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The World’s 50 Best Bars (extended to a 51-100 list) is drinks’ most influential annual awards programme, voted on by more than 500 bartenders, drinks writers and industry experts worldwide. The 2025 edition, the 17th annual list, was announced on 8 October 2025 in Hong Kong. Bar Leone took the top spot, the first Asian bar ever to top the list, and three Australian bars made an appearance.
At a Glance
- Best Overall: Bar Leone
- Best in Europe: Sips
- Best in Australia: Caretaker’s Cottage
- Most Consistent: Maybe Sammy
1. Bar Leone
Bar Leone took the No.1 spot in 2025, the first Asian bar to reach the top of the World’s 50 Best Bars ranking. Opened in June 2023 on Bridges Street in Central by Rome-born Lorenzo Antinori, who previously ran the bar at London’s Savoy and Dandelyan, it is a tribute to the neighbourhood bars of Italy.
The concept is “cocktail popolari”, or cocktails for the people: unpretentious, low-intervention takes on the classics served alongside mortadella and focaccia, with signatures such as a revived bellini poured over almond eau de vie with peach and cream, a smoked-olive-brine “filthy” martini and a white negroni made with yuzu sake. Antinori has said the bar “was born with the idea of being a neighbourhood cocktail bar” and that its team will “never change that ethos”. It was also named Best Bar in Asia 2025.
- City: Hong Kong
- 2025 Rank: 1st
- 2024 Rank: New entry
2. Handshake Speakeasy
Handshake Speakeasy holds 2nd place in 2025, a year after topping the ranking as the World’s Best Bar. The Polanco venue was co-founded in 2018 by Rodrigo Urraca and Marcos Di Battista, opened its doors in January 2019, and added Eric van Beek as bar director in 2021.
Set behind a discreet entrance, it splits across a Gatsby-era ground floor and a livelier basement, with cross-trained staff who rotate between roles through the night. The drinks are precise and culinary: a clarified piña colada, a Fig Martini, and the Three Sips Martini presented as a floral bouquet. It was also named Best Bar in North America 2025, the second year running, keeping Mexico City at the front of the global cocktail conversation.
- City: Mexico City
- 2025 Rank: 2nd
3. Sips
Sips ranks 3rd, one of two Barcelona bars in the top five and the highest-placed venue in Europe. It was co-founded in 2021 by Simone Caporale and Marc Álvarez, who spent a decade at elBulli, and does away with the traditional back bar in favour of an open “island” layout, with a hidden 14-seat inner room called Esencia running a tasting-menu format.
The cocktails are theatrical and technical, among them The Nixtamil, which pairs a corn and miso distillate with a red-fruit reduction served on a mirror, and a modified Tommy’s Margarita built with strawberry and yellow ají. Named the World’s Best Bar in 2023, Sips has now taken Best Bar in Europe two years running, and at the 2025 ceremony Caporale received the Roku Industry Icon Award for his influence on global bartending.
- City: Barcelona
- 2025 Rank: 3rd
4. Paradiso
Paradiso rounds out Barcelona’s strong showing at 4th, up from 10th the year before. Reached through the fridge door of a pastrami shop in El Born, the bar was opened around 2015 by Giacomo Giannotti and his partner Margarita Sáder, and its whale-ribbed timber interior has become one of the most recognisable rooms in the drinks world.
Cocktails are developed in an in-house creative space, the Paradiso Lab, with a strong focus on sustainability and multi-sensory presentation. Named the World’s Best Bar in 2022, it has since expanded with sister venues in Ibiza and Dubai, and its return to the top five confirms Barcelona as a genuine rival to London and New York for cocktail culture.
- City: Barcelona
- 2025 Rank: 4th
5. Tayer + Elementary
Tayer + Elementary lands at 5th, the highest-placed London bar this year. Opened in 2019 on Old Street by Monica Berg and Alex Kratena, it works as two bars in one: Elementary is the casual front room, serving fast draught cocktails from a weekly-changing menu, while Tayer is the elevated space built around a hexagonal bar with an ingredient-led list that shifts daily.
The signature One Sip Martini, finished with a blue cheese olive, has become a modern London staple. The World’s 50 Best judges describe it as “the blueprint for progressive cocktail bars”, a room that still feels “like stepping into the future” more than five years on. It reached as high as No.2 in 2022.
- City: London
- 2025 Rank: 5th
6. Connaught Bar
The Connaught Bar sits at 6th in 2025, having appeared on 16 of the award’s 17 lists and held the No.1 position in both 2020 and 2021. Found inside The Connaught hotel in Mayfair, the David Collins-designed room is credited with reshaping what a five-star hotel bar could be when it opened in 2008, modernising both the drinks and the service.
Its calling card is the Martini Trolley, wheeled to the table so guests can choose their own house vermouths and bitters before it is finished with the bar’s signature bitters blend. Led by head bartenders Agostino Perrone and Giorgio Bargiani, it is described by the World’s 50 Best as a place where “modernity meets classicism in this pinnacle of hotel drinking”.
- City: London
- 2025 Rank: 6th
7. Moebius Milano
Moebius Milano takes 7th, Italy’s highest-ranked bar and the biggest mover in the top 10, jumping 31 places from 38th to claim the Nikka Highest Climber Award for 2025. Set in a former textile warehouse and named after the French science-fiction artist Jean Giraud, it spreads a bar, bistro and fine-dining room called Moebius Sperimentale across two floors, built around a 700-year-old Andalusian olive tree.
Founded by Lorenzo Querci and led behind the bar by Giovanni Allario, its list leans into savoury, produce-driven ideas such as a Pesto Martini of vodka, white balsamic and house-made pesto, and a Seed Negroni made with pumpkin seeds and cream. Milan will host the World’s 50 Best Bars ceremony in 2026, with Moebius now the city’s standard-bearer.
- City: Milan
- 2025 Rank: 7th
8. Line
Line holds 8th place, part of a broader rise in recognition for the Athens cocktail scene. Housed in a former art gallery in the Kato Petralona district, the bar runs on a near closed-loop model, fermenting its own fruit wines, beers and sourdough on site and folding the waste back into the menu.
The World’s 50 Best describe it as “an airy former gallery bar with a farm-to-glass ethos”. Its house fruit wines, the “Why-ins”, are made with winemaker Thanos Georgilas, while the Delusional Margarita reworks the classic with mustard, ketchup and potato water. Founded by Dimitris Dafopoulos alongside Vasilis Kyritsis and Nikos Bakoulis of The Clumsies, Line went on to top the inaugural Europe’s 50 Best Bars in 2026.
- City: Athens
- 2025 Rank: 8th
9. Jigger & Pony
Jigger & Pony ranks 9th, Singapore’s standard-bearer on the global list for more than a decade. Opened in 2012 by married co-founders Indra Kantono and Gan Guoyi, the Tanjong Pagar bar pairs classic technique with one of the industry’s most collected menus, an annual “menuzine” produced as a printed magazine. The 2025 edition, titled EMBRACE, ran to 68 pages and 21 cocktails across three chapters.
Drinks such as the Red Revival, which blends beetroot, house-roasted Liberica coffee and tequila, show the kitchen-like approach to flavour, while the house Paloma uses a guava and grapefruit soda made in-house. Gan is also a founding president of the Singapore Cocktail Bar Association, a mark of the pair’s role in building the city’s bar culture.
- City: Singapore
- 2025 Rank: 9th
10. Tres Monos
Tres Monos closes out the top 10 and was named Best Bar in South America for 2025, having climbed steadily from 85th in 2020. The small, indie-minded room on Guatemala Street in Palermo trades on neon, loud music and a hidden back space known as El Garage, but the substance is in the glass: much of the list is built on spirits the team distils and ferments themselves, from a bourbon-style whiskey to sake and pét-nat.
The signature Julep de D10S, a nod to Diego Maradona, layers a house liqueur with amaro, strawberry miso and grapefruit. Founders Sebastián Atienza and Charly Aguinsky also run La Escuelita, a free cocktail school in a Buenos Aires shantytown that trains young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, giving the bar a social mission beyond the ranking.
- City: Buenos Aires
- 2025 Rank: 10th
Australian Bars on the 2025 List
Australia has held continuous representation on the World’s 50/100 Best Bars list every year since 2019, even as the specific venues have changed. Three bars made the 2025 cut.
11. Maybe Sammy
Maybe Sammy is the most consistent Australian bar in the award’s history, placing in the global top 50 every single year since opening in 2019, seven consecutive years running. It sits at 42nd in 2025, down from 26th in 2024, but the run itself is the real story.
Set on Harrington Street in The Rocks, the bar leans into a 1960s European hotel glamour, with theatrical, playful service, think bubble guns and drinks arriving on inflatable pool toys, that has made it, in the words of the World’s 50 Best, a place where “you’re whisked away from what’s outside and you leave feeling better than you did”. Founded by Stefano Catino, Vince Lombardo and Martin Hudak under The Maybe Group, it has been among Australia’s most awarded bars for the past decade.
- City: Sydney
- 2025 Rank: 42nd
- Years on the List: 2019-2025, 7 straight years
- Status: Open
12. Caretaker’s Cottage
Caretaker’s Cottage is the fastest-rising Australian bar on the current list, climbing from 60th on its 2022 debut to 19th in 2025, and it was again named Best Bar in Australasia, the second year running. The tiny room on Little Lonsdale Street occupies the former caretaker’s residence of the neighbouring church, and its charm is in the simplicity: the offering effectively runs on two drinks, a precise martini and a cold Guinness, often served together as a boilermaker.
Opened in 2022 by Rob Libecans, Ryan Noreiks and Matt Stirling, it took the Michter’s Art of Hospitality Award in 2024 and is described by the World’s 50 Best as a place where “every guest feels like they’ve found a place of their own”. The trio has since opened a sherry-led follow-up, Three Horses.
- City: Melbourne
- 2025 Rank: 19th
- Award: Best Bar in Australasia, 2025
- Status: Open
13. Byrdi
Byrdi is the only Australian bar on the 2025 extended list, appearing across most of the past six years and peaking at 35th in 2024 before easing to 91st. Opened in 2019 in Melbourne Central by Luke Whearty and Aki Nishikura, it is described by the World’s 50 Best as a bar that “majors on hyperlocal produce, small-batch spirits and laid-back Aussie spirit”.
The sourcing ethos is unusually strict: produce, spirits and even fit-out materials are drawn from Victoria where possible, and the short cocktail list is rewritten regularly around what is in season. Past signatures have included the Peach Boba, a take on bubble tea with wattleseed pearls, and the Speed Bump, a tableside martini finished with a bump of Yarra Valley caviar. It now trades on reduced hours.
- City: Melbourne
- 2025 Rank: 91st
- Best Rank: 35th (2024)
- Status: Open, reduced hours
What Happened to Sydney and Melbourne’s 2019 Favourites
Five Australian bars featured on the 2019 list: Maybe Sammy, Bulletin Place, The Baxter Inn, Black Pearl and PS40. Only Maybe Sammy remains on the current list. The other four dropping off the awards is not the same as the venues closing, though one of them genuinely has.
Bulletin Place closed permanently on 28 May 2021 after 8.5 years trading, citing financial pressure and landlord issues. The site is now occupied by an unrelated bar, Bar 1880.
The Baxter Inn, Black Pearl and PS40 are all still open and trading today. They simply dropped off the awards list while the venues themselves carried on: The Baxter Inn still runs its no-bookings Clarence Street basement most nights, Black Pearl remains a Fitzroy institution after more than 23 years, and PS40 still operates on King Street.
Australian Bars on the World’s Best List, 2019 to 2025
| Bar | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
| Maybe Sammy | 43rd (new entry) | 11th | 22nd | 29th | N/R | 26th | 42nd |
| Caretaker’s Cottage | N/A | N/A | N/A | 60th (new entry) | 23rd | 21st | 19th |
| Byrdi | N/A | 80th | 56th | off list | 61st | 35th | 91st |
| Bulletin Place | 66th | 39th | Closed May 2021 | – | – | – | – |
| The Baxter Inn | 79th | off list | – | – | – | – | – |
| Black Pearl | 80th | 98th (ext.) | off list | – | – | – | – |
| PS40 | 95th | off list | – | – | – | – | – |
100 Best Bars in the World FAQs
The list is voted on by an academy of more than 500 bartenders, bar owners, drinks writers and industry experts worldwide, each casting votes for the best bars they’ve visited in the past 18 months, weighted so no single region or bar’s home country dominates the result.
Yes, three of the five are still trading: The Baxter Inn, Black Pearl and PS40 all remain open, they’ve simply dropped off the current awards list. Only Bulletin Place has actually closed, in May 2021.
Maybe Sammy, which has placed on the global top 50 every single year since it opened in 2019, seven consecutive years and counting.
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