The country's best classic martini service, in the room that taught Auckland how to drink one.
bar · Heritage The House Bar at Hotel DeBrett — Auckland's oldest hotel, originally licensed in 1841 — is the city's correct classic-cocktail address. Bar manager Mike Lyon, ex-Mojo Wellington and ex-Black Pearl Melbourne, has rebuilt the programme around a tight cocktail list weighted to martini and Manhattan variants, with an unusually serious vermouth section (Mancino, La Quintinye, Otago-made Reid + Reid) and a deliberate refusal to chase trend cocktails.
The room is panelled wood, twenty-six bar seats, a working fire in winter, and a soundtrack of pre-1965 jazz played at a sensible volume. Food is short and faultless: cheese plate, a single excellent steak sandwich, oysters from Te Matuku. Fourth because no other room in Auckland does the classic-hotel-bar template with this kind of restraint, and because the martini service is genuinely the best in the country.
For the full ranking, see our editorial round-up of the 10 best cocktail bars in Auckland, the broader Auckland cocktail bars guide, and our category index of cocktail bars worldwide.