World’s 50 best bars revealed - and five are in London

A Barcelona cocktail bar has been voted the world’s best drinking spot at this year’s World’s 50 Best Bars awards.

The city’s Paradiso bar took the top spot on the much-anticipated annual list, which was announced at a glitzy ceremony in Barcelona on Tuesday night.

It’s the first time a bar outside of New York City or London has topped the list at the awards, which have been running for 14 years.

In second place was London bar Tayēr + Elementary, but Barcelona also scooped the third best slot with Sips bar, in the Eixample district.

Fourth place was taken by Mexico City’s Licorería Limantour, followed by Paris’s Little Red Door in fifth - the latter also won the Sustainable Bar Award for its “farm-to-glass” approach.

London led Europe with the most bars on the list of any country on the continent.

Mayfair’s Connaught Bar came in at number eight; new entry Satan’s Whiskers, in Bethnal Green, came in 23rd; Swift in Soho was named 30th best; and another new entry, A Bar with Shapes for a Name, Dalston, came 37th.

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New York just nudged ahead of London, with six entries in total.

Meanwhile, Juliana bar in Guayaquil, Ecuador won the accolade of best cocktail menu for its innovative drinks list: “Navigating the document takes guests on a journey, where each page operates as a shrine to a single cocktail,” said the World’s 50 Best Bars team.

“Marked simply by a title and minimalist drawing, description of ingredients and taste profile, every drink is also paired by a contextualisation of its formulation, from short histories of its indigenous ingredients to their wider cultural impact.”

The list namechecked 26 cities in total, with entries cropping up in Florence, Lisbon and Naples for the first time.

World’s Best Bars Awards is compiled and voted for by more than 650 drinks experts, with a 50/50 gender parity and spread across 28 geographical regions. These include renowned bartenders and consultants, drinks writers and cocktail specialists from around the world.

The content director of The World’s 50 Best Bars, Mark Sansom, said: “The fact that this is the first time we have crowned a bar outside New York or London as The World’s Best Bar is a testament to the huge achievements of Giacomo, Margarita and their team.

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“Since being named One To Watch in 2017, a year after opening, Paradiso has been a firm fixture of the 50 Best list, enhancing its ranking year after year. It is an honour to name it as The World’s Best Bar and the win is credit to Paradiso’s outlandishly inventive cocktail programme, sustainable ethos, work in the global bar community and brilliant sense of fun.”