Artesian retains top spot in World's 50 Best Bars 2013

Artesian at the Langham Hotel has been voted the world's best bar for the second year running in Drinks International's World's 50 Best Bars survey.

The results of the annual industry poll were announced at a ceremony at One Mayfair in London last night, before a throng of 500 of the world’s best bartenders and bar owners, including those from 37 of the top 50 bars in the 2013 list.

Artesian, which is run by Alex Kratena and Simone Caporale (top image left-right), heads up a strong London contingent in this year's list, with Marian Beke’s Nightjar in second place and Connaught Bar, run by Ago Perrone, in fourth.Alex Kratena and Simone Caporale

Hidetsugu Ueno’s Tokyo bar High Five (middle image) climbed 19 places from last year’s list to finish in third position and take the title of Best Bar in Asia.

While the top ranked US bar was new entry The Dead Rabbit Grocery & Grog in fifth (bottom image).

The World’s 50 Best Bars is an independent bar-trade pole, voted for anonymously by an academy of almost 230 worldwide bar industry experts.

London’s Happiness Forgets finished sixth in the survey, up six places from last year, while 10-place-mover Black Pearl of Melbourne became the Best Bar in Australasia, beating fellow Australian bar The Baxter Inn of Sydney by one place.

High FiveIn ninth was Paris-based Mexican-themed bar Candelaria, which darted up 36 spots from last year to become the Best Bar in Europe, and completing the top ten of the list is 28 HongKong Street from Singapore, which climbed 32 rungs of the World’s 50 Best Bars ladder.

In places 11-20 were: Callooh Callay, London (11th); Employees Only, New York (12th); PDT, New York (13th); Dry Martini, Barcelona (14th); Door 74, Amsterdam (15th); Le Lion, Hamburg (16th); Buck & Breck, Berlin (17th); The Parlour, Frankfurt (18th); The Jerry Thomas Project, Rome (19th), American Bar, Savoy Hotel, London (20th).


Dead RabbitRegional winners also came in the shape of Floreria Atlantico in Buenos Aires (35th), which won Best Bar in Latin America and The Caribbean, and Zuma Dubai which took the Best Bar in Middle East and Africa, despite missing out on the top 50, in 63rd.

New entries to the list (not already mentioned) were Melbourne’s The Everleigh (24th), Bulletin Place (26th) and Shady Pines (41st) in Sydney, Le Forum (33rd), Little Red Door (39th) Le Coq (40th) and Sherry Butt (43rd) in Paris, Quinary (38th) in Hong Kong, Attaboy (42nd) and Pouring Ribbons (44th) in New York, Baba Au Rum in Athens (48th) and Delicatessen (50th) in Moscow.

Split down by city, London is home to eight of the World’s 50 Best Bars, seven are in New York, five are from Paris, four in Sydney, while Berlin, Hong Kong, Singapore, San Francisco, Melbourne, Barcelona and Moscow each have two bars in the list.

For the full list, information on the bars and how the poll was carried out, visit Drinks International’s sister website worlds50bestbars.com