Editorial
The best mezcal bars in the world are not the places with the longest back-bar. They are the places where someone behind the counter actually knows what they are pouring — where a single-village Tobala from a producer you have never heard of arrives with context, not just ceremony. We have spent years hunting these bars, from East Village basements to rooftop terraces in Barcelona. This is the list that survived.
New York and Los Angeles have developed serious agave cultures over the past decade. These are the bars that pushed the category forward and continue to set the standard for how mezcal should be served and talked about.
Mezcal arrived in Europe later than tequila, which means the bars that built programs around it did so with intention rather than trend-chasing. London has two of the finest agave bars outside Mexico. Barcelona and Berlin both deserve mentions.
The global spread of serious agave bars tells you something about how far the category has come. Tokyo now has multiple bars with programs that would be impressive in Oaxaca. These are the standouts worth travelling for.
The best mezcal bars in the world share one quality: the people pouring the drinks understand what they are serving. Mezcal is a spirit with enormous variety and significant cultural weight — a bar that treats it seriously, prices it fairly, and explains it clearly is worth prioritising over anything shinier. If you are in London, Madre is your first stop. In New York, La Contenta. In Los Angeles, Las Perlas for value or Gracias Madre for atmosphere.
Marcus covers the West Coast, Latin America, and Pacific Rim bar scenes. He has been drinking mezcal seriously since 2012 and maintains strong opinions about which Oaxacan producers are worth the premium.