The World's 50 Best Bars: What It Actually Means

The World's 50 Best Bars is the most influential list in the cocktail world, and it is also the list most misunderstood by the people who read it. Every year when the rankings are announced, the bar world debates the inclusions, the exclusions, and the curious movement of bars up and down the list. We have been reading these debates for over a decade. Here is a clear-eyed look at what the World's 50 Best Bars actually measures, why it matters, and which bars on the current list justify the journey.

How the World's 50 Best Bars Vote Actually Works

The list is produced annually by William Reed Business Media and uses a voting Academy of roughly 700 drinks industry professionals worldwide. Each voter submits a ranked list of their top seven bars. Voters cannot nominate bars in their own country, and they cannot nominate bars with which they have a direct commercial relationship. The Academy composition is updated annually and is not published in full, which is both the list's greatest protection against manipulation and its most common criticism.

The structural implications of this system are worth understanding. Bars that are well-networked within the international bartending community — bars whose owners and bartenders travel to industry events, host international bartenders, and build relationships with drinks professionals in other cities — have a structural advantage over equally excellent bars that operate locally without international visibility. This is why London, New York, Barcelona, and Tokyo produce a disproportionate number of entries: not because every bar in those cities is superior to every bar elsewhere, but because those cities have higher concentrations of internationally connected bartenders.

Handshake Speakeasy

Juárez, Mexico City $$$ World's Best Bar / Speakeasy

Eric van Beek and Eric Lorincz collaborated on a programme that reached the top of the World's 50 Best list through a combination of extraordinary technical precision and a vision for what Mexican cocktail culture could be on the world stage. The entrance is through a hidden door. The drinks are among the most technically demanding in Latin America. The recognition was universal: Handshake Speakeasy is one of those rare bars that the industry voted to the top and visitors consistently confirm belongs there.

Order: Whatever is at the top of the current tasting menu. The agave-forward cocktails are the bar's strongest suit.

Paradiso

El Born, Barcelona $$$ World's Best Bar 2021

Giacomo Giannotti's El Born bar has been in the top five of the World's 50 Best since its debut on the list, which is the single most reliable signal the list can produce about a bar's quality. You enter through a watermelon-shaped door in what appears to be a pastrami shop. Inside, the cocktail programme treats narrative and technique as equals — every drink tells a story, and the story is always secondary to the drink being genuinely excellent. We recommend making a reservation several weeks ahead.

Order: The Enigma cocktail or ask for the current season's signature progression.

The Connaught Bar

Mayfair, London $$$$ Hall of Fame / Historic

Agostino Perrone's Connaught Bar held the World's Best Bar title in 2020 and 2021 before entering the Hall of Fame — the programme for bars that have won the top spot and are retired from future competition. The martini trolley service remains one of the most theatrical and genuinely considered rituals in bar service anywhere in London. The setting is Mayfair perfection: all gold leaf and dark wood, with service that never tips from formal into stiff. Worth it at the price.

Order: The martini from the trolley. Let Agostino or his team customise it to your preference at the table.

The Bars Worth Travelling For Right Now

The honest answer about which 50 Best bars are worth a pilgrimage is: most of them. The bars that reach the list through the independent peer vote are, by definition, bars that a large number of well-travelled drinks professionals think are worth visiting. The question of whether any individual bar is worth a trip from your specific location is a function of the flight cost, your own priorities, and how seriously you take bar experiences as travel motivation. For a significant number of people reading this, the answer is: fairly seriously.

Our picks for the bars currently on the list that we consider non-negotiable — the ones where the experience of visiting will add something to your understanding of what bars can be — are weighted towards consistency over novelty, and towards bars where the quality of the work itself justifies the attention rather than the marketing around it.

Dante

Greenwich Village, NYC $$$ Hall of Fame / Accessible

Hall of Fame status (world's best in 2019) and still one of the most reliable bar experiences in New York. The aperitivo programme — Negronis, Garibaldis, Americanos, spritzes — is served with a precision and scale that most cocktail bars cannot match. The outdoor terrace on MacDougal Street is one of the best places to spend a summer evening in the Village. Hall of Fame membership means the bar will never be eligible for the top ranking again, which is the list's acknowledgement that some bars have earned permanent recognition.

Order: The Garibaldi with freshly juiced blood orange. The best value drink on the menu and the best argument for the aperitivo hour.

Atlas

St Regis Hotel, Singapore $$$$ Gin Palace / Grand Art Deco

The most architecturally dramatic bar on the World's 50 Best list — a soaring art deco atrium in the St Regis Singapore with a gin tower rising four storeys at its centre, containing over 1,300 expressions. Atlas has held its place on the list for years through a combination of that extraordinary visual statement and a cocktail programme built on the gin collection's depth. The champagne and caviar menu is optional but tonally perfect. Book in advance; it fills most evenings.

Order: A tour of the gin tower starting with something unusual by region: a Japanese gin from the middle shelf or a rare South African expression.

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The Bars the List Has Not Yet Found

The World's 50 Best is a peer-voted list, which means it reflects the bars that the voting Academy knows about. The bars it has not yet found are the ones that operate outside the established networks of the international drinks world: the outstanding neighbourhood bar in a second-tier city, the emerging bar in a market where the Academy has limited representation, the bar whose owners have chosen not to pursue the kind of international visibility that generates votes.

This is where editorial guides like this one have a different value proposition from the 50 Best. We can recommend bars in cities and categories where the peer-vote structure has structural blind spots. A hidden gem bar in Chicago or a craft beer bar in Edinburgh is never going to appear on the World's 50 Best list, but it can appear in our guides and earn a recommendation that means something to the person who walks through the door. For a wider view, our guide to the most famous bars in the world profiles 20 bars that earned their reputations outside the awards circuit entirely, and our 2025 world ranking covers bars the editors consider essential this year.

Licorería Limantour

Roma Norte, Mexico City $$ Latin America Pioneer

One of the bars that helped put Mexico City on the international cocktail map. Limantour has held a place in the World's 50 Best for years and was instrumental in demonstrating that Latin American bartending culture could compete with New York and London on a global stage. The neon-and-concrete Roma Norte space feels at home in the neighbourhood in a way that many internationally recognised bars do not. The mezcal-forward cocktail programme reflects the terroir of its location.

Order: The Tepache Sour or ask for the current seasonal mezcal cocktail.

Himkok

Storgata, Oslo $$$ Farm-to-Glass / Distillery

The most original bar in Scandinavia and one of the most original in Europe. Himkok operates its own micro-distillery, sources botanicals from Norwegian farms, and uses house-made ferments in cocktails that taste like the landscape they come from. The bar has held a consistent position in the World's 50 Best for years, which is remarkable for a bar in a city that does not benefit from the tourist volume of the traditional cocktail capitals.

Order: The aquavit martini or any cocktail that uses their house-distilled spirits and foraged ingredients.

Katana Kitten

West Village, NYC $$$ World's Best 2022

Masahiro Urushido's West Village bar took the World's Best Bar title in 2022 — a recognition that came from sustained peer respect rather than marketing. The Japanese whisky highball programme here is the most technically rigorous in New York: chilled glass, chilled water, precise carbonation, specific dilution. The cocktail menu sits at the intersection of Japanese precision and New York energy in a way that feels authentic to both. One of our editors' most recommended bars in the city.

Order: The Nikka From the Barrel highball or the Katana Kitten signature with shochu and yuzu.

Our Verdict: The List is a Starting Point

The World's 50 Best Bars is the most useful single resource for identifying bars that have earned sustained peer recognition in the international drinks community. It is not a complete picture of the world's best bars — no peer-voted list can be — and it over-represents certain cities and under-represents others. But the bars that reach it consistently deserve to be there, and visiting them is almost always worthwhile. Use it alongside editorial guides, local recommendations, and your own willingness to explore beyond the obvious list entries.

The bars above span different cities, price points, and styles, and all are on or adjacent to the current World's 50 Best list. Each one rewards the effort of finding it. That is, ultimately, what any bar list is trying to tell you.