The 18 Best Places to Drink in Shanghai

1. The 50 #74 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars

Checkered tiles, timber walls, and green leather stools that look like a diner lost its passport and ended up in Huangpu. Pony Up is an all-day bar on Jinxian Road, open from early afternoon so the post-lunch crowd has somewhere respectable to be. The signature Cigar cocktail layers vermouth, absinthe, and a house smoke-infused spirit. Asia's 50 Best Bars has it on their Discovery list.

1. The 50 #97 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars

A cocktail bar that doubles as a scavenger hunt: find Tipsy, the secret bar hidden somewhere in the building, and you've earned bragging rights for the evening. Sober Company runs three floors of drinking and eating, but Sober Society is the heart of it, where the team behind Speak Low works through a menu of cocktails built around Chinese ingredients. It has landed on Asia's 50 Best Bars list, which tracks.

1. The 50 #81 · Asia’s 50 Best Bars
2. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

You enter through a sliding bookshelf inside a cocktail equipment shop, which sets the tone nicely. This three-floor cocktail bar from Shingo Gokan has long since shed any real secrecy, but the ritual of getting in still earns its keep. The second floor is where the serious drinking happens; the top floor, rare whiskies and a members-only door. The crowd knows what it ordered before it sits down.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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

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

A cocktail bar on Nanchang Road where the design philosophy comes from Virgil Abloh's 3% rule: change an existing thing by just that much and it becomes something new. The shelves hold a select few bottles, the lighting is considered, and nothing extra survives the edit. The drinks menu is equally spare, which either feels like restraint or curation depending on your mood, but the room makes a strong argument for less.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

You walk into Barules through a scarlet London phone box, which sets the tone nicely. Inside, this cocktail bar pays quiet tribute to the craft, with portraits of bartending legends lining the walls and glass cabinets full of cocktail kit. The menu leans fresh and fruit-forward rather than classical, which surprises you given all the reverence on display. A bar for people who know the names on those portraits and enjoy the slight irony of ordering something bright and tropical beneath them.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A retro Coca-Cola vending machine in what looks like an abandoned sandwich shop turns out to be the door, which is exactly the kind of entrance Flask deserves. The bar sits behind it down a narrow brick passage that fire marshals would probably prefer not to know about. It's the sort of cocktail bar that makes you feel briefly like a genius for finding it, then immediately guilty for telling anyone.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Dial zero on the retro telephone tucked inside El Ocho and a door opens into a 17-seat cocktail bar where there is no menu, only a conversation. The bartender listens, then builds something to order, while hot towels and crystal water glasses set a register closer to Tokyo than Shanghai. The passion here is personal in a way a larger room could never sustain.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

A warren of mirror-lined rooms on the third floor of Zhang Yuan, this cocktail bar runs on velvet seats, low light, and a sunken bar that makes the whole place feel like a speakeasy someone actually finished decorating. The menu skews classical, organized by Old-Fashioneds, Flips, Tiki, and the rest, with dark spirits leading the charge. The name is Spanish for eight, which is lucky, which the Chinese know, which means the odds are already in your favor.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

Tucked into the first floor of an apartment block on Wukang Lu, this cocktail bar commits to a decorating scheme where Qing dynasty meets Louis XVI, with gilt, lacquer, velvet in purple and scarlet, lion heads, and birdcages all arriving at once. The menu balances house originals against classics like the Bramble and Sidecar, though the room has already done most of the theatrical heavy lifting before your drink arrives.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide