraged herbs, with the menu laid out as a map of where everything came from. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Bars, and the whole operation has the quiet confidence of somewhere that doesn't need to explain itself.

1. The 50 #35 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #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. The 50 #37 · The World's 50 Best Bars
2. The 50 #46 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
3. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

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

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

The granite counters and hammered metal walls give this underground cocktail bar in Pinheiros a deliberately angular, almost austere feel, as if someone transplanted a Tokyo standing bar to São Paulo and let it settle in. The house drinks lean on Brazilian ingredients, and the katsu sandos alongside suggest a long night is expected of you. It sits at number 24 on the World's 50 Best Bars list.

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

Money-green walls and brown leather set the tone at this approachable cocktail bar where Filipinotown, Echo Park, and Downtown all bleed together. The crowd reflects the neighborhood mix, and the bar leans into that, keeping menus short and descriptive so nobody feels lost. Seasonal cocktails share space with a Frozen of the Month, which is exactly the kind of menu that means everyone leaves happy. A James Beard Outstanding Bar semifinalist and on North America's 50 Best Bars list.