The great hotel bar occupies a unique position in the geography of luxury hospitality. It is simultaneously public and intimate, accessible and exclusive — a space where the hotel’s character reveals itself more honestly than in any lobby or suite. The finest hotel bars in the world are not merely places to drink. They are rooms of consequence: places where deals have been struck, novels conceived, love affairs begun and ended, and where the particular alchemy of exceptional spirits, skilled bartenders, and a room that knows what it is doing produces evenings that guests remember for decades.
The Connaught Bar, London
Awarded the title of the World’s Best Bar three times by the prestigious World’s 50 Best Bars, The Connaught Bar has transcended the category of hotel bar entirely. Led by head bartender Agostino Perrone and the broader team that has been refining their craft here for over fifteen years, the bar delivers cocktails of extraordinary technical precision within an art deco interior — designed by David Collins — of corresponding elegance.
The Connaught Martini, prepared tableside on the bar’s signature trolley, represents one of the most theatrical and genuinely excellent cocktail experiences available anywhere. The selection of spirits — vintage cognacs, rare whiskies, obscure bitters — is matched only by the knowledge with which they are deployed.
The Bar at Claridge’s, London
Art deco London does not get more complete than Claridge’s — and The Bar, redesigned by Guy Oliver in collaboration with the hotel’s design team, is the finest expression of that aesthetic in the building. The panelling, the seating, the lighting, and the staff’s formal but warmly unhurried approach to service create a room that feels simultaneously historic and alive.
The cocktail list draws on the hotel’s century-long guest register for inspiration — drinks named for notable stays, conceived around the passions of legendary guests. The wine list, particularly the Champagne selection, is as serious as any available in London.
The Bemelmans Bar, The Carlyle, New York
Named for Ludwig Bemelmans — the Austrian-born illustrator whose Madeline children’s books were created partly here — and decorated with Bemelmans’ whimsical original murals of Central Park in various seasons, the Bemelmans Bar at The Carlyle is among New York’s most beloved rooms. The live jazz, which has played here virtually every evening since the bar’s opening in 1947, the white-jacketed waiters, and the intimacy of the space create an atmosphere that no amount of money or design talent can manufacture from scratch.
The martinis are excellent. The company, on any given evening, tends to be interesting.
Bar Hemingway, Ritz Paris
After a decade in hotel bars across Europe, Ernest Hemingway is said to have declared that he had liberated the Ritz Paris bar from German occupation in 1944. The anecdote may be apocryphal — Hemingway’s relationship with the truth was always creative — but Bar Hemingway, the smallest and most atmospheric of the hotel’s drinking spaces, preserves the legend with considerable style.
Head bartender Colin Peter Field, who has presided over this room for over two decades, is among the world’s most celebrated bartenders. His cocktail creations — constructed around the bar’s extraordinary spirits archive, including whiskies of considerable rarity — draw guests who plan their Paris itineraries around a reservation at this 20-seat room.
The Long Bar, Raffles Singapore
The birthplace of the Singapore Sling — created by bartender Ngiam Tong Boon around 1915 and still served from trays that pass through one of the world’s most atmospheric colonial-era rooms — the Long Bar at Raffles Singapore is as much a pilgrimage site as a bar. The peanut shells on the floor, the rattan ceiling fans, and the particular light of a Singapore late afternoon through the louvred windows create an experience of genuine historical atmosphere.
The Singapore Sling itself — pineapple juice, Cointreau, Bénédictine, grenadine, cherry brandy, gin, lime juice, and Angostura bitters — is an entirely correct drink in this specific room at this specific hour.
Reserve The Connaught Bar, London →
Source for featured image: TimeOut
