The Most Famous Bars in the World

Giuseppe Cipriani opened Harry's Bar in 1931 and the Bellini — white peach puree and prosecco — was born here in 1948. The room is small, the prices are extraordinary, and the service is precisely as formal as you hope. Hemingway had his own corner. The Bellini remains the only acceptable order. Everything else is a concession to people who do not understand the assignment.

Order: A Bellini. The white peach version, in season. No substitutions.

Named the world's best bar multiple times, the Connaught's corner room in Mayfair operates at a level of precision that most bars never approach. The tableside Martini trolley — where a bartender blends your gin and vermouth to your specification — is not theatre. It is craft. Agostino Perrone has built something here that balances ceremony with genuine warmth.

Order: The Connaught Martini, prepared tableside. Extra dry, with a dash of Angostura bitters on the side.

Inside the Ritz Paris, Bar Hemingway is the bar where Ernest Hemingway allegedly liberated the hotel from German occupation in 1944, arriving ahead of Allied forces and ordering dry Martinis for the house. The room is small, dark, and covered in photographs and memorabilia. Colin Field has been the head bartender for over three decades and knows every story worth knowing.

Order: The Death in the Afternoon — champagne and absinthe — Hemingway's own recipe from his cocktail book.

Jack McGarry and Sean Muldoon built The Dead Rabbit into the most awarded bar in the world through obsessive commitment to cocktail research and Irish hospitality. The Parlor upstairs serves extraordinary punch bowls. The Taproom downstairs has the best Irish coffee in New York. Both rooms operate at a level that has not slipped since opening in 2013.

Order: The Irish Coffee in the Taproom. The best version in the city, by a significant margin.

The psychic at the door who reads your palm before you enter is not a gimmick — it is scene-setting for one of the most consistently excellent cocktail bars in New York. Open since 2004, Employees Only serves until 4am and maintains quality throughout. The kitchen closes late and the cheeseburger at midnight is one of the great bar meals.

Order: The Mata Hari — cognac, apricot liqueur, blood orange juice. A cocktail that has earned its reputation.

Tucked inside Arnaud's restaurant, the French 75 Bar is the finest room in New Orleans for a serious drink. The portraits of Germaine Wells — Arnaud's daughter, Queen of Mardi Gras six times — line the walls. Chris Hannah ran the bar program here for years before moving on, and the standards he built have held. The French 75 is made properly here: cognac, not gin.

Order: The French 75, cognac version. The correct interpretation, and the one the bar stakes its reputation on.

Hidetsugu Ueno's eight-seat bar in Ginza is the definitive expression of Japanese cocktail culture: impeccable technique, seasonal ingredients, and a level of care that turns every drink into a considered act. Reservations are essential. The carve-cut ice — shaped to the exact dimensions of the glass — is not affectation. It is science in service of flavor.

Order: Whatever Ueno recommends based on your stated preferences. Trust the process.

Named after the cocktail and housed inside the Regent Singapore, Manhattan Bar holds the world's largest collection of American whiskeys outside the United States — over 1,200 bottles. The in-house barrel aging programme turns out expressions you cannot find anywhere else. The bar team's knowledge of American whiskey history is genuinely encyclopedic.

Order: A Manhattan made with one of their house-aged expressions. Let the bartender guide the selection.

The gin tower at Atlas Bar — a nine-metre Art Deco monolith housing over 1,000 gins — is the centrepiece of a bar that operates at maximum ambition. The room is grand in a way that European palace hotels aspire to. The gin list covers every significant distillery on earth. The Negroni programme alone could occupy three visits.

Order: The Atlas Martini — their house gin selection with house-made dry vermouth infused with chamomile.