The Best Art Deco Bars in the World

Nine grand art deco and deco-influenced bars worldwide, ranked by our editors: gold-leaf ceilings, lacquered panels, and cocktails worth the trip.

James Harlow

Updated 2025-12-08 9 ranked bars

The short answer

Our editors' №1 is The Beaufort Bar.

9 ranked rooms follow. How we picked is at the end of this guide.

Best overallThe Beaufort Bar

Runner-upConnaught Bar

Third pickClaridge's Bar

Art deco is the architecture of ambition: gold leaf applied with conviction, geometric patterns that reward the eye, lacquered surfaces that refuse to apologize for their own glamour. The bars that wear the style well are among the most compelling rooms on earth, and a well-made sidecar in a room panelled with oxidized copper and lit by frosted-glass sconces lands differently than the same drink in a converted warehouse.

The style emerged in the 1920s and peaked between the wars, when hotels became its great showcase and their bars the most visible rooms. We surveyed our editors across a dozen cities for the nine bars that do deco, and deco-adjacent grandeur, best: not rooms that gesture at the look with a few chevron tiles, but rooms where the design and the drink cannot be separated. Every pick below carries a full profile in our directory.

The 9 Best Art Deco Bars in the World, Ranked

Editor's №1

The Beaufort Bar

Tucked inside the Savoy, the Beaufort is the darker, more theatrical sibling of the American Bar next door: black-lacquered walls, gold-leaf ceiling panels, and a list built around theatre and provocation. It occupies what was originally a cabaret stage, and the theatrical DNA runs through everything. The Negroni arrives with enough ceremony to justify its price. On a quiet Tuesday with a martini and a lit candle, it is one of the finest places to be in Europe. See our London cocktail bars guide.

Full listing & hours →

Connaught Bar

A repeat winner of the World's Best Bar award, the Connaught Bar is David Collins's masterpiece. The trolley martini service, prepared beside your table from a chrome cart of house-made vermouths and bitters, is one of the great theatrical gestures in hospitality. The room is quiet, precise, and exquisitely detailed. Mayfair's density of world-class hotel bars is unmatched anywhere; see our full guide to Mayfair bars for the wider picture.

Full listing & hours →

Claridge's Bar

Also by David Collins, Claridge's Bar is a modern interpretation of deco that succeeds completely: chrome, mirror, and dark leather in a room that reads both vintage and current. The champagne list runs 80 bottles and the cocktail program focuses on classics executed without fault. It has been cited as an influence by more bar designers than any other room in London. Arrive for a drink before dinner and you will likely stay for three.

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Bar Hemingway

Inside the Ritz Paris, Bar Hemingway is the most literarily charged room in any hotel on the planet: dark panelling, memorabilia from the bar's famous regulars, and a head bartender who treats every drink as a considered act. Every object here has a story and the bartenders know them all. Sit at the bar, not a table. The Paris cocktail bars scene is often beautiful but rarely this specific.

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The Nomad Bar

Inside the NoMad Hotel on Broadway sits one of the most photographed rooms in New York. Dark wood bookshelves climb floor to ceiling, brass fixtures gleam at every surface, and the program treats the classics with respect. The building draws on a 1903 Beaux-Arts foundation while adding the sharp geometric contrasts that edge it toward deco. Order the Amaro Sour and stay for a second; the back bar under its vaulted ceiling is worth the cab fare. More in our New York cocktail bars guide.

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Harry's New York Bar

Founded in 1911 and barely changed since, Harry's is the living artifact of a Paris that most cities only mythologize. The Bloody Mary was invented here, and the Sidecar too, if you ask the right people. Mahogany panelling, pennants from every American college, and bartenders who have poured the same drinks for decades. It is irreplaceable, and the closest thing to a time capsule on this list.

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The Aviary

Grant Achatz's West Loop bar applies culinary philosophy to the deco aesthetic: precision, restraint, and total commitment. The room is darker and more angular than the European examples, with a program that treats ice, temperature, and vessel as seriously as the spirits. The list changes monthly; the craft never does. Book ahead, the reservation list runs weeks deep. See our Chicago cocktail bars guide.

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The Dead Rabbit

The Dead Rabbit in the Financial District wears its Irish-American heritage as visually as any bar here. The parlour floor upstairs, with dark wood, patterned wallpaper, and a meticulous cocktail program, channels the saloon culture of 1850s New York through a contemporary lens. The punch-bowl service for two is one of the city's best drinks experiences.

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Bar High Five

Hidetsugu Ueno's Ginza bar is small enough to feel like a private room and precise enough to feel like a laboratory. The deco influence comes through in the lacquered surfaces, the perfectly maintained counter, and the insistence that every element is considered. The Japanese whisky selection is the finest we have encountered outside Scotland. Tokyo applies deco principles without always using deco forms; see our Tokyo cocktail bars guide.

Full listing & hours →

How we picked

We weight three things: how completely the room commits to its design, the quality and consistency of the drinks, and whether the whole adds up to a room you would cross a city for. We read thirty-plus recent Google reviews per bar alongside published coverage in Time Out, the Infatuation, and the World's 50 Best Bars record before ranking, and every venue carries a full profile in our directory.

We publish the honest length and the honest label. This is nine, not a padded ten, and several picks are deco-influenced rather than strict period pieces. The NoMad rests on a Beaux-Arts frame, Harry's is an early-1900s American bar, and Tokyo's High Five works in deco's spirit more than its forms. We say so rather than overclaim. Where a room could not be verified open and intact, it did not make the list.

For more on where to drink well by design, see our guides to the most atmospheric bars in the world, and our curated lists of date night bars in New York and date night bars in London.

Keep reading

Last reviewed 2025-12-08 · The editors recheck hours and closures against current local coverage.

The Best Art Deco Bars in the World

Our editors' №1 is The Beaufort Bar.

The 9 Best Art Deco Bars in the World, Ranked

How we picked

The bars worth going to, weekly.