We love our pubs here in the UK, but there’s no denying that sometimes an occasion arises that calls for something a little fancier, a little more refined. And while, sure, there are plenty of pretty swish pubs around, a cocktail bar is often your best bet for some truly spectacular boozing.
When it comes to ranking the world’s swankiest and most innovative bars, few awards are quite so respected and prestigious as the World’s 50 Best Bars. Sort of like the cocktail bar Oscars, each year the World’s 50 Best Bars gets together a global roster of experts to rank bars based on stuff like drink development, sophistication and quality.
Excitingly, the 2023 World’s 50 Best Bars came up with several UK winners – including one in Edinburgh. None other than Panda & Sons on Queen Street was named one of the best bars in the world, ranking at thirty-ninth.
Opened in 2013, Panda & Sons is a speakeasy-inspired drinkery that made its name with inventive and boundary-pushing cocktails and craft beers. Behind its Prohibition-styled barbershop exterior lies a quirky, first-class gem with a drinks menu laid out as chapters from a book.
Panda & Sons wasn’t the only UK-based bar that made it into the list. London had five bars in the ranking, cementing its place as one of the world’s cocktail capitals. Featured were Connaught Bar (fifth), Tayēr + Elementary (eighth), Satan’s Whiskers (twenty-eighth), A Bar with Shapes for a Name (thirty-fifth) and Scarfes Bar (fourty-first).
As for the best bar in the world? That went to Sips in Barcelona. The brainchild of cocktail icons Marc Alvarez and Simone Caporale, Sips boasts a playful cocktail menu served in a futuristic workstation in place of a traditional bar. Sounds cool, eh?
You can check out the full list of winners on the World’s Top 50 Bars website here.
Time Out’s take
Not to toot our own horn, but we've long been a fan of Panda & Sons: back in 2016 we gave it a glimmering four-star review.
ICYMI: this UK tourist attraction has been named the most overpriced in the world.
Stay in the loop: sign up to our free Time Out UK newsletter for the latest UK news and the best stuff happening across the country.