Sips in Barcelona has been announced as No.1 on the list of The World’s 50 Best Bars 2023.

The iconic list was announced at an awards ceremony in Singapore, early Wednesday 18 October (NZT) and features bars from 28 cities around the world. It is the 15th year of the awards, which recognise the bartenders, bar owners and brands at the forefront of the international cocktail scene.

Located in the heart of Barcelona’s L'Antiga Esquerra de l'Eixample district, Sips combines elegant design with cutting-edge technique and is the creation of Simone Caporale and Marc Álvarez.

Caporale was one half of the creative duo that led London’s Artesian to The World’s Best Bar title a record four times, while Álvarez spent almost a decade at Ferran and Albert Adrià’s revolutionary elBarri restaurant group. The duo are described as having “a disruptive approach to creative mixology [which] shines through in innovative haute couture serves at pret-a-porter prices”.

The bar’s seating orbits a futuristic workstation in place of the traditional bar. This is to remove any barrier between guest and bartender, with the aim of centring the human aspect of service to create a multi-sensory, immersive drinking experience.

Across the Tasman, Sydney’s Maybe Sammy placed No.15 and was crowned The Best Bar in Australasia for the fifth time, while Melbourne’s Caretaker’s Cottage joined the list for the first time at No.23.

Other notable awards were the inaugural Bareksten Best Bar Design Award, which went to Night Hawk in Singapore, and the Siete Misterios Best Cocktail Menu Award, which was awarded to The American Bar at Gleneagles in Auchterarder, Scotland for its Book of Berries menu. Inspired by the 20th-century ‘observer books’, this menu features 18 cocktails, each dedicated to a single botanical berry sourced from the local hills of Perthshire.

Renato 'Tato' Giovannoni of multi-award winning Florería Atlántico in Buenos Aires was voted Roku Industry Icon. Other special award winners, announced in the run-up to the event, included Tres Monos, Buenos Aires, named the winner of the Michter’s Art of Hospitality Award, and GN Chan of New York’s Double Chicken Please, winner of the Altos Bartenders’ Bartender Award.

Top 10 in World’s 50 Best Bars 2023

1. Sips, Barcelona

2. Double Chicken Please, New York

3. Handshake Speakeasy, Mexico City

4. Paradiso, Barcelona

5. Connaught Bar, London

6. Little Red Door, Paris

7. Licorería Limantour, Mexico City

8. Tayēr + Elementary, London

9. Alquímico, Cartagena

10. Himkok, Oslo

W: See the full results at worlds50bestbars.com