Editorial
The best bars in 2024 will not all be in the neighbourhoods where the best bars were in 2023. Bar culture migrates — chefs and bartenders follow affordable rents, creatives cluster in the same postal codes, and within two years a formerly unremarkable street becomes the city's most interesting drinking destination. Our editors have been tracking the up-and-coming bar neighbourhoods that are about to break through. These are the ones to know before the queues arrive.
New York's established bar neighbourhoods — the West Village, the Lower East Side, Williamsburg — remain excellent. But the most interesting openings of the last 18 months have been happening elsewhere. Ridgewood in Queens has accumulated a dozen genuinely serious bars in three years. Crown Heights in Brooklyn has a cocktail bar scene that rivals Carroll Gardens from five years ago. These are not fringe claims; they are where the bartenders who used to work in the West Village are opening their own places.
London's bar geography is more stable than New York's — the West End and the City have been dominant for decades — but the periphery is getting interesting in ways it has not been before. Peckham's bar scene has matured beyond its early wave of openings. Hackney Wick has attracted serious operators who cannot afford Shoreditch rates. Dalston, which peaked as a nightlife destination around 2015, is now developing a cocktail bar culture that is considerably quieter and more considered than its reputation suggests.
Beyond the Anglo-American axis, several cities are developing bar districts that are about to break into international consciousness. Mexico City's Colonia Juárez has expanded beyond its original cocktail bar cluster. Tokyo's Shimokitazawa — long associated with live music — has added a crop of serious cocktail bars that draw a mixed local and international crowd. Lisbon's LX Factory area has moved past its early tourist trap phase and into something more genuinely local and interesting.
The common thread across all of these neighbourhoods is affordability driving ambition. When rents are lower, operators who cannot yet command the premium pricing of an established bar district can still produce excellent work. Visit these areas in 2024 and you will find cocktail bars charging 2019 prices for 2024-quality drinks. That window always closes — usually within two to three years of the first serious review appearing. The time to go is now. For our updated 2025 view, including 12 new neighbourhoods across Singapore, Tokyo, Mexico City and more, see the worldwide neighbourhood guide for 2025.
Our recommendation: pick one neighbourhood per city from this list and commit to understanding it properly. Talk to the bartenders about what else is on the street. The best discovery is always the bar you find by asking the bartender at the previous bar where they like to drink after their shift ends.
James spends most of his time in new neighbourhoods asking bartenders where they go after their shift. The strategy has produced better recommendations than any press trip. He writes about bar geography and how bar culture moves through cities over time.