Editorial
Not every bar list is what it appears. The bar discovery landscape is crowded with publications, apps, and guides that present paid placement as editorial recommendation, and the distinction matters if you are trying to find bars that are actually worth your time. We have been writing about bars long enough to see every version of this problem. Here is how to tell the difference between a sponsored bar list and a trustworthy editorial one — and which bars keep appearing on the latter regardless of who is paying.
The clearest signal is the presence of the same chain bars, hotel properties, or spirit brand-affiliated venues in every "best of" feature from a particular publication. Chain bars pay for marketing. Hotel properties have PR budgets. Spirit brands fund bars and pay for editorial placement of those bars. None of this is hidden — it is simply never disclosed. When the same commercially-backed venues appear in every list regardless of their actual quality, the editorial process is working for someone other than the reader.
A second signal is the absence of any bars that are difficult to find, inconvenient to reach, or require a reservation made weeks in advance. The best bars in most cities are not the easiest to access. A bar list that never includes a hard-to-get reservation, a walk-up-only neighbourhood spot, or a place that requires local knowledge to find has almost certainly been assembled with commercial rather than editorial criteria.
There is a category of bar that appears consistently across independent editorial lists, industry award shortlists, and word-of-mouth recommendations simultaneously — and whose appearance on paid-placement lists is incidental rather than causal. These bars are the ones you can trust. When a bar appears on the World's 50 Best Bars (which uses an anonymous industry vote), in Time Out's editor-researched shortlists, in the recommendations of bartenders you already trust, and in the barsforKings editorial selection, that convergence is meaningful.
The convergence happens because these bars are consistently and genuinely excellent. They are not paying for placement — they are generating it through quality. The fact that some of them also engage in commercial partnerships with spirit brands does not compromise their editorial standing, because their quality stands independently of those relationships.
We are transparent about how this site works. Bars can pay to be listed in our sponsored placement sections, which are clearly labelled. Our editorial sections — the guides to city bars, category picks, and articles like this one — are not for sale. A bar can pay for a sponsored listing and still not appear in our editorial picks if our editors do not think it is worth recommending. A bar can appear in our editorial picks without having paid anything if our editors think it is worth recommending. These two things are entirely separate.
We tell you this not because it is unusual — most credible editorial operations work this way — but because the number of bar guides that do not separate commercial and editorial is large enough that stating it clearly matters. When we recommend a bar in this guide, it is because we have been there, or have credible evidence from people who have, and believe it represents the best of what its category offers. That is the only criterion.
No single bar guide, this one included, should be your only reference. The bars worth going to are the ones that appear consistently across independent sources: industry award shortlists, the recommendations of bartenders you respect, and editorial guides with a clear commercial separation policy. When three or four independent sources agree on a bar, that convergence is meaningful. When one source recommends a bar that appears nowhere else, ask why.
The bars in this article are there because they earn their recommendations through quality, not through marketing spend. That is the only standard we apply, and it is the standard any bar guide worth following should apply too.
James has spent fifteen years drinking in bars across four continents and has strong opinions about editorial independence in drinks media. He is transparent about the difference between what he has been paid to write and what he actually thinks.