Editorial
Behind every exceptional bar program is a person or a small group of people who made the decisions that produced it: what the menu philosophy would be, where the spirits are sourced, how new staff are trained, what kind of guest experience the bar is designed to create. The best bar directors in the world are not always the most famous faces — some are better known within the trade than outside it. Here are the names serious drinkers should know before they book a visit.
A handful of bar directors have shaped cocktail culture globally — not just the bars they run, but the entire industry's thinking about menus, hospitality, and the purpose of a bar. Their work has trained a generation of bartenders and produced reference points that every serious new opening is measured against.
Beyond the globally recognised names, there are bar directors who have built programs that define their cities. These are the people whose work is studied by every serious bartender in their region and whose reputation has begun crossing international borders in the last two years. They are the names you should know before visiting their cities.
Understanding who built a bar program changes how you experience it. When you know that Masahiro Urushido's approach is rooted in Japanese highball technique, a visit to Katana Kitten becomes a study in that tradition rather than a random stop on a bar crawl. When you know that Monica Berg's program at Tayer + Elementary is built around zero-waste production, every component of every cocktail carries additional meaning.
The most rewarding bar visits are the ones where you arrive with enough context to have a real conversation. These directors, and the bars they have built, reward that kind of attention with experiences that generic bar-going cannot produce. Do the reading before you go. Ask the questions when you get there. The bartenders who work for these people love talking about the thinking behind the program — that is usually how they were hired.
James has interviewed most of the bar directors on this list and has strong opinions about which ones would be most worth spending an evening with. He believes the best bar directors are the ones who make you feel, after thirty minutes of conversation, that you have been thinking about drinking wrongly your whole life.