Best-of list · City Guide
The definitive guide to the best bars in Miami — from craft cocktail dens in Brickell to rooftop lounges in South Beach. Updated 2026. Updated 2026.
The short answer
10 ranked rooms follow. How we picked is at the end of this guide.
The best bars in Miami are nothing like the clubs on Ocean Drive that tourists photograph and immediately regret entering. The city's real drinking culture lives in Brickell rooftop lounges, Wynwood cocktail rooms, and a handful of Coconut Grove institutions that have been doing this longer than most of their patrons have been of legal age. We've spent considerable time across all of it. Here's where our editors actually go. For deeper dives by neighbourhood, see our dedicated Wynwood bar guide, South Beach bar guide, and Brickell bar guide.
Miami's cocktail scene matured quickly over the past decade, driven by a generation of bartenders who trained in New York and Chicago before relocating for the weather. The result is a city where a serious drink is never more than a few blocks away, regardless of neighbourhood.
How we picked
Miami rewards the drinker who is willing to move between neighbourhoods. The single biggest mistake visitors make is staying on the beach — the city's best bars are almost all west of Collins Avenue. Our recommendation: start in Brickell for cocktails, move to Wynwood for the scene, and end the night in Little Havana if you want a genuinely Miami experience that money can't manufacture.
Marcus covers the US West Coast, Miami, and Latin America for barsforKings. He has been drinking his way through Miami's bar scene since 2015 and has strong opinions about which neighbourhoods are overrated.
Last reviewed 2026-05-01 · The editors recheck hours and closures against current local coverage.