The 18 Best Cocktail Bars in Orlando

Rum on tap and ropa vieja on the menu: Otto's High Dive is a neighborhood rum bar in a whitewashed brick room that feels like Old Florida never really left. The kitchen runs a short Cuban-Floridian menu with tropical leanings, and the daiquiris come by the pitcher if you've committed to the evening. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, which tracks for a place this unfussy and this easy to love.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
3. Time Out The 20 best restaurants in Orlando

1. Eater 18 Best Cocktail Bars for Staying Out Late in Orlando

Rattan furniture, grass skirts, and cocktails arriving in vessels that would embarrass a prop department set the tone at this tiki cocktail bar on East Central. The drinks are genuinely stiff under all the kitsch, and the signature comes in a schooner glass, fuschia-hued and finished with a flaming sugar cube on a lemon slice. South Pacific camp done with a straight face, which somehow makes it funnier.

1. Eater 18 Best Cocktail Bars for Staying Out Late in Orlando

1. Eater 18 Best Cocktail Bars for Staying Out Late in Orlando

1. Eater 18 Best Cocktail Bars for Staying Out Late in Orlando

1. Eater 18 Best Cocktail Bars for Staying Out Late in Orlando

The password comes from their social media, which is either charmingly old-fashioned or exactly what a speakeasy is now. Either way, the third-floor of one of Orlando's oldest buildings is a genuinely dim, close-quarters cocktail bar where the drinks are stiff and the couples are very comfortable with each other. A small outdoor ledge offers escape when the room gets cozy. Dress the part and look like you belong.

1. Eater 18 Best Cocktail Bars for Staying Out Late in Orlando

A neon sign reading "Good Vibes Only" hangs on the living green wall, which tells you something about the room and something about yourself for liking it anyway. This swanky sushi bar on East Colonial does Japanese with Pan-Asian riffs, and the marble bar stays busy most nights. The omakase is where the kitchen gets interesting. A James Beard nominee two years running, and a Michelin Selected pick.

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Best Chef: South · Henry Moso
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Orlando

Cocktail names like "Stay the Fuck Outta Malibu" tell you more about the room than any décor description could. This cocktail bar shares a wall with Will's Pub and the self-described metal tiki bar next door, and the crowd arrives ready to argue about politics between rounds of rotating seasonal drinks. The rooms are oddly shaped and a little dingy, with French Provincial details that got lost along the way, which somehow makes the whole thing work.

1. Eater 18 Best Cocktail Bars for Staying Out Late in Orlando

1. Eater 18 Best Cocktail Bars for Staying Out Late in Orlando

The lighting in this tiki cocktail bar inside Tuffy's Bottle Shop lands somewhere between "jungle shrine" and the Colonel Kurtz scene in Apocalypse Now, which tells you everything about the mood before you've ordered anything. The tiki program goes well past Mai Tais, and the vessels the drinks arrive in are half the show. Two-hour sittings keep things moving; pace yourself on the namesake Suffering Bastards, or your morning will know about it.

1. Eater 18 Best Cocktail Bars for Staying Out Late in Orlando

Terrazzo floors and a name that promises sunshine it has no intention of delivering, since this cocktail bar on Mills Avenue doesn't open until evening. The vibe skews beachy and unhurried, with tropical, creatively built drinks that have made it a quiet favorite among people who take their rum seriously. It's a sister bar to the Guesthouse, and the two share a sensibility: thoughtful without being fussy.

1. Eater 18 Best Cocktail Bars for Staying Out Late in Orlando

The apothecary shelves and absinthe selection set the mood before you order anything. This cocktail bar in Winter Park has been doing serious, seasonally sourced drinks long enough to have inspired a generation of imitators, and the bartenders here still treat the work like a graduate seminar. Patience is part of the deal; a well-built drink takes as long as it takes. Literate regulars seem to mind the wait least of all.

1. Eater 18 Best Cocktail Bars for Staying Out Late in Orlando

1. Eater 18 Best Cocktail Bars for Staying Out Late in Orlando

1. Eater 18 Best Cocktail Bars for Staying Out Late in Orlando

1. Eater 18 Best Cocktail Bars for Staying Out Late in Orlando

1. Eater 18 Best Cocktail Bars for Staying Out Late in Orlando

The restaurant's name painted across the side of the building sets the tone before you're even inside. Tori Tori is a Mills District izakaya, meaning you'll spend a happy evening moving between yakitori skewers, creative sake cocktails, and fried rice packed with crab. No reservations, so the drill is arriving early or accepting your fate in the line out front, which most regulars seem to take as a point of pride.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Time Out The 20 best restaurants in Orlando
3. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Orlando