Every year, a short list of bars becomes the subject of global conversation. Critics and bartenders fly in from 50 countries. Reservations sell out in minutes. The phrase "number one bar in the world" gets typed into search engines hundreds of thousands of times. But what actually happens behind the bar that earns that title? What does it take to build something that 700 international judges unanimously agree is the best drinking experience on earth?
We spoke to operators, former winners, and the people who judge the World's 50 Best Bars to understand what separates a great bar from the greatest bar. The answer is more human than you might expect.
The Bars That Have Claimed the Crown
The title of world's best bar has exchanged hands several times since the list launched in 2009, and each winner tells a different story about what greatness looks like. Some have been intimate 24-seat rooms where the bartender remembers your order from 18 months ago. Others have been production operations serving 400 covers a night with the consistency of a Swiss watch. The variety is the point.
What the Judges Actually Look For
The World's 50 Best Bars Academy includes over 700 judges spread across every major drinking city on earth. Each judge nominates 7 bars from personal experience, with at least 3 of those nominations coming from outside their home country. The voting is anonymous and bars cannot campaign or lobby for votes.
When judges describe what makes a bar stand out, three things come up repeatedly. First, consistency at high volume. Any bar can have a perfect night when 20 guests arrive. The best bars achieve that same experience when 200 arrive. Second, genuine hospitality that is not the scripted variety, but the kind that makes guests feel like they are the only person in the room. Third, a point of view. The bars that win have something to say about drinking, whether it is a philosophy about sourcing, a commitment to a specific regional tradition, or a conversation with history.
"The bars that last are the ones where the staff believe in the same thing the founders believe in. That is not something you can manufacture."
What does not appear on the list of criteria, notably, is novelty. Judges are not looking for the most technically adventurous cocktail menu or the most elaborate garnish. The most awarded bars worldwide tend to be the ones that have identified a specific thing they do better than anyone else, and then do it reliably, at scale, every night they are open.
The People Behind the Bar
Every bar that has claimed the world's best title has one thing in common: a founder or head bartender whose personal conviction is written into every inch of the venue. At Dante, Nathalie Hudson spent a year living in Italy studying aperitivo culture before opening. At the Connaught Bar, Agostino Perrone grew up in a family of hospitality workers in Lake Como and treated the hotel bar not as a stopping point in his career but as his life's work.
This depth of personal investment is inseparable from the quality of the result. The most influential bartenders in the world are not people who learned a technique and applied it. They are people who built a worldview and then built a physical space that expresses it. The best bars are, in the end, autobiography in architecture and liquid form.
Can a Bar Stay at the Top?
One of the most interesting tensions in the world's best bar conversation is around longevity. The list's rules prevent a bar from holding the top spot for more than three consecutive years once it reaches number one, sending it to a "Best of the Best" category permanently. This was designed to promote discovery and prevent permanent incumbency. It also raises a genuine question: what happens to a bar when it can no longer compete for the title?
The honest answer is that most of the former number one bars become more relaxed and in some cases more interesting after the pressure of competition dissipates. Dante, for instance, expanded to Tokyo, Sydney, and London after earning its top ranking, and each outpost carries the same editorial conviction as the original. PDT in New York, which held a top-10 position for nearly a decade, has quietly become one of the most beloved neighbourhood spots in the West Village, no longer chasing awards but still consistently excellent. You can read more about the award-chasing culture in our piece on how bar awards work.
What the Next World's Best Bar Will Look Like
The strongest contenders for future top-ranking positions share certain characteristics. They tend to operate in cities with dense, sophisticated drinking cultures: New York's cocktail bar scene, London's cocktail bars, and emerging powerhouses like Tokyo and Melbourne are producing the most ambitious operators right now. They tend to be independently owned, because the creative latitude that comes with full ownership allows for the kind of radical conviction that wins global recognition. And they tend to have at least 5 years of operation behind them, because consistency over time is what separates a great opening from a great bar.
The world's best bar, whoever holds the title next year, will almost certainly be a room where someone gave up everything else to build one thing perfectly. That is what greatness looks like in this industry. Not ambition, but obsession with a specific idea, executed for a specific group of people, on a specific corner of a city. The scale of the recognition is global. The operation is always intensely local.
Visit the Contenders
If you want to experience the calibre of bar that competes at this level, start with the cities that produce the most nominees year after year. Explore our guide to the best bars in the world in 2025, or browse by city to find the venues that have recently been recognised internationally. The editors recommend booking 4 to 6 weeks in advance for any bar that currently sits in the top 20 globally. Walk-ins are possible at some, but the experience of a reserved seat at a bar operating at this level is worth the planning.
