The World's Best Bars
A Personal List
The question of what makes a good bar endures because it’s of vital importance. I’ve considered this for a long time. A good bar can be at the heart of a great hotel (how did we ever lose the Oak Room?). It can be highly irregular, like that old bar in Marfa that would mysteriously close for days at a time (which only added to its allure).
Bars are sensory. Light matters. Sound matters. Ideally, there’s that indefinable sense of comradery. A good bar should not vibrate with music unless you’re an undergraduate drinking beer from a pitcher. Bars these days are so loud you can’t speak, which is why that pub owner in London forbids music in any of his establishments. Bless him.
We should measure a bar against its ambitions. If a bar aims to do things correctly it should do them well. If a bar sets its sights lower then who cares if the ice isn’t great. I prefer a bar where there’s some warmth between bartender and imbiber. Good bars thrive on a sense of continuity, and you should see a familiar face when you enter. This is true on both sides of the bar, and it’s a good sign if a regular is well-installed in his usual spot paging through the paper.
Like modern life, bars are imperfect. Some have installed televisions, some serve brunch. Though the clientele isn’t doing its part with bizarre martini orders, saving seats (you cannot, under any circumstances, save a seat at a bar) and taking photos of martinis getting warm while they art direct the shot.
I’ve always gravitated to small bars—five seats seems to be the perfect number. These were often called American Bars, added to European hotels a hundred years ago, and they still feel intimate and civilized. Some bars use size to their advantage, but you don’t want too many drunk people in the same room.
A bar is a refuge, an escape from the world at large—if you want sunlight don’t go to a bar. And I don’t like bars that have reimagined themselves as bright places with hard surfaces, often found on the rooftops of upscale hotels. If you want that go to Miami.
A bar represents part of your life, and as your life changes your beloved bars will change. Here are my favorite bars around the world (and some I’ve moved on from).
-Kronenhalle, Zurich (above). If I could drink in one place this is it. I’ve praised Kronenhalle before and I'm in awe by the beauty of the room, how civilized it is (people come in just for coffee) and for the superior service. Even the art is good.
-J.B.A. Bar Suzuki, Tokyo. My favorite of all the great Ginza bars. One row of seats, very dark wood, classic Japanese service. There was that small, sealed space, the size of a phone, booth where degenerate smokers went for a cigarette (they couldn’t be bothered to take the elevator downstairs). My friend James went in and came out and said it was bleak scene. But he had a second martini and went back again.
-Aretsky’s Patroon, New York. This is a secret to many sophisticated New Yorkers. You have to walk through the dining room to arrive at the most delightful small bar with a few stools and a handful of tables along a banquette. Tremendous.
-Oxford Bar, Edinburgh. Small, possibly perfect. On a cobblestone street in the New Town, this bar is artful and intimate. If you can name the color of the walls, (somewhere between nicotine and mustard, you should work for Farrow & Ball.
