The World's Best Bar will remind you of your grandmother's living room, and that's exactly the point
The walk-up to Bar Leone tests your stamina. Halfway up the hill, you'll feel it in your calves and wonder if you should have picked somewhere easier to reach. Hong Kong's hills have a way of looking deceptively close until you're already climbing. But when you step inside, you understand why people make this trek two or three times a week, why girlfriends become regulars and bring their partners along or why queues form before the doors even open. The mortadella sandwiches and cocktails are worth the climb, but it's more than that.
On Oct. 8, at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Cruise Terminal, Bar Leone was crowned The World’s Best Bar for 2025. This marks the first time an Asia-based bar has claimed the top spot in the awards’ 17-year history. It’s a two-year-old bar with mismatched furniture and posters pulled from founder Lorenzo Antinori’s childhood memories in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood.
Cocktail popolare: The people’s bar
Bar Leone doesn’t just look like the world’s best bar. It looks like a Roman living room from the 1980s, because that’s what it is.
The design comes from Studio TK, drawing heavily on Antinori’s memories of Trastevere in the ‘80s and ‘90s, with aged plastered walls, wood panelling and warm lighting. Vintage Italian pop culture posters share space with AS Roma memorabilia and ‘80s movie posters, the kind that reject cocktail culture’s more pretentious tendencies. Outside, the terracotta paint job mimics the bars of Trastevere. If it weren’t for the queue, you’d walk right past it.
“Our idea was really to try to be as much as possible a neighborhood bar,” Antinori explains. “Create an experience that is curated. It’s a quality bar experience, but at the same time, very approachable, very accessible.”
The philosophy is just as unpretentious: Cocktail Popolare, or cocktails for the people. In a move that reflects their democratic ethos, Bar Leone shares all their cocktail recipes via Google Docs on their website. “There is no hide and seek, there is no smoke and mirrors. Whatever you read on the menu, it’s what you get,” Antinori says.
“We are a bar where you can come multiple times throughout the week. You can order a glass of wine at Bar Leone, and it’s totally fine. You can order a Negroni, you can have a bite,” Antinori says. “A place that welcomes everybody and where you feel comfortable.”
The mortadella sandwiches have become as famous as the drinks, soaking up Negronis, spritzes and Martinis. “A bar experience just doesn’t stop with the cocktails,” Antinori says. “It’s about what makes a good bar experience 360 degrees.” The team considers every detail beyond the cocktails, including the food, lighting, music, branding on the coasters and napkins, and the quality of the service.
From law school to bars
Antinori never planned to be in the bar industry. He was studying law in Italy and working in hospitality when he stumbled upon a YouTube video of bartender Simone Caporale, who now owns Sips in Barcelona (ranked third this year) and is one of Antinori’s business partners in Montana, a two-minute walk from Bar Leone.
“Watching that video changed my life,” he recalls. “I realized bartending could be a craft, and now, he’s a friend of ours and even one of my business partners.”
He moved to London, where he honed his skills at prestigious establishments, including The American Bar at The Savoy and Dandelyan, before bringing his dream to Hong Kong with co-founder Justin Shun Wah. Bar Leone opened in June 2023, and its ascent has been meteoric: debuting at No. 2 on The World’s 50 Best Bars 2024 list, claiming the top spot on Asia’s 50 Best Bars for two consecutive years, and now, the world’s best bar.
“The bar has never been about us. It’s always been about you being the audience,” Wah says. “As a hospitality person, delivering that experience is just paramount to us.”
He emphasizes that Bar Leone is built by hiring and training locals. “It’s about seeing them succeed, seeing them grow, seeing them become who they are right now. Having a local team means more than anything we achieve.”
Even now, with the world’s eyes on them, the team is thinking about the wobbly table, the sound system, the glassware. “The pressure isn’t about winning. It’s about evolving and fixing the small things,” Antinori says. “These details are our real work.”
Why this list matters
This year’s ceremony, only the second time the awards have been held in Asia, wasn’t just about Bar Leone. It was a celebration of a global bartending community that lifts each other.
Handshake Speakeasy in Mexico City ranked second, gracefully passing the torch after holding the number one spot last year. The top five were rounded out by Sips and Paradiso, both in Barcelona, and Tayēr + Elementary in London. The same three bars that dominated last year’s podium—Handshake Speakeasy, Bar Leone, and Sips—remained in the top three, just reshuffled.
Since 2009, The World’s 50 Best Bars has been more than a ranking. It’s become a roadmap for curious drinkers, a reason to book a flight, a guide to understanding cities through their cocktails.
“I usually make my travel schedule based on the list,” one attendee tells me. “It’s a good way to explore a place.”
More than 800 drinks experts compile the list across 29 geographic regions, including bartenders, consultants, writers, and specialists whose identities remain confidential to prevent lobbying. It’s democratic, diverse, and designed to reflect the pulse of global bar culture.
This year’s list spans 29 cities worldwide, with eight bars making their debut in the 1-50 rankings from Athens, Bratislava, Guangzhou, Lima, New York, Oslo, Tirana, and Tokyo. Europe holds the most bars on the list with 23, while Asia is home to 11 top 50 bars. North America follows with seven bars, South America with six, Australia with two, and the Middle East with one. The top bar in Africa, Hero Bar in Nairobi, appears on the extended list at No. 69.
What the list reflects now is this: The future of bars isn’t about exclusivity or pretension. It’s about remembering that hospitality, at its core, is about making someone feel like they belong.
While Bar Leone made history as the first Asian bar to claim the world’s top spot, the region’s bar scene showed its depth across the rankings. Singapore’s Jigger & Pony came in at No. 9, the only other Asian bar in the top 10. Bangkok’s Bar Us ranked No. 15, Seoul’s Zest at No. 16, and Tokyo’s Bar Benfiddich at No. 18. Guangzhou’s Hope & Sesame made its debut at No. 29, while Hong Kong’s Coa—once crowned the best bar in Asia for three consecutive years—now sits at No. 38.
Rounding out the Asian presence in the top 50: Tokyo’s Virtù at No. 45, The Bellwood (also Tokyo) at No. 48, Bangkok’s BKK Social Club at No. 49, and Singapore’s Nutmeg & Clove at No. 50.
Ready this time
Two years ago, Bar Leone opened with 10 or 15 guests on some nights. A year later, they scrambled at the door with a pen and paper, forgetting half the names they’d written down. They had to build a queuing app. They opened Montana nearby to give people somewhere to wait.
This year, they are expanding in Shanghai. And with the world’s top spot now theirs, they look fully ready. The lines outside Bar Leone aren’t going anywhere. Make the trip anyway.
The World’s 50 Best Bars, 2025 are Bar Leone, Hong Kong; Handshake Speakeasy, Mexico City; Sips, Barcelona; Paradiso, Barcelona; Tayēr + Elementary, London; Connaught Bar, London; Moebius Milano, Milan; Line, Athens; Jigger & Pony, Singapore; Tres Monos, Buenos Aires; Alquímico, Cartagena, Colombia; Superbueno, New York City; Lady Bee, Lima, Peru; Himkok, Oslo; Bar Us, Bangkok; Zest, Seoul; Bar Nouveau, Paris; Bar Benfiddich, Tokyo; Caretaker’s Cottage, Melbourne; The Cambridge Public House, Paris; Satan’s Whiskers, London; Locale Firenze, Florence; Tlecān, Mexico City; Tan Tan, São Paulo; Mirror Bar, Bratislava, Slovakia; CoChinChina, Buenos Aires; Baba au Rum, Athens; Nouvelle Vague, Tirana, Albania; Hope & Sesame, Guangzhou, China; Danico, Paris; Scarfes Bar, London; Svanen, Oslo; Sastrería Martinez, Lima; Panda & Sons, Edinburgh; Röda Huset, Stockholm; Mimi Kakushi, Dubai; Salmon Guru, Madrid; Coa, Hong Kong; Sip & Guzzle, New York City; Drink Kong, Rome; Double Chicken Please, New York City; Maybe Sammy, Sydney; 1930, Milan; Jewel of the South, New Orleans; Virtù, Tokyo; Overstory, New York City; The Bar in Front of the Bar, Athens; The Bellwood, Tokyo; BKK Social Club, Bangkok; Nutmeg & Clove, Singapore.
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The World’s 50 Best Bars awards ceremony took place last Oct. 8 at the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal in Hong Kong. For more information, visit worlds50bestbars.com or @50bestbars. You can also check out barleonehk.com or @barleonehk.
