The 100 Best Bars in the World for 2026, Ranked

• Melbourne’s Caretaker’s Cottage is Australia’s only entry in The World’s 50 Best Bars 2026, ranking No. 45 after placing No. 19 last year.
• Hong Kong’s Bar Leone has been named the world’s best bar for the second consecutive year, ahead of venues in Milan, Cartagena, Bangkok and Athens.
• New York, Hong Kong, and Paris share the most entries, with four each, while more Australian venues sit outside the top 50.

Australia has plenty of excellent cocktail bars, but according to the newly announced World’s Best Bars 2026, only one deserved a place among the best on the planet. And if you’ve been checking the rankings over the past few years, you can probably guess which one.

Sorry, Sydney, but Caretaker’s Cottage in Melbourne holds the only spot among the top 50 World’s Best Bars of 2026, landing at No. 45 on this year’s list. But don’t let them rub it in our faces just yet. The bar behind Wesley Church has fallen from its No. 19 spot in 2025. That being said, Sydney’s Maybe Sammy dropped out of the top 50 completely, from No. 42 last year to No. 75 on the extended 51–100 list. Capital city cocktail rivalries aside, neither bar can hold a candle to the No. 1 spot.

The annual awards, announced in Milan (home to the No. 2 bar, Moebius Milano) on 7 October, saw Hong Kong’s Bar Leone retain its title as the world’s best bar for the second consecutive year. The list also welcomed 14 new entries, with the top 50 venues spread across 26 cities. And although Paris doesn’t have a bar in the top ten, it now joins Hong Kong and New York as one of the most represented cities on the list.

The World’s Five Best Bars for 2026

The five highest-ranking bars span Hong Kong, Milan, Cartagena, Bangkok and Athens. These are the organisers’ rankings, based on expert votes, rather than our own hands-on reviews.

Rank	Bar	City
1	Bar Leone	Hong Kong
2	Moebius Milano	Milan
3	Alquímico	Cartagena
4	Bar Us	Bangkok
5	Line	Athens

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Prices below are in local currencies. Menus and opening hours can change; check with the venue before visiting.

1. Bar Leone, Hong Kong

At the top end of the rankings, Bar Leone has held the No. 1 spot for the second consecutive year. Co-founded by Italian bartender Lorenzo Antinori, the Hong Kong venue brings a slice of Rome’s neighbourhood drinking culture to Asia, favouring classic cocktails, Italian snacks and a decidedly less formal atmosphere than you might expect from the world’s best bar.

And while Hong Kong might not be the first city you think of for Italian food, you’re here for the cocktails first and foremost, and their philosophy spells it out as cleanly as a freshly poured martini. Cocktail Popolari, meaning “cocktails for the people”. Now, having become the first Asian bar to claim the global No. 1 ranking in 2025, it’s done it for the people twice.

The room follows through on that neighbourhood-bar idea, with football memorabilia, wood finishes and vintage Italian references. The snacks include smoked olives and a mortadella sandwich, so there’s something substantial to go with all those cocktails.

• Address: 11–15 Bridges Street, Central, Hong Kong
• Cocktail prices: Check the current menu at the venue
• Open: Sunday–Thursday, 5 pm until late; Friday–Saturday, 3 pm until late
• Bookings: Walk-ins only

2. Moebius Milano, Milan

Moebius Milano gives you several reasons to stay beyond the first drink. The large Milan venue combines a cocktail bar and tapas-style bistro with a separate experimental restaurant, live music and a record shop. You can build an evening around dinner and a performance, or keep things to a drink at the bar.

The menu takes familiar cocktail names into the kitchen. Its Pesto Martini brings together vodka, vermouth, pesto and white balsamic vinegar, while a Tzatziki Highball mixes tequila with yoghurt, coconut water, cucumber and dill oil. Italian aperitivo has plenty of room for experimentation here.

• Address: Via Alfredo Cappellini 25, Milan, Italy
• Cocktail prices: Featured cocktails €16, including the Pesto Martini; classics from €14
• Open: Tapa Bistrot, Sunday–Thursday, 6 pm–1 am; Friday–Saturday, 6 pm–2 am

3. Alquímico, Cartagena

Alquímico spreads its cocktail offering across three floors in Cartagena’s historic centre. Each has its own menu, with the third floor taking ingredients grown on the team’s Colombian farm and putting them into the glass.

That connection developed during the 2020 lockdown, when part of the team moved to the farm in Colombia’s coffee region. The resulting drinks programme supports reforestation and growing projects as well as supplying the bar. On the current third-floor menu, the Lemon Balm combines gin, lemon verbena, grapefruit, lemon balm and Eureka lemon, while Calendula pairs whisky with ripe banana, marigold and tangerine. The farm connection gives you considerably more to go on than a vague promise of seasonal cocktails.

• Address: Calle del Colegio 34-24, Centro Histórico, Cartagena, Colombia
• Cocktail prices: COP 45,000 for cocktails on the third-floor menu
• Open: Daily from 7 pm

4. Bar Us, Bangkok

Bar Us approaches its drinks list like a dinner menu, moving through starters, mains and afters, with an all-night section for its versions of familiar classics. The courses give you a way into a menu that can otherwise read more like a shopping list for the kitchen.

The main-course cocktails lean into savoury ingredients. Mapo Tofu combines Irish whiskey with sesame, garlic, cucumber, red shallot, chilli oil and winter melon juice. The Boiled Egg Martini uses distilled egg white, vermouth and olive brine, finished with a boiled quail egg.

• Address: 61/37 Sukhumvit 26, Bangkok, Thailand
• Cocktail prices: Mapo Tofu THB 490; Boiled Egg Martini THB 500, excluding 7% VAT and 10% service charge
• Open: Sunday–Thursday, 6 pm–midnight; Friday–Saturday, from 6 pm

5. Line, Athens

Inside a former Athens art gallery, Line puts fermentation to work across the drinks list and kitchen. It makes fruit wines known as “why-ins”, brews beer and bakes sourdough, using seasonal produce from small Greek suppliers.

Those processes feed into one another. Ingredients and fermentation by-products move between recipes, including the vermouths used in its cocktails, while the kitchen finds uses for materials left over elsewhere. You can explore that approach through a cocktail, a glass of house-made fruit wine or something to eat. Its place in the top five comes with the 2026 Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award.

• Address: Agathodaimonos 37, Athens, Greece
• Cocktail prices: Check the current menu at the venue
• Open: Listed by venue guides as daily, 10 am–2 am; confirm directly before visiting

The World’s 50 Best Bars 2026: Full List

Rank	Bar	City
1	Bar Leone	Hong Kong
2	Moebius Milano	Milan
3	Alquímico	Cartagena
4	Bar Us	Bangkok
5	Line	Athens
6	Handshake Speakeasy	Mexico City
7	Zest	Seoul
8	Connaught Bar	London
9	Lady Bee	Lima
10	Bar Mauro	Mexico City
11	Schmuck	New York
12	Hope & Sesame	Guangzhou
13	The Cambridge Public House	Paris
14	Sip & Guzzle	New York
15	Bar Nouveau	Paris
16	Sips	Barcelona
17	Paradiso	Barcelona
18	Jigger & Pony	Singapore
19	The Bar in Front of the Bar	Athens
20	Exímia	São Paulo
21	Tres Monos	Buenos Aires
22	Mamba Negra	Medellín
23	De Vie	Paris
24	Himkok	Oslo
25	Argo	Hong Kong
26	Danico	Paris
27	Dry Wave Cocktail Studio	Bangkok
28	El Gallo Altanero	Guadalajara
29	Satan’s Whiskers	London
30	BKK Social Club	Bangkok
31	Victor Audio Bar	Buenos Aires
32	Waltz	London
33	Locale Firenze	Florence
34	Mirror Bar	Bratislava
35	Tan Tan	São Paulo
36	Montana	Hong Kong
37	Sastrería Martinez	Lima
38	Nutmeg & Clove	Singapore
39	Bar Carmen	Medellín
40	Barro Negro	Athens
41	Gokan	Hong Kong
42	Mimi Kakushi	Dubai
43	Nouvelle Vague	Tirana
44	Bar Benfiddich	Tokyo
45	Caretaker’s Cottage	Melbourne
46	Martiny’s	New York
47	Tlecān	Mexico City
48	Virtù	Tokyo
49	Bar Snack	New York
50	Angelita	Madrid

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1/5

Caretaker’s Cottage Is Australia’s Only Top-50 Bar

Tucked away in a former church caretaker’s residence on Little Lonsdale Street, Caretaker’s Cottage isn’t exactly what you’d picture when someone mentions one of the world’s best cocktail bars. Instead, you get exactly what the name suggests: a bar inside the caretaker’s cottage. Seems Caretaker’s Cottage and Bar Leone share that in common.

Opened in 2022 by Rob Libecans, Ryan Noreiks and Matt Stirling, the small Melbourne venue has built its reputation around a rotating cocktail menu, vinyl records on the decks and the unlikely but delicious pairing of Guinness on tap and freezer-cold martinis. It’s the sort of place where ordering an expertly made cocktail doesn’t force you into some mixologist dungeon through an exit door in a back alley you wouldn’t let your niece wander into after dark.

And while it’s slipped down the rankings since last year, the cosy Caretaker’s Cottage hasn’t disappeared from the international bar conversation. The venue first entered the global top 50 at No. 23 in 2023, climbed to No. 21 in 2024 and reached No. 19 last year. Its latest appearance marks four consecutive years on the list. Not to mention, they’ve retained the Best Bar in Australasia title for 2026. Take that, New Zealand.

Same Team Behind Two of the World’s Best Bars

But the recognition for the team behind this Aussie bar doesn’t stop there. They’ve also opened Three Horses in Melbourne, a newer bar with a particular fondness for sherry. It landed at No. 84 on the extended 51–100 list and took home the Campari One to Watch Award, recognising a bar the organisers believe could enter the top 50 in the future. Not a bad result for a team with two Melbourne bars attracting this much international attention.

Meanwhile, Sydney’s Maybe Sammy is still poking around the world’s top 100 bars, sliding to No. 75. Unfortunately, that means Australia’s representation drops from two in the top 50 to just one. You win this round, Melbourne.

51–100: The Best of the Rest

The extended ranking brings Sydney’s Maybe Sammy and Melbourne’s Three Horses into the picture, alongside another 48 venues around the world.

Rank	Bar	City
51	Tjoget	Stockholm
52	Boadas	Barcelona
53	Double Chicken Please	New York
54	Coa	Hong Kong
55	Baba au Rum	Athens
56	Cochinchina	Buenos Aires
57	Boilermaker	Goa
58	LPM Dubai	Dubai
59	Form + Matter	Mexico City
60	MO Bar Shenzhen	Shenzhen
61	Superbueno	New York
62	Freni e Frizioni	Rome
63	Licorería Limantour	Mexico City
64	Jewel of the South	New Orleans
65	Svanen	Oslo
66	Salmon Guru	Madrid
67	Arca	Tulum
68	Bar Gabriel	Istanbul
69	Penicillin	Hong Kong
70	Kumiko	Chicago
71	Bar Cham	Seoul
72	Panda & Sons	Edinburgh
73	Three Sheets (Soho)	London
74	Bar Trench	Tokyo
75	Maybe Sammy	Sydney
76	Naked	Athens
77	Scarfes Bar	London
78	Employees Only	New York
79	Vender	Taichung
80	Front/Back	Accra
81	Mius	Hong Kong
82	Otro Bar	San José
83	Röda Huset	Stockholm
84	Three Horses	Melbourne
85	G.O.D	Bangkok
86	Smoke & Bitters	Hiriketiya
87	La Borracha	Accra
88	The SG Club	Tokyo
89	Offtrack	Singapore
90	Foco	Barcelona
91	Gucci Giardino	Florence
92	Drink Kong	Rome
93	Little Red Door	Paris
94	1930	Milan
95	La Sala de Laura	Bogotá
96	The Savory Project	Hong Kong
97	Opium	Bangkok
98	Bar 1661	Dublin
99	Vesper	Bangkok
100	The Bellwood	Tokyo

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What Are the World’s 50 Best Bars Awards?

Published annually since 2009, the ranking is organised by William Reed and recognises bars worldwide through votes from an international academy. The 2026 ceremony in Milan marked its 18th edition. Alongside the main top 50, the organisers publish an extended 51–100 list and present awards recognising destinations, hospitality, sustainability and individual achievements.

How the World’s 50 Best Bars Are Chosen

More than 800 drinks experts across 29 geographic regions vote for their favourite bar experiences. Each member chooses eight bars they visited in the preceding 18 months, ranking them in order of preference. Up to five can be in the voter’s home country, territory or SAR.

No fixed checklist defines the “best” bar. The result reflects the academy’s experiences and judgement, rather than a universal score for every cocktail served.

The Voting Rules

• Voters cannot choose bars they own or have a financial interest in.
• Votes must reflect a visit to the bar itself, rather than a guest shift elsewhere.
• Members are asked to provide proof of their visit, such as a receipt, booking confirmation or photograph.
• Employees of the organiser and award sponsors cannot join the voting academy.
• Voting is confidential, and Deloitte independently adjudicates the process and results.

World’s 50 Best Bars FAQs