The world’s best hotel bars
Well, if you’re going to splash out on a cocktail at a hotel, you’d better make it a good one…
Words: Hannah Ralph
02/10/2025
The sultry, velvety Jigger & Pony, Singapore. Opening image: a Beeswax Old Fashioned from Silver Lyan, Washington, DC
Jigger & Pony, Singapore
Where: The Amara Hotel
Not only does Jigger & Pony hold spot number #5 on the current World’s 50 Best Bars, but this Lion City icon – which you’ll have to walk between Amara’s two giant Chinese lions to reach – wins High Life’s entirely made-up, but very serious, Award for Outstanding Cocktail Menu Design. Known as ‘menu-zines’ for their magazine-esque quality, seven menus have so far been launched – one for every year since the bar moved into its current location at the Amara Hotel. It’s a power move for solo travellers, who can – and often do – spend their whole time here flipping through its 60-something pages. The latest menu-zine, Embrace, is split into three narrative ‘arcs’: Embrace Change, Embrace Tradition and Embrace You. And though we don’t recommend coming here in a rush, if you happen to be in one, you can simply glance at the quick menu of drinks on page one.
Shiso gimlet at The Carlton Bar & Bel Étage, St Moritz
The Carlton Bar & Bel Étage, St Moritz
Where: Carlton Hotel, St Moritz
It’s easy to see why alpine life has so many fans. The slopes followed by the spa. The fondues followed by the festivities. It’s the kind of lifestyle you can pretend is permanent at St Moritz’s darling grande dame, the Carlton Hotel. Honouring the town’s invention of winter tourism back in the 1800s, the Carlton is open December through to March, showing guests to 60 strategically lake-facing suites. It’s also home to Switzerland’s hospitality peak, the Carlton Bar & Bel Étage, which serves cocktail creations inspired by the produce of the surrounding Engadin valley. On its ‘Carlton Instagrammable’ menu you’ll even one find one cocktail presented with pine-scented dry ice and miniature mountain climbers. Come during St Moritz Cocktail Week (12-15 February 2026) for extra buzz, but know that whenever you visit, crackling fires, comfy leather couches and magical winter scenes beyond the windows are a given.
The grand lobby bar of Kitchen at Hôtel Madame Rêve
Kitchen, Paris
Where: Hôtel Madame Rêve
Everyone loves Madame Rêve’s rooftop, but altogether more underrated is the hotel’s glamorous lobby bar, Kitchen. Once you’re through those golden curtains – the bar shares the hotel’s warm, honeycomb palette – you’re met with 8m-high ceilings, grand chandeliers by Mathieu Lustrerie and a chic team of suited and booted bartenders. The bar itself – all mirrors, mahogany and marble – turns the simple act of sipping a cocktail into a nigh-on cinematic experience. As for the drinks, there’s a small selection of signature concoctions spotlighting bourbon, tequila, brandy and vodka, but an extensive booze collection means the team can easily whip up a classic – just name it. And while sultry floor lights make this spot atmospheric every night of the week, only Fridays and Saturdays see this grand Parisian café come alive with the musical stylings of one special guest, DJette.
The dreamy Don’t Worry Bar, Positano
Don’t Worry Bar, Positano
Where: Le Sirenuse
It was in Japan, intoxicated by the heady timbre of vinyl at Tokyo’s most intimate listening cafés, that Le Sirenuse manager Aldo Sersale decided this was the direction to take the existing bar space in what was once his family villa, now a legendary clifftop hotel. Sersale brought in a crack team: famed audio consultant Stefano Menicagli to mastermind the sound system, an in-house director of mixology, Alessio Lupo, to create drinks inspired by Italian pop classics, and legendary analogue DJ, Paolo Sciabu. Sersale commissioned artworks that would continue the hotel’s dreamlike energy: Caroline Bachmann’s small circular beach scenes line the arched vaults on the bar’s ceiling, while Martin Creed’s multi-coloured neon sign – ‘DON’T WORRY’ – gave rise to the bar’s name. The resulting vibes and menu emanate a mid-20th century Italiano pop-art energy, but balcony views across the bay of Positano are nothing short of timeless.
The Macallan 12-based Donut cocktail from Atrium’s Sips of History menu
Atrium Bar, Florence
Where: Four Seasons Hotel Firenze
Climbing the Duomo, gazing up at Michelangelo’s David, an aperitivo at the Atrium Bar… Of all the quintessential Firenze experiences, ours is the booziest. Inside the city’s storied Four Seasons, Atrium is just about the swankiest lounge you ever did see, with swathes of dark wood and pops of gold that just ooze old money – the handiwork of the brand’s go-to designer, Pierre-Yves Rochon. Under the vast skylight, head bartender Edoardo Sandri prides himself on the creation of four masterful negronis, a homage to the very city in which the cocktail is widely believed to have been invented. ‘Vintage’ is the crowd favourite, but don’t sleep on ‘Futuro’ – made with rather expensive rum and a creamy Greek yogurt wash. Prop yourself on one of the sage green sofas and savour your pre-dinner tipple alongside the tinkling keys of a live pianist – they play every night.
The Connaught is famous for its martinis
The Connaught Bar, London
Where: The Connaught Hotel
What kind of self-respecting list would this be if we didn’t include The Connaught Bar? In a city as stacked with exceptional hotel bars as London (Scarfes Bar at The Rosewood, Side Hustle at the NoMad, and on and on), there’s a reason The Connaught Bar has made the World’s 50 Best list every year since 2010, clinching the top spot twice. Called one of the greatest bartenders in the world by the only man who matters – cough, Stanley Tucci – the bar’s director of mixology Agostino Perrone is responsible for any highly scrutinised new menu releases. His dry martini – served from the bar’s silver trolley and personalised for every guest – is the must-have drink, with some 27,000 leaving the shaker every year. For die-hard Connaught patrons and cocktail fans alike: The Connaught Bar: Cocktail Recipes and Iconic Creations is the coffee table souvenir of choice.
Vladislav Novikov preps a Lovejoy’s Law cocktail at Silver Lyan
Silver Lyan, Washington, DC
Where: Riggs Washington Dc
Long before Ryan Chetiyawardana oversaw the creation of a one-of-a-kind martini maker at our Concorde room at London Heathrow, he was addicted to opening bars. Now, we get to enjoy the spoils of his serial entrepreneurship at lauded hotel bars across London, Amsterdam and DC, all shaking up the Lyan signatures: WTF ingredients, sci-fi level sustainability and groovy interiors. Experience this holy trifecta at Silver Lyan at the Riggs Washington DC, which is celebrating five years with a menu themed on ‘Butterfly Effect’ moments throughout history. The ‘It’s Alive! 75’ uses electrocuted berries in a nod to Frankenstein and the 1815 Indonesian volcanic eruption, whose ash clouds turned author Mary Shelley’s Swiss summer into a gloomy ghost story sesh thousands of miles away. After dabbling in these avant-garde pours, you can always collapse back into the safe arms of Lyan’s modern classics…Beeswax Old Fashioned, we’re looking at you.
Mixologists at work at BKK Social Club, Bangkok
BKK Social Club, Bangkok
Where: Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok At Chao Phraya River
We know – another Four Seasons hotel. But when it comes to world-class bars, they’re just too good. A World’s 50 Best regular, BKK Social Club at Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok at Chao Phraya River has all the landmarks of a Very Serious Bar: mixologists in lab coats, branded ice cubes, uber-thin tweezers placing all manner of delicate garnish atop precisely poured cocktails. There’s even a cigar room, a fitting addition to the bar’s design concept: a gilded time capsule homage to 1920s Buenos Aires at the peak of Art Nouveau. You can see the movement’s ornamental stylings in the metal curves that descend from the ceiling, acting as a curtain into the bar. Staying with that part of the world, the menu celebrates all things Mexico in three chapters: people (Don Julio González), places (Chichén Itzá) and parties (Dia De Los Muertos).
Great company at Bar La Plaza, Marbella
Bar La Plaza, Marbella
Where: Puente Romano Marbella
Regularly named the best luxury resort in all of Spain, Puente Romano Marbella is the country’s OG beach break, a 1979 stalwart that has managed to stay impressively stylish, with a string of recent high-profile pop-ups (Fendi, Prada, Valentino) to prove it. Of the 20-plus drink and dining outlets sprinkled throughout the complex, the heart and soul of the operation has always been La Plaza, which underwent a light sprucing earlier this year. If the resort is a mock Andalusian village, then La Plaza is the village square, an outdoor courtyard full of buttery yellow seats, frilly lamps and towering, fairy-lit trees. Sidle indoors to Bar La Plaza, the resort’s mixology epicentre, with a deliciously illustrated cocktail menu and seductive red interiors. Order the El Perfume for ultimate theatre – a gin and yellow Chartreuse coupe that’s topped with a perfectly spherical, perfectly poof-able ball of smoke.
