Last week The Artesian bar located in The Langham Hotel in London was voted the world's best bar as voted by worlds50bestbars.com.
For three straight years, this classical hotel bar cum crazy house has topped the poll.
Complacency is anathema to head bartender Alex Kratena, for whom the achievement is irrelevant in the face of today. He barely sleeps. "It’s the fear that is the creative engine," he says. "It’s not the pressure of being voted The World’s Best Bar - we know one day we will not be - it’s the challenge of doing things better every day."
Simone Caporale is the other half of this slicked-back duo. "The World’s 50 Best Bars is like the Oscars - it makes people talk about the films, but they must still be good when people sit down to watch them."
Caporale and Kratena’s performance is always impeccable. They have been side-by-side for four years and are as happy together as a pair of affectionate albatrosses. It’s no coincidence that this period has been the most successful since the bar opened in 2006.
A new menu is devised annually - last year it was based around perfumes and smells. Of the current Unfolding & Exploring theme, the Camouflage is about the easiest cocktail to describe in words, it’s a golden pineapple containing gin and sandalwood.
July 2015 will see the theme Surrealism. Kratena says the menu will "examine the functioning of cocktails in the absence of reason". Don’t try to understand, just visit.
However The Artesian wasn't the only London entry on the list, other top 10 entries from the UK's capital came in the form of the Shoreditch speakeasy, Nightjar, and the American bar located at the Savoy Hotel.
If you fancy galavanting across the world to sample drinks from the best bars in the world, we've published the top 10 below:
1. Artesian, London
2. The Dead Rabbit Grocery & Grog, New York
3. Nightjar, London
4. Attaboy, New York
5. Employees Only, New York
6. Canon, Seattle
7. The Baxter Inn, Sydney
8. American Bar, London
9. High Five, Tokyo
10. 28 Hong Kong Street, Singapore
The World's Best Bar is in London
It's official, the best bar in the world can be found right here in London... on the site of an old well. Any guesses where it is?
Published Oct 13, 2014