World’s 50 Best Bars has voted Paradiso, and a pub tucked away behind a pastrami store in Barcelona’s El Born area, the best bar in the World. It’s the first time the award has gone to a business outside New York or London. Visitors enter the secret bar through a white refrigerator door and proceed past a counter specializing in cured meat. The pub has a striking wooden roof with arches and serves drinks like smoked milk punch with whiskey and tahini.
Tayer & Elementary, a London pub that serves less ambitious cocktails in the back and more informal beverages in the front, came in at No. 2 on the list of the World’s best bars. It was also the runner-up the year before. Sips, another Barcelona brand, came in third place.
The Connaught Bar, the top-ranked taproom for the previous two years, is ranked No. 8 this year, a somewhat significant decline. According to content director for the World’s 50 Best Bars and presenter Mark Sansom, it has given up its throne.
New York still holds a firm hold on the list. Six bars from the Big Apple are listed among the top 50, including Overstory in the Financial District, located on the 64th floor of an office structure. The eccentric Lower East Side bar Double Chicken Please, known for its food-inspired drinks, came in sixth place among new entries.
The winners of this year’s awards were revealed live in front of 1,000 guests in Barcelona. Since the awards program began in 2009, the presentation was held outside of London was the first time. (The prizes were practically given out in 2020.)
A total of 14 of the 50 entries were new due to the changing location. They included eateries from newly established towns like Red Frog in Lisbon and the speakeasy-style bar L’Antiquario in Naples, Italy.
Some notable names were left from the list. Because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, El Copitas in St. Petersburg and Insider Bar in Moscow, which were placed No. 8 and No. 13, respectively, were not considered.
According to Sansom, “as an organization, we do not consider that it is appropriate to market Russia as a drinking destination at this time.” “We applaud everyone in Russia who has boldly criticized their leaders’ behavior.”
The minimalist Scandinavian bar Roda Huset in Stockholm, which came in at No. 78 on the list, received the Campari One To Watch medal, one of the individual prizes presented at the ceremony. The committee emphasized the bar’s potential to rise to the top shortly. The Little Red Door in Paris won the Ketel One Sustainability award. Hanky Panky in Mexico City received the Michter’s Art of Hospitality award, the first time the honor was granted to a business there.
The second half of the list, bars ranked 51-100, had been announced on September 27.
Tokyo’s SG Club, which plummeted from No. 18 to 63rd, is one of the exclusive locations that slid out of the top 50. Re dropped from No. 46 to No. 87 in Sydney, dropping more than 40 positions.
The rating highlighted the significance of loosening COVID-19 regulations. Mexico City put three bars in the top 15, more than any other nation, and did so earlier than most other cities after the epidemic started. Tokyo, a city renowned for its innovative cocktail culture, only had one position, which went to Bar Benfiddich at No. 48.
World’s 50 Best Bars, a division of World’s 50 Best Restaurants and a subsidiary of UK-based William Reed Business Media, creates the yearly ranking. More than 650 beverage specialists worldwide- including bartenders, writers, and consultants-cast votes regarding their experiences from January 2021 through July 2022.
Up to five votes for domestic locations might be cast before the epidemic, with at least two of those votes having to be international. The organization let voters who could not travel limit their votes to five regional locations to alleviate travel constraints in places like Tokyo. While pre-pandemic restrictions still apply to voting procedures, Sansom explains that they have been modified to maintain the highest level of voting integrity.
