How does a bar fall from 5th best in the world one year, to just 13th best the following year?
Welcome to the World's 50 Best Bars list, the 2024 edit of which dropped last night (22 October). The glass-chinking news for London is that it has four bars on there — representing over 14% of the list, which spans bars in 28 different countries. The bad news: London's highest ranker this year is Tayēr + Elementary in Old Street — a two-part industrial-chic drinking hole that scooped second spot in 2021 and 2022. This year, as last year, it placed 8th.
London's other 2024 winners are Mayfair's martini-slinging Connaught Bar (13th this year after making 5th in 2023), the grungy Satan's Whiskers in Bethnal Green (29th - a drop of one place from last year) and the cartoon-strewn Scarfes Bar (37th - a climb from 41st in the last list). All more than worthy winners, though I admit somehow one of Tayēr + Elementary's One Sip Martinis STILL hasn't passed my lips.
The list always raises eyebrows (mine, if no one else's). It's not a who's who of new kids on the block (the Savoy's American Bar won top spot in 2017 — and that opened in 1893), but a voted-for system in which drinks industry experts have their say. It's only natural that there will be climbers and fallers each year. But it's conspicuous that it's often the same London bars pinging around the table — a kind of Man City/Liverpool/Arsenal/sometimes-Chelsea deal.
I can't speak to most of the international bars on the list, but London has a multitude of world-class cocktail bars (two bars I've visited in recent weeks, Archive & Myth and Stables Bar could be list-worthy alone in my opinion — along with dozens of others). While this top 50 list makes for a good talking point over a margarita or two, like any good marg, it should be taken with a rim of salt.
The overall 2024 winner, by the way, is Handshake Speakeasy in Mexico City — a prohibition/Gatsby-inspired speakeasy, where some drinks take 48 hours to craft from start to finish. So if you do decide to go and check out the competition here, make sure you order before you get on the plane at Heathrow.
