Best Cocktail Bars
in Johannesburg

By a named editor

Fredrik Filipsson — Co-founder & Editor in Chief · LinkedIn ↗
Last reviewed 2026-04-17 · How we pick bars

Johannesburg's cocktail bar scene has undergone a transformation in the past decade that visitors who last came in 2015 would barely recognise. The city that used to mean beer and braai now has a craft cocktail culture equal to any major European city — and in some respects more interesting, because Joburg's bartenders work with African botanicals, indigenous spirits, and fynbos-infused gins that don't exist anywhere else in the world. The best cocktail bars here aren't imitating London or New York. They're doing something distinctly South African.

No. 01

Sin + Tax

Maboneng Craft Cocktails $$$ 5pm – 2am

Sin + Tax is Johannesburg's most celebrated cocktail bar — a multi-award-winning space in the Maboneng arts precinct that has been at the forefront of South Africa's craft cocktail movement since 2014. The bar was co-founded by two bartenders who trained in London and Cape Town and returned to Joburg with a conviction that the city deserved world-class cocktails built from African ingredients. That conviction has aged well.

The menu rotates seasonally and is built around South African botanicals: rooibos, fynbos, buchu, African ginger, and the extraordinary range of Cape Winelands-grown citrus. The spirits program emphasises South African gin (there are now over 200 craft gin producers in the country), local craft whisky from the Western Cape, and a carefully curated selection of international amaro and mezcal. The room itself is intimate: dark wood, low lighting, and bar stools that encourage long conversations with the bar team.

Insider Tip Ask for the off-menu tasting flight — five small cocktails representing the bartender's current obsessions. It changes weekly and is one of the best 45 minutes in any Johannesburg bar. Book the bar seats rather than a table for the full experience.

No. 02

The Living Room

Rosebank Rooftop Bar $$$ 4pm – 2am

The Living Room sits on the rooftop of The Zone shopping complex in Rosebank, and what it lacks in speakeasy mystique it compensates for with one of the best city views in Johannesburg — the Highveld skyline spread across the horizon, with the distinctive Joburg light that photographers travel specifically to capture. The cocktail program is polished and extensive: a gin menu running to 40 South African expressions, a rum section built around Caribbean and African producers, and a seasonal fruit-forward cocktail list that uses Johannesburg market produce.

The Living Room is where Rosebank's professional class comes after work — the Thursday and Friday after-work crowd is particularly lively, representing the city's finance, law, and creative industries in approximately equal measure. The service is excellent by any international standard. This is a bar that could be transplanted to London or New York and succeed immediately.

Insider Tip The sunset slot (5:30pm–7pm) on weekdays offers the best combination of light, service quality, and crowd size. Ask specifically for South African craft gin recommendations — the staff are extraordinarily knowledgeable and proud of the local producers.

No. 03

The Marabi Club

Maboneng Jazz Bar & Cocktails $$$ Wed–Sat 6pm – 2am

The Marabi Club takes its name from marabi — the jazz-adjacent, kwela-influenced music that defined Johannesburg's Sophiatown neighbourhood in the 1930s and 40s, before apartheid destroyed it. The bar is a love letter to that era: a speakeasy-style room in Maboneng with live jazz from Wednesday to Saturday, a cocktail menu that draws on African and Art Deco influences, and a design that references Sophiatown's vernacular architecture through wrought iron, dark wood, and warm amber lighting.

The cocktail program is genuinely distinctive — the bar has developed a range of pre-Prohibition style drinks using African ingredients that would have been available in 1930s Joburg: African ginger beer, rooibos syrups, buchu-infused spirits, and morula fruit liqueur. The result is cocktails that taste uniquely of this city and its specific history. The live jazz sets start at 8pm; book a table to guarantee a seat.

Insider Tip The bar's morula Sour — morula liqueur, citrus, egg white, bitters — is the signature drink and worth ordering twice. Morula is a southern African fruit used to make Amarula liqueur; in cocktail form, without the cream, it's extraordinary.

No. 04

MESH Club

Sandton Members Bar $$$$ Mon–Sat 11am – midnight

MESH Club is Sandton's answer to a London private members bar — a beautifully designed space in the Sandton CBD that operates as a co-working space by day and a cocktail bar by evening. The bar program is among the most technically sophisticated in South Africa: a team trained at international programs, a menu that changes monthly, and a spirit collection that spans over 800 bottles including rare South African expressions that are impossible to find outside the country.

Guest access is available in the evenings (non-members pay a daily access fee or can book a table directly). The Sandton location means the crowd is Johannesburg's business elite — corporate lawyers, investment bankers, the CEO tier of the mining and finance industries. The bar service matches this expectation: discreet, precise, and genuinely knowledgeable. The Negroni program alone (12 variations, all using South African spirits) is worth the visit.

Insider Tip The Tuesday evening tasting events (hosted by the head bartender) are open to non-members and represent exceptional value — five cocktails with pairings for approximately R450. Book through their website at least a week in advance.

No. 05

The Craftsmen's Ship

Braamfontein Craft Cocktails $$ Tue–Sat 5pm – 1am

The Craftsmen's Ship is Braamfontein's neighbourhood cocktail bar — small, intimate, deliberately affordable by Johannesburg cocktail bar standards, and run by a team that genuinely believes in what they're doing. The space is a converted ground-floor retail unit with exposed brick, repurposed furniture, and a bar that runs the full length of one wall. The cocktail menu is seasonal and handwritten; most options are under R120.

What distinguishes The Craftsmen's Ship is the bar team's genuine enthusiasm for education — they will explain every drink, discuss every ingredient, and send you away knowing more about South African spirits than when you arrived. This is where Johannesburg's young creative class drinks: graphic designers, architects, musicians, academics. The conversation-per-square-metre ratio is probably the highest of any bar in Joburg.

Insider Tip The bar offers a weekly "build your own" cocktail session on Tuesday evenings (R180 per person) where you work with the bartender to create a personal cocktail using house ingredients. One of the better two hours you can spend in Braamfontein.

No. 06

The Blind Pig

Illovo Speakeasy $$$ Thu–Sat 7pm – 2am

The Blind Pig is Johannesburg's dedication to the speakeasy form — found through an unmarked door in an Illovo building, accessible only to those who know to look. The interior is 1920s Prohibition-era America interpreted through a South African lens: dark mahogany, Tiffany lamps, jazz from the house system, and a cocktail menu presented as a 1920s newspaper. The drinks are period-inspired but made with contemporary technique and South African ingredients wherever possible.

The bar has been operating since 2016 and has developed a dedicated regular clientele — mostly Sandton and Illovo residents who treat it as their personal cocktail club. Thursdays are quieter and more conversational; Fridays and Saturdays are livelier with occasional live jazz from a house trio. The service is theatrical without being annoying about it. The correct response to the menu is to ask the bartender what they'd make if you weren't looking at the menu.

Insider Tip The Blind Pig requires a reservation — walk-ins are occasionally turned away even when the bar appears half-full (they hold seats for regulars until 9pm). Email reservations@thebp.co.za at least 48 hours ahead. Mention it's your first visit.

No. 07

Bamboo Bar & Terrace

Melville Terrace Cocktails $$ Wed–Sun 4pm – midnight

Melville is Johannesburg's bohemian neighbourhood — the old university-adjacent area of 7th Street that has sustained an independent bar and restaurant scene for 40 years without gentrifying or sanitising into something corporate. Bamboo Bar & Terrace sits at the heart of it: a two-level venue with an outdoor terrace that makes the most of Joburg's extraordinary winter sunshine (the dry season from May to September, when temperatures rarely drop below 18°C in the day and cool to a perfect 10–12°C at night).

The cocktail program is eclectic and genuinely experimental — the bar team changes the menu every two months and clearly uses the process to try things that don't work and then try again. Hits include a smoked rooibos old fashioned and a fynbos gin fizz that uses the bar's own botanical infusion. Misses happen occasionally and the staff will tell you honestly. This transparency is part of what makes Bamboo work.

Insider Tip The Wednesday evening cocktail specials (R75 per drink, reduced menu of 8 classics) are the best value in Melville. The terrace fills by 6pm on Fridays — arrive early or you'll be inside, which is still perfectly fine but misses the Joburg sky.

No. 08

The Hyde Bar

Rosebank Hotel Bar $$$$ noon – 1am

The Hyde Bar operates from within the Hyde Hotel in Rosebank and represents the top tier of Johannesburg's hotel bar scene — a category that, in a city with strong international business travel, has developed to a very high standard. The bar occupies a dramatic double-height space with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Rosebank skyline. The spirit collection is exceptional: over 300 whiskies including rare South African single malts from distilleries that most Europeans have never heard of.

The cocktail program is classical-contemporary: impeccable renditions of the canon alongside a house creation menu that draws on South African ingredients with notable restraint — this is not a kitchen-sink African botanicals showcase but a thoughtful integration. The Highveld Mule (house rooibos ginger beer, South African vodka, lime) is the entry point; the whisky program is where you should end up.

Insider Tip Ask the bar manager about the South African single malt tasting — three whiskies from the Drakensberg region distilleries, with regional food pairings. Available by appointment for groups of two to six. One of the best experiences in Johannesburg for spirits enthusiasts.

No. 09

The Colour Bar

Newtown Cultural Bar $$ Tue–Sat 5pm – 1am

The Colour Bar takes its name deliberately — it refers both to the apartheid-era "colour bar" that prohibited South Africans from sharing drinking spaces, and to the vibrancy of the bar's visual and cultural identity. Situated in Newtown's cultural precinct adjacent to the Market Theatre, it serves the creative and arts community that gathers here after performances. The cocktail menu is built around South African craft spirits exclusively — no international brands — and changes each month to reflect a specific provincial producer or ingredient.

The bar doubles as a gallery, with rotating exhibitions from Joburg-based artists. The current show is always visible from the bar seats. The conversation quality is high and the staff have opinions about the work on the walls, the drink in your hand, and the political subtext of calling a bar The Colour Bar. This is a cocktail bar as cultural statement — entirely South African, entirely Johannesburg, entirely of this specific historical moment.

Insider Tip Post-theatre nights (after 9:30pm on show nights) are the Colour Bar at its most energised — the Market Theatre crowd arrives, and the conversation covers everything from the performance just seen to the wider state of South African arts funding. No better place to meet Joburg's cultural life.

No. 10

Shine Bar

Parkhurst Natural Wine & Cocktails $$$ Wed–Sun 5pm – midnight

Shine Bar is Parkhurst's answer to the natural wine movement — a neighbourhood bar on 4th Avenue that combines a thoughtful South African natural wine list with a cocktail program built around the same philosophy: minimal intervention, local provenance, authentic flavour over technical spectacle. The room is deliberately understated: bare walls, natural materials, a chalk-written menu that changes when the wines run out rather than on a schedule.

The wine list covers Cape Winelands producers exclusively — a growing community of biodynamic and natural winemakers who are producing genuinely world-class wines at price points that make their London counterparts seem absurd. The cocktails use South African craft spirits and seasonal produce from the Parkhurst farmers market that operates around the corner on Saturday mornings. For a complete Johannesburg bar guide including hidden gems and rooftop bars, our full city coverage spans every neighbourhood and category.

Insider Tip The Saturday lunchtime session (noon–3pm) is Shine at its most relaxed — natural wine, the farmers market ingredients turned into light cocktail snacks, and the Parkhurst Saturday crowd. One of the better ways to spend a Joburg Saturday.

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