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A popular “drinkery house” in Barcelona has been named the World’s Best Bar of 2023. Sips, located in the Spanish city’s L’Antiga Esquerra de l’Eixample district, topped this year’s World’s 50 Best Bars list, making it the second year in a row that a Barcelona establishment has taken home the title, following Paradiso’s win in 2022.
The annual list was unveiled at a lavish ceremony in Singapore Tuesday and judges honored Sips for creating an unfussy and playful “bar without a bar” concept, which sees bartenders serving drinks from behind a futuristic “workstation” rather than a fixed counter. As World’s 50 Best says in a press release, “The bar seamlessly translates contemporary innovation and technical precision into a playful cocktail program, accompanied by the warmest hospitality.” The result: “a multi-sensory, immersive drinking experience.”
Sips
New York’s Double Chicken Please, which was recently crowned North America’s Best Bar, took the runner-up slot in the World’s Best Bar list, while Mexico City’s Handshake Speakeasy rounded out the top three.
London, meantime, cements its place as one of the world’s cocktail capitals with five bars on this year’s list, including Connaught Bar, rising three places to number five and Tayēr + Elementary at number eight.
The U.S. has five bars on this year’s list, with New York’s Double Chicken Please, Overstory and Katana Kitten; Miami’s Café La Trova; and New Orleans’ Jewel of the South all landing on the Top 50 list.
This year’s World’s Best Bars list featured bars from 28 cities in total. Votes were tallied from members of The World’s 50 Best Bars Academy, which comprises more than 600 bartenders, mixologists, restaurant consultants, spirits writers and other “drinks experts” from around the world. The list, and the awards ceremony, aims to “pay tribute to the visionary bartenders, enterprising bar owners and trailblazing brands that lead the charge in shaping cocktail culture around the world.”
See the full list here.