Best-of list · Industry Guide
The World's 50 Best Bars list shapes the global cocktail world every year. We explain how it works, what it actually measures…. Updated 2026.
The short answer
8 ranked rooms follow. How we picked is at the end of this guide.
The World's 50 Best Bars is the most influential list in the cocktail world, and it is also the list most misunderstood by the people who read it. Every year when the rankings are announced, the bar world debates the inclusions, the exclusions, and the curious movement of bars up and down the list. We have been reading these debates for over a decade. Here is a clear-eyed look at what the World's 50 Best Bars actually measures, why it matters, and which bars on the current list justify the journey.
The list is produced annually by William Reed Business Media and uses a voting Academy of roughly 700 drinks industry professionals worldwide. Each voter submits a ranked list of their top seven bars. Voters cannot nominate bars in their own country, and they cannot nominate bars with which they have a direct commercial relationship. The Academy composition is updated annually and is not published in full, which is both the list's greatest protection against manipulation and its most common criticism.
The structural implications of this system are worth understanding. Bars that are well-networked within the international bartending community — bars whose owners and bartenders travel to industry events, host international bartenders, and build relationships with drinks professionals in other cities — have a structural advantage over equally excellent bars that operate locally without international visibility. This is why London, New York, Barcelona, and Tokyo produce a disproportionate number of entries: not because every bar in those cities is superior to every bar elsewhere, but because those cities have higher concentrations of internationally connected bartenders.
How we picked
The World's 50 Best Bars is the most useful single resource for identifying bars that have earned sustained peer recognition in the international drinks community. It is not a complete picture of the world's best bars — no peer-voted list can be — and it over-represents certain cities and under-represents others. But the bars that reach it consistently deserve to be there, and visiting them is almost always worthwhile. Use it alongside editorial guides, local recommendations, and your own willingness to explore beyond the obvious list entries. For a deeper analysis of how the voting academy and judging methodology actually work, read our detailed breakdown of how the World's 50 Best Bars are judged.
The bars above span different cities, price points, and styles, and all are on or adjacent to the current World's 50 Best list. Each one rewards the effort of finding it. That is, ultimately, what any bar list is trying to tell you.
James has been tracking the World's 50 Best Bars list since its third year. He has visited over 80 percent of the bars that have ever appeared on it and has strong opinions about which ones justified the journey.
Last reviewed 2025-12-04 · The editors recheck hours and closures against current local coverage.