The Best Bar Snacks in the World

A standing bar with six skewer options and nothing else. The edamame arrives in a bowl with coarse salt and cracked pepper. It sounds like nothing. It makes the cold Sapporo beside it the best beer you have ever tasted. This is the entire point of a bar snack. They understand that here better than anywhere.

Order: Edamame with sea salt, chicken tsukune, cold Sapporo draft

Pintxos are the best bar snack format ever devised. Small bread, one topping, no ambiguity. At Casa Pintxo the anchovy and pepper version is worth the flight from London. They lay out 20 varieties at 6pm and by 7:30 the counter is bare. Arrive early. Order everything you can reach. No sitting down.

Order: Anchovy and pepper pintxo, txangurro crab, Basque cider

The bar nuts here are a genuine phenomenon. Rosemary, butter, cayenne, and something the kitchen will not disclose. They cost eleven pounds for a small bowl and everyone orders them without a second thought. The cocktails are excellent. But it is the nuts people talk about on the way home. That is bar snack perfection.

Order: House bar nuts, smoked salmon blini, seasonal cocktail

A neighbourhood bar that has been serving patatas bravas since 1978. Two sauces — one aioli, one brava — arrive with the chips in a clay bowl. The bravas here have the right level of heat and the right level of acid. Every tourist version of this dish in Barcelona is a shadow of what this tastes like.

Order: Patatas bravas, pan con tomate, house vermouth

The pretzels here are baked in-house, delivered warm, and served with three mustards that the kitchen makes from scratch. This is what bar snacks should be: something that takes effort to produce but feels effortless to eat. The IPA selection is extensive. Order the pretzel first, the beer second, and repeat.

Order: House-baked pretzel with three mustards, pickled bar mix

The fried tofu bites here have been on the menu since day one and nobody has ever asked them to change. Crisp outside, molten inside, served with a chilli dipping sauce that earns its heat honestly. Pair with their Hong Kong pale ale, which is brewed specifically to match this kind of snack at this temperature.

Order: Fried tofu bites, Hong Kong pale ale, wonton crisps

A mezcal bar that serves three-bite tacos as bar snacks. The al pastor is carved from a trompo in the corner of the room and the tortillas are pressed to order. Two tequila shots, three tacos, and you will not want to be anywhere else in Mexico City that evening. This is not a dinner option. It is a bar snack at its highest form.

Order: Al pastor mini tacos, salsa roja, house mezcal

The sausage rolls here arrive fresh from the kitchen every two hours and the counter keeps a warm-light box going between rounds. Flaky pastry, pork and herb filling, a side of brown sauce. With a Guinness this is one of the most satisfying combinations available to a human being in a bar setting anywhere on the planet.

Order: Sausage roll, Guinness stout, pickled onion crisps

Obatzda — a Bavarian cheese and butter spread — with fresh pretzel bread is the definitive Central European bar snack. At Paulaner's Biergarten it arrives in a generous portion with radishes and the pretzel is still warm. This pairs with a Mass of Paulaner Helles in a way that makes you understand why Germany takes beer culture so seriously.

Order: Obatzda with pretzel bread, Weisswurst, Mass of Paulaner Helles