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If you want the world’s very best drink (according to the World’s 50 Best Bar Awards) you’ll have to fly to Barcelona and visit Paradiso, where maverick cocktail whizz Giacomo Giannotti works wonders with mushroom spores, lasers and smoked milk. But sometimes, the very best things in life are overrated. We all have to settle for second best sometimes, to avoid being continually overwhelmed by an exhausting cavalcade of excellence.
So it’s nice to see that the world’s second-best bar is in London, meaning that cocktail near-perfection is just a handy tube ride away. Old Street bar Tayēr + Elementary is an industrial-style spot that serves up refined bevvies from a metallic workstation. When it opened in 2019, Time Out’s five-star review raved about its laidback vibes, delicious katsu sando (a Japanese pork sandwich), and most of all, about its drinks: ‘every one a lesson in lingering flavour’.
Quite a few other London drinking dens have snuck their way into the World’s 50 Best Bars this year. At number eight there’s long-established and seriously classy Mayfair joint The Connaught Bar, which took the top spot last year. Bethnal Green bartenders’ haunt Satan's Whiskers is a new entry at number 23. Buzzy Italian-inspired spot Swift is at number 30. And the Bauhaus-inspired A Bar with Shapes for a Name is at number 37.
This list is curated by 650 experts from all over the world, making it a pretty damn authoritative guide. So even if your favourite tipple is a Strawberry Woo Woo from Vodka Revs, you might find something on the full list that’ll send you to cocktail nirvana.
See our full list of London’s best cocktail bars.
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