The 100 Best Places to Drink and Do 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. Michelin Guide 1 Star

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

A titanium and bronze roof catches the Andes light like something that wandered off a design school thesis and into the Chilean wine country. The vineyard and estate at Viña VIK covers a few thousand hectares, and exploring it by horseback or mountain bike is the point, whether you're scouting the organic garden or simply getting lost among the vines. It holds the top spot on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, which tracks.

1. The 50 #1 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

The spa entrance is tucked into one of the lower levels of Capella Singapore, which means you arrive through tropical rainforest before you've even changed into a robe. Auriga is a full-service luxury spa on Sentosa Island, where the soundtrack outside involves actual monkeys. A Forbes Five Star and a spot on Vogue's 100 Best Spas list suggest the treatments match the setting, which sets a high bar before anything begins.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

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

1. The 50 #4 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

The Santiago Calatrava roof ripples like a wave above the vines, making Bodegas Ysios one of the more photogenic reasons to rent a car in Rioja Alavesa. It's a working winery open for guided tastings and vineyard walks, with a wine bar perched above the barrel room for anyone who'd rather just stare at the Sierra de Cantabria with a glass in hand. Ranked third on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, and the vines out front have been at it for over a century.

1. The 50 #3 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

1. The 50 #5 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

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

Limestone cliffs spike straight up behind a strip of white sand, and the visual contrast is the whole argument for the boat ride out here. Entalula holds the number one spot on the World's 50 Best Beaches list, and the relative quiet confirms why: access is by boat only, so the crowds that pack El Nido's more reachable shores never quite materialize. The water is clear enough to make swimming feel like an afterthought you'll spend an hour doing anyway.

1. World's 50 Beaches #1 · The World's 50 Best Beaches

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

Twelve acres of canyon greenery swallow the Hotel Bel-Air so completely that the spa visit feels less like a city errand and more like a disappearing act. The grounds are famously labyrinthine, with tucked-away paths and canopy cover that make it easy to lose track of both time and, apparently, fellow Beatles. A Forbes Five Star spa in a setting that does most of the work before you even lie down.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

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

A Neoclassical palace on a Rheingau hillside that has been growing Riesling longer than most countries have existed, Schloss Johannisberg is a winery visit where the cellar tour goes genuinely deep: barrels made from the estate's own forest, abbey vaults holding around 25,000 bottles, and vintages stretching back to the mid-1700s. It ranks second on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, which gives you a sense of the company it keeps.

1. The 50 #2 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

The rooftop cold plunge pools look out over the Santa Ynez Mountains, which is a strong argument for skipping the beach one afternoon. Sense is a spa tucked into the second floor of the Rosewood Miramar Beach's Manor House, all gauzy curtains and plush lounge chairs, with six private treatment rooms and the kind of hush that costs what it costs. Forbes Five Star and on Vogue's list of the world's top spas.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

A 31,000-square-foot Spanish-style villa tucked among cypress, oak, and olive trees, this spa leans into Ojai's reputation as a healing vortex while keeping things cream-and-white minimalist rather than patchouli-soaked. Treatment rooms, hot tubs, fireplaces, an apothecary, and an artist cottage make up the complex, alongside guided hikes and, yes, GPS-led treasure hunts. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a spot on Vogue's 100 Best Spas in the World.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

The spa at this storied Surfside property holds a Forbes Five Star and a spot on Vogue's list of the world's top spas, which tracks once you're inside: hushed, unhurried, a few miles north of South Beach's particular chaos. It's the kind of place where the treatment rooms feel genuinely removed from everything, and the taupe-toned quiet is, against all odds, exactly what you wanted.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

Floor-to-ceiling windows on the 35th floor frame Central Park and the Hudson River, which is either a calming backdrop or a reminder of how far you'd fall if you weren't so relaxed. This is a full spa, Forbes Five Star, with Asian-influenced treatments, a vitality pool, an amethyst steam chamber, and an Oriental Tea lounge. The staff consults before treatments rather than just handing you a menu, which makes the difference.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

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 Cocktail Bar – Latin America & Caribbean
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Bar Team – 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

Forty thousand square feet of indoor-outdoor spa space on the sixth floor of Rosewood Hong Kong, with Guerlain treatments and a partner in Vogue's 100 Best Spas in the World. For a city where square footage is practically a luxury good, the sheer room to breathe here makes a statement before anyone lights a candle. Book ahead; this is not the kind of place you wander into between dim sum and the Star Ferry.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

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 · International Bartender of the Year · Rob Libecans
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best International Bar Team

The grapes here are picked berry by berry, by hand, across multiple passes through the vines, because a whole cluster would be too imprecise for what Château d'Yquem is trying to do. A visit to this Sauternes estate means walking vineyards given over to noble rot, the peculiar fungus that concentrates the juice into something its devotees treat less like wine and more like evidence. It ranks ninth on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.

1. The 50 #9 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

1. The 50 #7 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

White cliffs curve around a cove of pale pebbles and turquoise Ionian water, and the only way in is by boat or down a trail steep enough to discourage the casual visitor. That self-selection is the whole point. Fteri Beach on Kefalonia ranks second on World's 50 Best Beaches, and Europe's top-ranked beach overall, which means you won't be alone, but it's still quieter than anywhere that takes a shuttle bus.

1. World's 50 Beaches #2 · The World's 50 Best Beaches
2. World's 50 Beaches #1 · Europe's 50 Best Beaches

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

The wine that put Constantia on the map centuries ago is a sweet dessert wine, and Klein Constantia is the estate that brought it back from near-extinction. Set in the Constantia hills with Table Mountain overhead and ocean on the horizon, it's a working vineyard you can explore by bike or 4x4, taste through in a room framed by jacaranda trees, or linger over in the fine-dining bistro. Ranked sixth on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.

1. The 50 #6 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

1. The 50 #8 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

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

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

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

A mushroom-shaped rock formation called El Hongo rises from the shallows of this protected bay outside La Paz, and it has become something of an unofficial mascot for one of the world's genuinely spectacular beaches. Strict regulations cap visitor numbers and freeze development, so the water stays that improbable turquoise and the sand stays clean. Seven coves sit within the bay, the tide never clears chest height, and you can walk between them all.

1. World's 50 Beaches #8 · The World's 50 Best Beaches
2. World's 50 Beaches #2 · North America's 50 Best Beaches

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

Two miles of powdery white sand with water so clear it looks filtered, Shoal Bay East is Anguilla's signature stretch and holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Beaches list. Laid-back bars sit at the edges without crowding the shoreline, and the coral reefs just offshore make it a natural snorkeling stop. Somehow it stays calm even when it isn't empty, which is the real trick on a Caribbean beach this good-looking.

1. World's 50 Beaches #6 · The World's 50 Best Beaches
2. World's 50 Beaches #1 · North America's 50 Best Beaches

The spa inside the Royal Mansour sits within a medina-within-a-medina, where the corridors are lined with hand-carved wooden latticework and Zellige tiles in Fez blue and saffron. Hammam rituals draw on traditional Moroccan treatments, and the whole thing is unhurried in a way that makes a two-hour session feel like the bare minimum. A Vogue 100 Best Spas pick and Forbes Four Star property, it sets a high bar for doing absolutely nothing productive.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

Waikiki has been pulling people in since Hawaiian royalty claimed it as a retreat, and SpaHalekulani is where you go when the tourist squall gets to be too much. The spa holds a Forbes Four Star and a spot on Vogue's 100 Best Spas in the World list, and it carries both without making a fuss about it. Treatments lean into Pacific traditions, and the whole operation is quiet in a way that Waikiki, bless its heart, generally is not.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

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 spa here runs on the 111Skin brand, a skincare line with a cult following among people who take their serums very seriously. It sits inside Adare Manor, a Gothic Revival pile in County Limerick that has had serious money spent on it, and the surroundings set a certain tone before you've even booked a treatment. Forbes gave it four stars, and Vogue named it among the 100 best spas in the world.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

The spa sits inside a Georgian manor on 240 acres of Berkshire countryside, close enough to Heathrow that the contrast feels almost theatrical. It's the full Dorchester Collection treatment: unhurried, quietly grand, with staff who actually seem pleased to see you. The grounds border Windsor Great Park, so there's a good chance you'll spot a polo chukka on the way in, which sets the tone nicely. Vogue named it among the 100 best spas in the world.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

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 The Best Bars in America

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

The tasting room's camera-aperture architecture, all dramatic angles and floor-to-ceiling glass, was designed to pull your eye toward the vineyards outside, which is a neat trick given what's in the glass. Aperture Cellars pours Bordeaux-inspired Sonoma wines across a few tasting tiers, from introductory blends up to a private gallery session with limited releases. A rotating photography exhibition runs throughout. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.

1. The 50 #14 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

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

The winery is built in the shape of a cross, which sounds like an architectural boast until you learn the four wings actually feed wine by gravity into underground cellars beneath the Uco Valley floor. Tastings happen down there, around a two-tonne limestone table pulled from a nearby quarry, with oak barrels and compass roses carved into the stone for company. Salentein holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, and the Andes looming outside make the whole thing feel slightly unreal.

1. The 50 #12 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

Bollinger still farms two tiny plots in Aÿ that somehow escaped the phylloxera blight that wiped out most of Europe's vines, and the ultra-rare Vieilles Vignes Françaises made from them is what people make pilgrimages for. The house is pinot-dominant, aged in oak, and carries a particular richness you either find thrilling or a bit much. It placed fifteenth on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, which tracks.

1. The 50 #15 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

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

A narrow sandbar pushes far out into the lagoon at the northern tip, shallow turquoise water on both sides, almost no shade, nowhere to be except present. The beach itself is long enough that you can walk until the village feels theoretical, and the reef sections nearby draw enough marine life to make a snorkel mask worth packing. Ranked seventh on the World's 50 Best Beaches list, and easy to reach on foot from the village.

1. World's 50 Beaches #7 · The World's 50 Best Beaches

A rounded granite boulder formation that looks enough like a certain cartoon duck to earn the name sits at the edge of this remote beach in the Similan Islands National Park. Open only from November to May, when boats can reach it, the seasonal closure does the work most beaches can't manage: the sand stays fine and white, the water stays clear, and the crowd stays thin. Ranked tenth on the World's 50 Best Beaches list in 2026.

1. World's 50 Beaches #10 · The World's 50 Best Beaches

A winery in Las Compuertas where you can arrive by helicopter, which sets the tone. The Durigutti brothers focus on Malbec but also produce natural, organic, and rare cuvées that reward the detour. Cycling the vineyard rows and ending up at a gourmet picnic is a gentler option. The on-site guesthouse, Finca Victoria, has wooden-beamed ceilings and open fires. Ranked 11th on The World's 50 Best Vineyards list.

1. The 50 #11 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

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 ivy-clad château and its Bordeaux-inspired Cabernet Sauvignons have landed Jordan on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, at number thirteen. You visit by touring the 485-acre estate, then settling in for wine and food pairings in the vineyard or the library. The "Paris on the Terrace" experience leans hard into the French fantasy, with charcuterie, bread, estate olive oil, and music included, which is either charming or a lot, depending on your relationship with themed dining.

1. The 50 #13 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

Koh Rong sits in the Gulf of Thailand, reached by boat from the mainland, and the beach it's famous for runs for kilometers without a resort strip to break it up. The sand is powdery white, the water shallow and calm enough to wade out forever, and the jungle presses in at the edges. It landed at number nine on the World's 50 Best Beaches list. The low development isn't an accident; it's the whole point.

1. World's 50 Beaches #9 · The World's 50 Best Beaches

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. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

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

Tall palms and dense vegetation give way to a wide sweep of white sand on the sheltered side of Matamanoa Island, and on a quiet morning your footprints may be the only ones in it. The calm conditions make swimming easy all day, and long stretches stay deserted enough that solitude feels less like luck and more like the default setting. It ranked fifth on the World's 50 Best Beaches list in 2026.

1. World's 50 Beaches #5 · The World's 50 Best Beaches

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 Bar Team – 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

At low tide, a two-kilometer sandbar rises from the Indian Ocean to join two small islands into one, then quietly vanishes again as the water returns. Nosy Iranja is an offshore island pair reachable by boat from Madagascar's northwest coast, where sea turtles nest and the snorkeling runs clear and warm. The World's 50 Best Beaches ranks it fourth in the world, which tracks.

1. World's 50 Beaches #4 · The World's 50 Best Beaches

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 #10 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

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

1. The 50 #16 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

Turquoise water meeting white sand at the edge of nowhere, Wharton Beach sits in the Duke of Orleans Bay area of Western Australia's southern coast, remote enough that even on a flawless summer day you may have the whole stretch to yourself. Dolphins work the break while surfers do the same. It ranked third on the World's 50 Best Beaches list in 2026, which should tell you something about the drive.

1. World's 50 Beaches #3 · The World's 50 Best Beaches