World Best Bars 2023: Barcelona continues to dominate the World’s 50 Best Bars list, with intimate cocktail bar Sips taking first place in the 2023 awards. Tuesday’s announcement marks Spain’s cosmopolitan city’s second win in a row, as London and New York agencies have long dominated the coveted title. The trendy speakeasy Paradiso, which took top honors last year, dropped to fourth place this year. Tuesday’s ceremony, held at a decommissioned 1950s power station in Singapore, was the first time in the award’s 14-year history that it was held outside Europe.
The list has also become increasingly diverse in recent years: Mexico City has four bars on the 2023 list, including Handshake Speakeasy in third place, while Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires and host city Singapore have three top 50 bars. Restaurants from several Asian countries make the list for the first time, including Seoul’s sustainability-focused Zest, a newcomer at number 18. Bangkok’s burgeoning bar scene also performed strongly, with cocktail bar Mahaniyom at 19th and retro-styled BKK Social Club. named 13th best bar in Asia. Winners are selected anonymously by the Academy of the World’s 50 Best Bars, a panel of 680 industry stakeholders including bar owners, bartenders and critics. Organizers said there was no specific voting criteria and participants were simply asked to rate “where they had the best experience”.
Let’s call it a dream.
While New York City only had three bars on the list this year (up from eight in 2015), the runner-up was Double Chicken Please on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Café La Trova in Miami and Jewel of the South in New Orleans ranked 24th and 49th in Florida and Louisiana, respectively. Although London once again has the largest number of pubs in the top 50, on Tuesday, for the first time since the award was presented in 2009, none of the pubs in the British capital made it into the top three. Two-time winner Connaught Bar, located in London’s exclusive Mayfair district, finished in fifth place. Konna finished eighth last year.
Sip co-founders Simone Caporale and Mark Alvarez, who opened their bar in Barcelona during the Covid-19 pandemic, say taking the top spot could be game-changing for their bar. “Let’s call it a dream,” Caporale told CNN shortly after the award was announced.
With just 33 seats, Sips uses local ingredients to create what Alvarez calls “haute couture cocktails.” The celebrity bartender praised the Barcelona bar’s growing reputation, adding: “It’s a very nice place – the architecture, the food, the great weather. If you add good drinks and good service, I think it should be recognized (somewhere). “
William Reed, the company behind the annual awards, recently compiled a regional list of the 50 best bars in Asia and North America, won by Coa in Hong Kong and the aforementioned Double Chicken Please in New York earlier this year.
The organization also coordinated the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, in which the No. 1 restaurant in 2023 was Central, a gourmet restaurant in Lima, Peru.
The World’s Best Bars – 2023
No.1 Sips
Barcelona
@sips.barcelona
It’s a sight to behold when two of the industry’s most creative minds meet. That’s exactly what happened when Simone Caporale and Mark Alvarez founded Sips in 2021. Just two years old, it has been named “Best Bar in the World” and “Best Bar in Europe 2023” and is sponsored by Perrier. This pub is all about serious cocktails served in a light-hearted format, such as the Primordial – a blend of 12-year-old Scotch whisky, ruby porter and peranashi – served to diners with two hands in a metal tumbler. Come up.
No.2 Double Chicken Please
New York
@doublechickenpleasenyc
Winners of the 2023 Altos Bartender Bartender Awards, GN Chan and Faye Chen’s Lower East Side bar has quickly become a household name for its gourmet-inspired offerings. You can try different cocktails at the front of the “Free Range”. In the back room, also known as the “Chicken Farm”, you can expect the magic of Chan and Chan to come true. The highest rated bar on the continent, DCP was named the best bar in North America and was sponsored by Tia Maria.
No.3 Handshake Speakeasy
Mexico City
@handshake_bar
handsShake, Mexico City. Located in Mexico City’s trendy Colonia Juarez district, Handshake is a cocktail mecca of black lacquer, marble and brass. While the mid-century interior celebrates the golden age, the menu looks to the future through the modern vision of bar director Eric Van Beek.
No.4 Paradiso
Barcelona
@paradiso_barcelona
Paradis, Barcelona. Behind the fridge door at a pastrami shop in Barcelona, you’ll find this Gaudi-inspired speaker. Inside is a cocktail wonderland designed by the Paradiso team, run by husband and wife team Giacomo Giannotti and Margarita Sadera.
No.5 Connaught Bar
London
@theconnaught
The Connaught Bar can be the ultimate luxury hotel bar experience, perfectly delivering luxurious hospitality and service. Run by legendary bartender trio Agostino Perrone, Maura Millia and Giorgio Bargiani, the bar has been at the forefront of the industry for the past 15 years, and for good reason.
No.6 Little Red Door
Paris
@littlereddoorparis
As one of the few bars to appear in the World’s 50 Best Bars more than 10 times, the Little Red Door has not only maintained an impeccably high standard, but has also reinvented itself as the norm. Today, this cosmopolitan nightclub is a leader in sustainable bar practices.
No.7 Licorería Limantour
Mexico City
@limantourmx
Licorería Limantour opened in 2011 and changed the face of bars in Mexico City. Led by Benjamin Padron and José Luis Leon, Limantours has become a Top 50 list stalwart over the past decade and a pioneer in the culture of knowledge sharing among bartenders around the world.
No.8 Tayēr + Elementary
London
@tayer_elementary
Alex Kratena and Monica Berg’s East London venue is more than just a bar. From the ingredient-focused seasonal cocktails to the modernist, sustainable techniques behind them and the custom bar stations that serve the cocktails, everything about this two-for-one bar is progressive.
No.9 Alquímico
Cartagena
@alquimicocartagena
From intense ballroom dancing to reggaeton to farm-to-bar feel-good concepts and a cutting-edge cocktail list that showcases Colombia’s biodiversity, Alquímico showcases its multiplexes in a three-story renovated mansion in Cartagena’s personality. Alquímico has been voted the best bar in South America for the third year in a row and is sponsored by Scrappy’s Bitters.
No.10 Himkok
Oslo
@himkok.oslo
Himkok, which can be translated as “home cooking”, is a master class in creating the ultimate cocktail experience from scratch. There’s everything on offer from gin and vodka taps pouring through the entrance to in-store frozen ice cubes and kegs of aquavi stored on site. Himcock rose 33 places from his previous ranking to become the winner of the 2023 Nikkas Top Climber Award.
- Tre but, Buenosairesa
- line, Athens
- Bangkok BKK Social Club
- Jigger & Pony, Singapore
- Maybe Sammy, Sydney
- Laxmeister, Madrid
- Overstory, New York
- Passionately, Seoul
- Mahaniyom Cocktail Bar, Bangkok
- Koa, Hong Kong
- Drink Kong, Rome
- 22 Hupanqui, Mexico City
- 23.Caretaker’s Cottage, Melbourne
For a full list of the top 50, visit the World’s 50 Best Bars website.
