From North Goa to Bengaluru and New Delhi, the best bars in India are led this year by a dive bar that tops the country on Asia's list. Boilermaker in Siolim, opened in late 2024 by craft brewer Nakul Bhonsle and Pankaj Balachandran of Bar Tesouro, has a corrugated steel bar front and drinks such as Why Did The Onion Blush?; it is No. 8 on Asia's 50 Best Bars 2026 and No. 57 on The 50 Best Bars 51-100 list for 2026. In Bengaluru's Indiranagar, Soka, the izakaya-style room of Sombir Choudhary and Avinash Kapoli, is No. 18 on Asia's 50 Best Bars 2026; its Mofo Don turns spicy tequila pink with red cabbage. In New Delhi, Yangdup Lama and Minakshi Singh's Sidecar in GK2 was No. 26 on The World's 50 Best Bars 2022 and mixes its house Sidecar with cognac, bourbon and roasted corn. Feni and cashew liqueurs turn up in Boilermaker's cocktails. Seating at Boilermaker is limited, so arrive early. These are the forty we would start with.

A neighborhood bar in Siolim built around the beer-and-shot pairing that gives it its name. It serves craft beers from Great State Aleworks alongside original cocktails and reworked Goan bar food, in a deliberately relaxed style the bar links to the local idea of susegad. It was named The Best Bar in India 2026.

Yangdup Lama and Minakshi Singh's wood-panelled neighborhood speakeasy has anchored GK-2 since 2018, coffee from 10am, cocktails from 1pm, live music, and menu chapters that have run from 'Dear Delhi' to the current ARQ. It reached No. 26 on The World's 50 Best Bars in 2022 and was No. 62 on the Asia's 50 Best Bars 51-100 list in 2025. Walk-ins only.

Soka calls itself a neighborhood bar with a global point of view, founded in Bengaluru by the chef Sombir Choudhary and the bartender Avinash Kapoli under the line Kickass Cocktails and Super Snacks. Signature drinks include Made in Heaven and Cheese Cherry Pineapple, and the bar runs recurring platforms hosting visiting bartenders and chefs.

The Best Bar in India 2025, No. 8 on Asia's 50 Best Bars, the year's highest new entry, and No. 96 on The World's 50 Best Bars 51-100 list that year. Lair is a film-noir speakeasy in Vasant Vihar from Jairaj Singh Solanki and Dhruv Raj Vij: three levels of black concrete, glass and geometry, cocktails on levels one and three around a pan-Asian dining room, with a menu that progresses through beginner, intermediate and superior chapters built on regional Indian ingredients.

A cocktail bar on the ground floor of Hotel Southern Star on Lavelle Road. It focuses on spirit-led, technically precise cocktails served alongside a seasonally changing menu of bar snacks drawing on pan-Indian and international influences. The bar holds No. 30 on Asia's 50 Best Bars 2026.
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ZLB23 hides in Zia's Garden on the grounds of The Leela Palace Bengaluru in Kodihalli, where guests ride a service lift down and slip past red velvet curtains into a Kyoto-inspired speakeasy. The hotel opened it in February 2023, and the room plays up vintage glamour. The cocktail menu comes in two parts: refined Prohibition-era classics, such as a Bee's Knees with gin, honey and pea tea, and Japanese-influenced creations like the Shoyu Ramen, which blends tequila and sake with shiro miso and light shoyu. Visiting jazz musicians set the soundtrack, and tables are reserved by phone. ZLB23 ranked No. 40 on Asia's 50 Best Bars 2024 and climbed to No. 31 in 2025.

A rum and tiki cocktail bar on the waterfront at Dona Paula. Its back bar holds over 100 styles of rum, and the drinks list is built around revived classic and nautically themed tiki recipes. The bar holds No. 51 on the Asia's 50 Best Bars 51-100 list in 2026.

The Bombay Canteen celebrates the diversity of Indian produce with playful storytelling about its city, contemporary dishes on hyper-seasonal local ingredients beside the 'Make Mine A Bombay' cocktail program, now in its fifth edition, where house-made spiced falernum and garam masala bitters rework the classics. No. 69 on the Asia's 50 Best Bars 51-100 list in 2025.
Copitas is a cocktail bar located in Bengaluru. 30 Best Bars India #6.
Hoots' calls itself a cocktail room, and its own shorthand is bar, speakeasy, spirit forward, classic. It sits on the first floor of Basant Lok market in Vasant Vihar and keeps to the scale of a small room, with the house line that you do you and it will shake the cocktails. It ranked No. 26 on Asia's 50 Best Bars in 2022, and was on the 51-100 list at No. 59 in 2021 and No. 60 in 2023. Open Tuesday to Sunday from six in the evening until one, closed on Monday.
Home describes itself as a fine dining restaurant and cocktail bar in South Delhi, with a kitchen that moves between modern Indian, European and Japanese and a bar led by its beverage head, Santanu Chanda. The house language is liquid artistry in every sip, cocktails built by its own mixologists on the third floor of Ambience Mall in Vasant Kunj. It placed No. 30 on Asia's 50 Best Bars in 2022, then No. 58 in 2023 and No. 96 in 2024 on the 51-100 list. Open every day from noon until one in the morning.
AABBCC is a three-level bar and restaurant in Basant Lok Market, Vasant Vihar, opened in 2025 by the team behind Lair. Its list is arranged in three chapters, Yesterday for classics rebuilt with modern technique, Today for global flavors met with local ones, and Tomorrow for the experimental, around a mezzanine laboratory and a small omakase-style bar.
Hideaway sits in Goa's beachside village of Vagator, away from the bustle of the party district. Sheldon Abranches, Sidharth Bandal and Nathaniel da Costa founded it in 2019 to pair live music with fun, unpretentious drinks. A horseshoe bar anchors a 35-seat indoor room, and a 45-seat open-air area becomes a stage for jazz bands and independent artists. The cocktails use local ingredients and modern techniques: the Babylon mixes vodka, passion fruit, coconut water and lemongrass oil, and the End of Day blends banana-infused rum, coffee liqueur and black rice tincture. Bar bites carry a Goan twist. It opens at 7pm nightly except Tuesday. It placed on the Asia's 50 Best Bars 51-100 list twice, highest at No. 66 in 2023.

Americano is a neighborhood restaurant and bar in a Kala Ghoda side street, opened by chef Alex Sanchez and restaurateur Mallyeka Watsa and run by Ek Number Hospitality. The kitchen follows Sanchez's produce-led, pared-back cooking, and the bar runs its own cocktail list alongside it. It has been ranked on 30 Best Bars India in five editions, most recently No. 10 in 2025, and placed No. 57 on the Asia's 50 Best Bars 51-100 list in 2023.
Elephant & Co. is the Kalyani Nagar original of a group that has since added a second Pune room in Baner and one in Goa. It calls itself simply a neighborhood bar.
Bandra Born is chef Gresham Fernandes's restaurant and bar on Chapel Road, which began as a 12-week pop-up and stayed on as a permanent fixture. The bar is built around mahua, the spirit distilled from the flower of the mahua tree, with negronis, highballs and coladas made on Six Brothers small-batch mahua, and the kitchen cooks the Catholic, East Indian and Anglo-Indian food of the neighborhood. It placed No. 24 on 30 Best Bars India in 2024 and No. 17 in 2025, and won the 2024 award for Best Non-Alcoholic Bar Menu.
India's first genuine speakeasy: since 2012, entry to PCO has run through an unassuming phone booth where you type a passcode that changes two or three times a week. Inside, an early-1900s room of vintage telephones and antique books serves pre-Prohibition classics and the bespoke Mood Cocktail, built to each guest's preferences. The flagship of Pass Code Hospitality.
Cobbler & Crew is a cocktail bar in Kalyani Nagar with a global bar food program and a trivia night every Thursday.

One of India's most iconic rooftop bars, AER crowns the Four Seasons Mumbai's 34th floor with panoramic views of the skyline and the Arabian Sea, split between the ocean-facing Yacht Club under its retractable roof and the botanical Gimlet Garden. Globally inspired tapas run from Bangkok-style satay to Milanese arancini, with DJ-backed Sunday brunches and a dress code.
What began as an outlying electronic-music venue became one of Worli's destination restaurant-bars: Slink & Bardot splits into a pared-back dining room and a darker, intimate bar of velvet seating and decorative wallpaper. The list runs light fruit serves into darker combinations on local ingredients, kaffir lime, turmeric, chilli syrup, with the Paanch punch reaching back to the 16th century.
Soy Como Soy is a Nikkei and izakaya room in Koregaon Park whose own line for its drinks is that cocktails are crafted, not poured. The kitchen sets Japanese technique against Peruvian flavor, and an open cold bar works sushi, ceviche and carpaccio in view of the room.
PCO stands for Pass Code Only, and the house calls itself India's first speakeasy: the door opens to a code, as the name says. The Mumbai room stands beside the Kamala Mills gate on Senapati Bapat Marg in Lower Parel, and describes its cocktails as meticulously crafted, each with a story inspired by fabrics from PCO's historic textile house, served in what it calls an intimate atmosphere.
O Pedro is Hunger Inc's Goan and Portuguese bar and restaurant in Bandra Kurla Complex, from the team behind The Bombay Canteen, set behind the frangipani trees of the Jet Airways-Godrej building. The bar pours tropical, Goa-inspired cocktails and classics from a long spirits list that leans on Indian gins such as Stranger & Sons, Hapusa and Short Story, while the kitchen cooks from the markets of Mapusa and the homes of Margao, with poee, wood-fired seafood in rechado or cafreal, and pastel de nata. It has been ranked on 30 Best Bars India three times: No. 8 in 2019, No. 28 in 2021 and No. 22 in 2023.
Malaka Spice has served South East Asian cooking in Pune for close to three decades. This listing is the Koregaon Park original; the group also runs rooms in Kharadi and Baner.
Toto's Garage is a long-running, car-themed neighborhood pub at Pali Junction in Bandra West, open in the evenings from 6pm to 1am. 30 Best Bars India gave it its Timeless Bar award in 2022.

The Taj Lands End's 'luxury gastro bar' shifts smoothly between dining and socialising, a sleek, club-like room in Bandra West pouring signature cocktails, premium spirits and world wines over multi-cuisine finger food (the sushi is the local calling card). Smart casual.

Harbor Bar is a hotel bar located in Mumbai. It holds the city's first bar license.

Bombay Daak is a 30-seat bar in Bandra's Reclamation from chef Niyati Rao and Sagar Neve, the team behind Ekaa, built around the Indian daaru-and-chakna idea of drinks with bar snacks. Its cocktails draw on regional Indian ingredients such as noon chai, rasam, besan ghee and Malvani masala, and the walls carry hand-painted botanical tiles. Bar plates such as duck puffs and fried bombil follow the same regional brief.

La Panthera is a restaurant and cocktail bar on the ground floor of INS Tower in the Bandra Kurla Complex, with coffered ceilings, columns, brass chandeliers and a marble-clad bar. The kitchen serves modern European food, and the drinks list is split between signature and low-ABV cocktails and a pricier fine-cocktail section, with pairings suggested against the menu. A second La Panthera has opened in the Eros building at Churchgate.

Late Checkout is a cocktail bar and kitchen in a former textile warehouse in Lower Parel's Mathuradas Mill compound, from Pawan and Nikita Shahri, the team behind Gigi and Lyla. The room keeps the mill's 21-foot ceilings and skylight, with a metal and wood bar and three seating areas, and the cocktails lean savory, with umeshu, fat-washed spirits and mushroom bitters among the ingredients. The kitchen serves Asian-leaning bar plates, and a buggy carries guests through the compound.

Muro calls itself a modern Asian social club, which in practice means a bar, a restaurant and a coffee destination under one roof on Museum Road. The cocktail list is written, in its words, to keep pace with the kitchen, which cooks Thai and Cantonese, and it is poured from an island bar on the ground floor under hanging brass lights. The bar menu opens with the line that bold decisions require liquid courage; the breakfast menu answers that bold mornings require liquid sunshine. Weekdays from noon, weekends from nine in the morning, and one in the morning every night.

Paradox is a cocktail bar in the Shree Laxmi Woollen Mills compound in Mahalaxmi, opened in 2025 by Aditi and Aditya Dugar, the couple behind the tasting-menu restaurant Masque. The drinks are by Ankush Gamre and lean on house techniques such as clarification and ultrasonic extraction, set out in a zine-style menu, with chef Varun Totlani's small plates alongside. The Ashiesh Shah-designed space has hand-embroidered silk walls at the upstairs bar and a tented fumoir at the back.

The Reservoire describes itself as India's largest cocktail bar and a beacon for cocktail aficionados and culinary explorers alike, with a list of more than 200 cocktails and a design that takes its cue from the bars of New York. The Koramangala original, open since 2017, spreads over several levels up to a rooftop under a retractable roof, and the bar counts being pet friendly and green among the things it is proud of. It opens every day at half past eleven in the morning and runs until one.
AMPM occupies the fifth floor of Park Centre on Park Street, a Bright Hospitality room co-founded by Rajan Sethi, a coffee bar by day that turns into a cocktail bar with live music after dark. The Art Deco-inspired space pairs rattan and tufted sofas with checkerboard tiles and an island counter split between coffee station and bar, with a stage in the main seating area for singers and bands. Ngarum, the house coffee brand, serves single-origin beans from Nagaland, and its espresso goes into the Before PM Martini with tequila and Bengali chili liqueur. The AMPM Old Fashioned builds on Aberfeldy 12, nolen gur, orange and bitters, and the AM Mint Snap pairs coconut-washed gin with cocoa-infused cola.
Conversation Room opened in November 2024 on the ground floor of Edward Court, a century-old building on Chowringhee Road, as the neighborhood bar of co-owners Abhimanyu Maheshwari and Ramesh Agarwal. The room keeps a deliberately unpolished look, exposed walls hung with mismatched art and pop culture posters, and the music stays low enough to talk over; a Class Room series brings in speakers on subjects from storytelling to free speech. Pankaj Balachandran of Countertop India designed the launch cocktail menu, with the Eavesdropper, tequila with Cointreau, cranberry and Schezwan sauce, and the Smooth Talker, scotch with vanilla, caramel liqueur and bitters, next to a wine wall of ten wines. Bar heads Arka Das and Sarbani Mukherjee run the counter.
Dali & Gala sums itself up as surreal art, cocktails and Burmese small plates, and sits inside The Museum building on Museum Road. The room is built around Salvador Dali and his muse Gala, and the bar's own promise is that the cocktails keep their cool even when the room does not, drinks that stay clean while everything around them turns surreal. Its cocktail club nights slow things down further: longer conversations, slower pours, stranger music, in the bar's words. Open every day from five in the evening until one.
House of Paloma is an agave-led cocktail bar off Linking Road in Bandra, with a menu built on Latin American flavors and split into sweet, spicy and aromatic sections. The 2,900 sq ft space by architect Sumessh Menon has 33 seats inside and 42 outside and hangs large works by Goan artist Siddharth Kerkar. Head mixologist M Sunil Prathab developed the list with consultants Rahul Raghav and Karl Fernandes.
KMC Bar & Bistro occupies the first floor of Kitab Mahal, a heritage building in Fort facing Azad Maidan, with tall windows looking towards CST and the BMC building. It is run by chef Niyati Rao and Sagar Neve of Nisa Experience, the team behind Ekaa and Bombay Daak, and the letters stand for khana, mehfil, charcha. The cocktail list works Indian spices and herbs such as khus, cumin and coriander into reworked classics, alongside a range of small-batch house liqueurs.
Little Bit Sober is a cocktail bar on the second floor of an 1890 building at 60 Chowringhee Road, opened in 2023 by co-founder Rudradipta Mukherjee and his partners as a stage for Kolkata's bartending community. A bright red door leads to a long, boat-shaped bar counter that runs the length of the 1,800 square foot room. The drinks lean on Bengal: a Ghee Rice Old Fashioned built on gobindobhog rice and ghee-washed scotch, a Tomato Kasundi with clarified kasundi, tomato vodka and celery soda, a Gondhoraj Grapefruit on tequila. The third menu, Friends of the Bar, pays tribute to Calcutta institutions such as Flurys, Nahoum's and the Paramount sherbet shop.
Paasha sits on the 24th floor of JW Marriott Hotel Pune, a rooftop restaurant and lounge with a wide view across the city skyline. Built for evenings with friends or family, the room is dressed for the occasion with flowing drapes, plush couches and moody lighting, while upbeat lounge music keeps the energy high. The bar mixes cocktails with a vintage leaning, and the kitchen turns out North Indian cooking with dishes from the country's North-West. Paasha placed No. 25 on 30 Best Bars India 2021.
These 40 are the starting point. The full BarMagazine directory covers every listed bar in India, with a map, filters by bar type, and new openings as we verify them.