How to Find a Great Bar in an Unfamiliar City

The perfect example of a bar that rewards the traveller who knows where to look. No menu, no reservations, no sign on the door. You tell the bartender what flavours or spirits you like and they make something for you. The cocktails are always excellent. The experience of finding it on a side street in the Lower East Side for the first time is one of the best bar discoveries New York offers first-time visitors who do their homework.

Order: Tell the bartender you like Negronis but want something unexpected — they will not disappoint

Bar Marsella has been operating in El Raval since 1820 and shows no sign of updating its interior — the bottles on the shelves are decades old, the mirrors are foxed, and the absinthe is poured from bottles that may have been there since Hemingway visited. This is the kind of bar that requires navigating a side street in an unfamiliar neighbourhood to find, and is worth every wrong turn. The absinthe with sugar and water ritual is conducted properly here.

Order: Absinthe, prepared traditionally — nothing else is appropriate in this room

Austin's most famous speakeasy occupies what was originally a massage parlour and requires a reservation through their website — the kind of bar you only find if you look. The cocktail menu changes seasonally and the bartenders are among the most knowledgeable in Texas. Reservation slots are released 48 hours in advance; check the website as soon as you know your travel dates. One of the most memorable first-visit bar experiences in any US city.

Order: The bartender's current seasonal recommendation — the menu changes frequently and they choose it for a reason

Shimokitazawa is the neighbourhood Tokyo's artists, musicians and bar staff go to drink on their nights off. Janbar is a tiny jazz and cocktail bar on a side street with no English signage, a bartender who has been pouring here for 20 years, and a drinks list that makes the most of Japanese whisky and shochu in ways you will not find in the tourist bars of Shinjuku. Worth the 20-minute train from central Tokyo.

Order: Highball made with Nikka From the Barrel — simple, perfectly executed, the local standard

Lisbon's old Mouraria neighbourhood is the city's most authentic drinking district and Zé da Mouraria is a perfect specimen of the local tasca — a tiny neighbourhood bar with no pretensions, ceramic tile walls, cheap wine poured from ceramic jugs, and regulars who have been coming here for decades. Tourists who wander in are treated well; people who speak even a little Portuguese are welcomed like returning family.

Order: House red wine in a ceramic jug and a small glass of ginjinha — the Lisbon combination

Coupette sits on a quiet street in Bethnal Green and would be entirely missable if you did not know it was there. The cocktails are built around Calvados and French spirits and are among the most technically accomplished in London. The room is small, the lighting is correct, and the menu rewards people who read it carefully. One of the bars we recommend most often to first-time visitors to London who ask where the locals actually drink.

Order: The Champs-Elysees — their signature Calvados cocktail and always the right answer

Kwānt consistently appears on the World's 50 Best Bars list and the cocktails justify every entry. The menu is focused, seasonal and built around spirits most London bars do not stock. The room is intimate and the service is exactly what you want from a bar of this calibre — attentive without being intrusive. Bookings are available and recommended for evenings; walk-ins are possible earlier in the week. Worth planning your evening around.

Order: The current signature — they rotate frequently and the current menu is always their best work

Bar Agricole built its reputation on agricultural spirits — rhum agricole, unaged brandy, mezcal — at a time when San Francisco was still catching up to the cocktail revival happening elsewhere. It remains one of the most thoughtful bars in the city, with a menu that assumes you want to learn something and service that delivers the education without condescension. The raw concrete-and-wood interior has aged well.

Order: The Ti' Punch made with Neisson blanc — the classic French Caribbean approach, done properly

Bar Raval is one of the most architecturally remarkable bars in North America — a mahogany fantasy interior inspired by Barcelona's modernisme movement, carved in swirling organic forms. The food is outstanding pintxos, the vermouth selection is taken seriously, and the cocktail list is concise and well-executed. It is always full, which is the correct way to experience it. Arrive at 5pm to get a position at the bar or prepare to stand.

Order: House vermouth with olives and an anchovy pintxo — the combination the room was designed for