The most interesting bar cities right now are not the ones at the top of the global rankings — those lists document the present. The most interesting bar cities on the rise are the ones where the infrastructure is being built, the prices have not yet adjusted to reflect the quality, and the bartenders have the energy of people who are doing something for the first time rather than protecting a reputation. We track six of them below.
Athens: The Mediterranean's Surprise Package
Athens has rebuilt its bar scene from the wreckage of the austerity years, and the result is one of Europe's most energetic cocktail cities. The bars that emerged from that period are characterised by a scarcity mentality that translated into creativity — bartenders who could not afford premium imported spirits built programmes around Greek ouzo, mastiha, and tsipouro, and discovered those spirits were more interesting than the imports they replaced.
01
The Clumsies
Praxitelous, Athens
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Cocktail / All Day
The bar that put Athens on the global map, consistently ranked in the world's top 50. What makes The Clumsies remarkable is not its accolades but its accessibility — it opens at noon, serves coffee, transitions through the afternoon into cocktails, and manages to feel like a neighbourhood bar despite its international recognition. The cocktails use Greek ingredients with genuine conviction, and the prices remain reasonable by any western European standard.
Order: A mastiha-based cocktail from the seasonal menu — the house approach to the spirit is unlike anything in Greek tourist bars
02
Baba Au Rum
Kleitiou, Athens
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Rum / Tropical
The bar that proved Athens could develop a world-class cocktail programme around a single spirit category. Thanos Prunarus has assembled one of the most comprehensive rum selections in Europe and built a cocktail programme that treats the spirit with the same seriousness that Tokyo brings to whisky. The Daiquiri here has been one of the best versions in Europe for a decade. The city's warmth and the bar's prices make it one of the best-value serious cocktail experiences anywhere.
Order: A classic Daiquiri built on an aged rum — ask for their current preference from the collection
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Medellín: Latin America's Most Exciting Trajectory
Medellín's transformation over the past two decades is well-documented, but its bar scene has not yet received equivalent international attention. The cocktail programmes in El Poblado and Laureles are building on Colombian rum, aguardiente, and tropical fruit in ways that feel original, and the prices are absurd in the best sense — a serious cocktail costs what a mediocre one costs in London. Mexico City belongs in the same conversation: the Roma Norte scene is producing bars that rank among the best in the Americas, and our Best Bars in Mexico City guide maps the essential 14.
03
Alambique
El Poblado
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Rum / Serious
The bar that takes Colombian rum most seriously in a city that is beginning to understand what it has. Alambique sources aged rum from small Colombian distilleries and builds cocktails that use the spirit's agricultural backbone — sugarcane, tropical fruit, local spices — as their primary design principle. The bar seats thirty and the staff know every bottle behind them. This is where Medellín's bar scene is heading.
Order: The house Old Fashioned variation built on a 12-year Colombian rum — the benchmark cocktail at this address
04
Cuatro Manos
Laureles
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Creative / Neighbourhood
A collaboration bar between two Colombian bartenders who trained internationally and returned to build something that could not exist anywhere else. The drinks use Colombian ingredients that international bars would import at significant cost — fresh passion fruit, lulo, corozo — and the prices reflect local economics rather than the quality on offer. We have recommended this bar to every serious drinker visiting Medellín for two years and the feedback is unanimous.
Order: The lulo and aguardiente sour — a cocktail that cannot be replicated outside Colombia with the same result
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Nairobi: Africa's Most Compelling Bar Scene
Nairobi's bar scene is the story of East Africa's expanding middle class meeting international hospitality investment, and the results are more sophisticated than most visiting drinkers expect. The city's cocktail bars draw on Kenyan gin, local botanicals, and African fruit profiles in ways that have no parallel anywhere else, and the informal bar culture — the nyama choma spots and the open-air neighbourhood bars — provides context that most cocktail-focused visitors miss.
05
Pallet
Westlands, Nairobi
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Cocktail / Modern
The bar that has done most to define what a serious Nairobi cocktail looks like. Pallet uses Kenyan gin, local botanicals, and East African fruit profiles to build cocktails with a specific regional identity that is entirely its own. The team has trained internationally and brought back technique without abandoning the ingredients that make the bar specific to its location. One of the most genuinely original bar programmes in the world right now.
Order: A Kenyan gin cocktail built with local botanicals — ask the bartender what they are currently most interested in
06
The Tin Roof
Karen, Nairobi
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Garden / Relaxed
A garden bar in the Karen suburb that operates at a pace completely at odds with London or New York drinking culture, and is better for it. The cocktail list is shorter than most serious bars and each drink has been thought through carefully. The outdoor setting, the equatorial evening air, and the absence of background music create an experience that neither the Strip nor Soho can replicate. Come for sunset and stay until the kitchen closes.
Order: A hibiscus gin cocktail with fresh mango — made with fruit that was purchased that morning
Tel Aviv: Where the Rules Don't Apply
Tel Aviv's bar scene operates without the constraints of most international cocktail cultures — no licensing restrictions that require closing at midnight, a culinary culture that treats bold flavours as a baseline rather than a point of difference, and a local spirit category (arak) that provides a distinctive backbone for cocktails that are genuinely unlike anything available elsewhere. The city is permanently on the rise in the sense that it never stops building.
07
Bellboy
Rothschild Boulevard
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Cocktail / Late Night
The bar most cited by international visitors as the one that changed their assessment of Tel Aviv's cocktail culture. The drinks use arak and Israeli botanicals in classic structures, and the result is a cocktail list that has no obvious precedent in any other city. The space operates until 4am on weekends with a crowd of locals rather than tourists, which is the clearest indicator that the bar is serving the city it is in rather than the city it wants to be.
Order: An arak-based cocktail with fresh citrus — the house approach to the spirit makes most other bars' arak cocktails seem timid
08
223
Florentin
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Neighbourhood / Creative
A Florentin neighbourhood bar that treats cocktails as seriously as the city's best fine dining treats food. The space is unpretentious and the prices reflect the neighbourhood rather than the quality, which means visitors with an eye for value have been making the detour to Florentin specifically for this bar for several years. The menu changes monthly and the bartenders will tell you exactly why each change was made.
Order: Ask about the current house project — there is always something being developed that is not on the written menu yet
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Our Verdict
The bar cities on the rise share a common characteristic: they are building bar cultures around what they have rather than importing what they think they should have. Athens uses mastiha and tsipouro. Medellín uses aguardiente and tropical fruit. Nairobi uses Kenyan gin and East African botanicals. The result in each case is a cocktail identity that cannot be replicated anywhere else, which is the only sustainable competitive advantage a bar city can have.
Go now. Browse our full city directory for all 60 cities we cover, and check the most underrated bar cities for the cities that are already there but the world has not yet noticed. For a ranked look at which cities our editors are most excited about heading into the second half of 2025, see our annual most exciting bar cities 2025 feature — which overlaps with this list in several places but adds new entrants that have emerged since this article was published.
The most underrated bar cities
The cities already delivering what the rising ones are still building toward.
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