Editorial
The best bars with food are a specific category, and they are rarer than they should be. Most bars that offer food treat the kitchen as a revenue stream, not a mission. The result is microwaved wings and chips that exist solely to keep you drinking. The ten bars below operate differently — their kitchens are as considered as their cocktail lists, and the food is worth ordering even if you weren't planning on staying for a second round.
New York has more bar kitchens than any city in the world and more bad ones to match. These three are the ones our editors order from deliberately, not just to line their stomachs.
London's gastropub tradition means the bar-food relationship has deeper roots than almost anywhere. Chicago has a different tradition — diner-influenced bar food with serious craft beer — and the best rooms in both cities carry genuine conviction about what they serve.
The final four span San Francisco, New Orleans, Barcelona, and Tokyo. What they share is a kitchen that operates with the same seriousness as the bar — not as an afterthought, but as a parallel programme worth building a night around.
The bars on this list treat food as something that amplifies the drinking experience rather than just providing a reason to linger. That philosophy — that the kitchen and the bar are in service of the same night — is what separates the places worth seeking out from the ones that just have a menu on the back of the drinks list.
If we had to pick one: Hawksmoor Seven Dials for London, Employees Only for New York. Both rooms understand that the best bar food is food you'd eat at a restaurant, served with drinks you'd drive across town to have.
James writes about bars with the conviction of someone who has eaten far too many mediocre bar snacks to accept them anymore. He believes bone marrow should be on every bar menu and is working on convincing the world.