Art deco is the architecture of ambition. Gold leaf applied with conviction. Geometric patterns that reward the eye. Lacquered surfaces that refuse to apologize for their own glamour. The bars that wear this aesthetic well are among the most compelling rooms on earth, and drinking in one is an experience that outlasts the cocktail itself.
The style emerged from the 1920s and reached its peak between the wars, when designers and architects across Europe and America competed to make the modern world look worth inhabiting. Hotels were the great showcase, and their bars were the most visible rooms. A well-made sidecar in a room panelled with oxidized copper and lit by frosted glass sconces hits differently than the same drink in a converted warehouse.
We surveyed our editors across 12 cities to identify the 9 bars that do art deco best. Not bars that gesture at the style with a few chevron tiles, but rooms that commit fully, where the design is so embedded in the experience that the two cannot be separated.
1. The Nomad Bar, New York
The Nomad Bar
NoMad, Manhattan · $$$$
Situated inside the NoMad Hotel on Broadway, this bar is one of the most photographed rooms in New York for good reason. Dark wood bookshelves climb floor to ceiling, brass fixtures gleam at every surface, and the cocktail program treats the classics with the respect they deserve. Order the Amaro Sour and stay for a second. The room earns it.
The NoMad Hotel building dates from 1903, and its bar draws on that Beaux-Arts foundation while adding the sharp geometric contrasts that define true deco. Our New York cocktail bars guide calls it one of the essential rooms in the city, and we stand by that. The back bar alone, stacked with rare spirits under a vaulted ceiling, is worth the cab fare.
2. The Beaufort Bar, London
The Beaufort Bar
Strand, London · $$$$
Tucked inside the Savoy Hotel, the Beaufort Bar is the darker, more theatrical sibling of the American Bar next door. Black lacquered walls, gold leaf ceiling panels, and a cocktail list built around theatre and provocation. This is where London does glamour without apology. The Negroni here is served with enough ceremony to justify its price.
The Savoy was built in 1889 but the Beaufort occupies what was originally a cabaret stage, and the theatrical DNA runs through everything. London's cocktail bar scene has no shortage of ambition, but the Beaufort remains singular. On a quiet Tuesday evening, with a martini and a lit candle, it is one of the finest places to be in Europe.
"The bars that wear art deco well are among the most compelling rooms on earth. Drinking in one is an experience that outlasts the cocktail itself."
3. Bar Hemingway, Paris
Bar Hemingway
1st Arrondissement, Paris · $$$$
Inside the Ritz Paris, Bar Hemingway is the most literarily charged room in any hotel on the planet. Dark panelling, memorabilia from the bar's famous regulars, and a head bartender who treats every drink as a considered act. The Bloody Mary here is said to have been co-created with Hemingway himself. Whether true or not, it is extraordinary.
The Ritz opened in 1898 and the bar carries that history in its bones. Paris cocktail bars are often beautiful but rarely this specific. Every object in Bar Hemingway has a story, and the bartenders know them all. Sit at the bar, not a table. The experience is better when you are close to the action.
4. Claridge's Bar, London
Claridge's Bar
Mayfair, London · $$$$
Designed by David Collins, Claridge's Bar is a modern interpretation of art deco that succeeds completely. Chrome, mirror, and dark leather combine in a room that feels both vintage and current. The champagne list is 80 bottles long. The cocktail program focuses on the classics, executed without fault. Arrive for a drink before dinner and you will likely stay for three.
Mayfair has no shortage of expensive bars, but Claridge's earns its reputation through precision rather than expense alone. The room has been cited as an influence by more bar designers than any other in London. If you are building an understanding of what London's finest rooms look like, this is a required stop.
5. The Aviary, Chicago
The Aviary
West Loop, Chicago · $$$$
Grant Achatz's cocktail bar in Chicago's West Loop applies culinary philosophy to the deco aesthetic: precision, restraint, and total commitment. The room is darker and more angular than the European examples, with a bar program that treats ice, temperature, and vessel as seriously as the spirits themselves. The cocktail list changes monthly. The craft never does.
Chicago has built one of America's most serious bar scenes, and The Aviary sits at its intellectual center. Chicago's cocktail bars reward the curious drinker, and no bar in the city challenges more productively than this one. Book ahead; the reservation list is 6 weeks deep.
6. Harry's New York Bar, Paris
Harry's New York Bar
2nd Arrondissement, Paris · $$$
Founded in 1911 and barely changed since, Harry's is the living artifact of a Paris that most cities only mythologize. The Bloody Mary was invented here. The Sidecar too, if you ask the right people. Mahogany panelling, pennants from every American college, and bartenders who have been pouring the same drinks for decades. It is irreplaceable.
7. American Bar at The Connaught, London
American Bar — The Connaught
Mayfair, London · $$$$
Multiple times winner of the World's Best Bar award, the Connaught Bar is David Collins's masterpiece. The trolley martini service, where the barman prepares your drink beside the table from a chrome trolley stocked with house-made vermouths and bitters, is one of the great theatrical gestures in hospitality. The room is quiet, precise, and exquisitely detailed.
Mayfair's concentration of world-class hotel bars is unmatched by any other neighborhood on earth. The Connaught, Claridge's, The Beaufort — three rooms within a mile that each belong on any serious drinker's lifetime list. See our full guide to Mayfair bars for more context on the neighborhood's remarkable density of quality.
8. Dead Rabbit, New York
Dead Rabbit
Financial District, Manhattan · $$$
The Dead Rabbit in the Financial District wears its Irish-American heritage as visually as any bar on this list. The parlour floor upstairs, with its dark wood, patterned wallpaper, and meticulous cocktail program, channels the saloon culture of 1850s New York through a contemporary deco lens. The punch bowl service for two is one of New York's best drinks experiences.
9. High Five Bar, Tokyo
High Five Bar
Ginza, Tokyo · $$$
Hidetsugu Ueno's Ginza bar is small enough to feel like a private room and precise enough to feel like a laboratory. The deco influence comes through in the lacquered surfaces, the perfectly maintained bar counter, and the insistence that every element of the experience is considered. The Japanese whisky selection is the finest we have encountered outside of Scotland.
Tokyo's bar culture applies deco principles without necessarily using deco forms. The precision, the restraint, the conviction that presentation is inseparable from taste — these are the aesthetic values that bind Tokyo's best bars to their European counterparts. Tokyo's cocktail bars are among the finest in the world by any measure.
What connects them
These 9 bars share more than an aesthetic. They are all operated by people who believe that where you drink matters as much as what you drink. The rooms were designed with conviction, maintained with care, and served by staff who understand that hospitality is a discipline as serious as any craft.
Art deco did not disappear. It survived because the values it represents — clarity of form, commitment to quality, the belief that beauty serves a social function — are values that outlast any single decade. The bars on this list are its living proof.
For more on where to drink well by design, see our guides to the most atmospheric bars in the world and our curated lists of date night bars in New York and date night bars in London.
