Otro Bar

San José, Costa Rica

No. 82 on World's 50 Best Bars 2026.

On the second floor of Bar La Buenos Aires, a 1905 cantina in San José's Barrio Aranjuez, Otro Bar has run as Costa Rica's cocktail laboratory since opening in February 2025. Founders Fernando Crespo and Manuel Crespo, together with creative director Lissa Barquero, kept the building's original woodwork and set stainless steel counters and a visible lab against it, while vinyl records chosen for the room's acoustics play through the night. Head bartender Nadia Rojas leads a research-driven program that reworks the Costa Rican pantry, from corn and specialty coffee to tapa de dulce and banana, through clarification, fermentation, and house infusions. In 2026 the bar was added to 50 Best Discovery, the recommendation platform compiled by the voting Academy behind the World's 50 Best Bars.