From Milan's aperitivo counters to unmarked doors in Rome and Naples, the best bars in Italy sit near the top of the world rankings. Lorenzo Querci's Moebius Milano, in a former textile warehouse, is No. 2 on The 50 Best Bars list for 2026 and took the award for the best bar in Europe. Locale Firenze pours low-waste classics inside Palazzo Concini and holds No. 33 on the same list. In Rome, Patrick Pistolesi's Drink Kong in Monti mixes retro-futurist design with Japanese whisky and a miso cordial; it was No. 16 on The World's 50 Best Bars 2022 and is No. 92 on the 2026 51-100 list. In Naples, Alex Frezza's L'Antiquario in Chiaia serves a trio of negronis on a silver tower and is No. 28 on Europe's 50 Best Bars 2026. The local pour is bitter and fortified: Campari has been served beside the Duomo since 1915, and Turin is where vermouth was first sold commercially. Drink Kong takes bookings for up to six people and none after midnight. These are the forty we would start with.

Lorenzo Querci's gastronomic-cultural complex in a former textile warehouse: Tapa Bistrot below, the Michelin-starred Sperimentale above, live music, a record store, and a cocktail bar built around a three-meter concrete wall of 300+ spirits with seven seats facing 'the cinema of mixology'. A 700-year-old Andalusian olive tree grows through two floors. Gio Allario leads the bar; Enrico Croatti the kitchens. No. 2 on The 50 Best Bars 2026, where it was named The Best Bar in Europe, after No. 7 in 2025. It was a Top 4 finalist for Best International Bar Team at the 2026 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards.

Locale pours inside Palazzo Concini, a palace whose bones date to the 1200s and whose basement arches may be Roman, the 'Labo-ttega' bar lab is tucked into that medieval underbelly. Bar manager Fabio Fanni's program is low-waste classics-with-a-twist built on seasonal produce and modern technique; the 2026 menu names its drinks after Italian hand gestures. No. 33 on The 50 Best Bars 2026 (No. 22 in 2025) and No.21 in Europe for 2026. No bar reservations, walk in.

Patrick Pistolesi's debut solo project is Rome's retro-futurist landmark: four Blade Runner-tinged rooms of neon and dark surfaces, 'a futuristic arcade from a bygone era', pouring neoclassic cocktails from the current Flux menu. No. 92 on The 50 Best Bars 51-100 list in 2026 after No. 40 in 2025, No.32 in Europe 2026, and the 2019 Campari One To Watch. Reservations top out at six, nothing after midnight; smart casual.

Milan's most famous speakeasy, founded 2013 by the Farmily group, location and phone number deliberately unknown to most; if you know where to go, you know how to book, usually by introduction through a sister venue like Mag. Part chic hideaway, part Wonka-esque drinks laboratory: rotary evaporators and fermenters behind a candlelit marble bar, a 1960s jukebox spinning vinyl. No.22 in Europe's 50 Best Bars 2026 and a World's 50 Best fixture since 2019. It currently stands at No. 94 on The 50 Best Bars 51-100 list in 2026, after No. 43 in 2025.

A former car mechanic's shop on the edge of Trastevere, the name means 'brakes and clutches', Freni e Frizioni keeps its industrial bones: high ceilings, rugged walls, vintage automotive scraps. Under Riccardo Rossi it has grown from casual aperitivo spot (the generous vegetarian buffet remains a draw) into a technical powerhouse, and the current Travel With Us menu drinks through world neighborhoods from the French Quarter to Shoreditch. No.31 on Europe's 50 Best Bars 2026. It sits at No. 62 on The 50 Best Bars 51-100 list in 2026, after No. 58 on the 51-100 list in 2025.
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L'Antiquario is a speakeasy-inspired den in the Chiaia district of Naples, wrapped in art nouveau wallpaper and opened by the Neapolitan bartender Alex Frezza. The list mixes classic recipes with contemporary inventions, and the room leans on live jazz midweek.

The Milanese aperitivo since 1915: Gaspare Campari opened his caffè in the Galleria in 1867, and his son Davide, the first citizen born inside the Galleria, opened Camparino in 1915 with a pioneering chilled seltz system. Art Nouveau interiors by Quarti, Mazzucotelli and d'Andrea survive across three spaces: the stand-up Bar di Passo, the signature Sala Spiritello, and the reservation-only Sala Gaspare Campari. A World's 50 Best regular facing the Duomo. It currently stands at No. 18 on Europe's 50 Best Bars 2026.

Gucci's all-day café-bar on Piazza della Signoria opened in 2022 in a space once occupied by a florist, the interior still nods to it, with head mixologist Martina Bonci building inventive, visually striking drinks with and without alcohol. Part of the Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura family, it placed No.29 on Europe's 50 Best Bars 2026. Order the Mémoire di Negroni (€21). It sits at No. 91 on The 50 Best Bars 51-100 list in 2026, after No. 99 on the 51-100 list in 2025.

Italy's first secret bar, opened in 2010 by a group of bartenders on a mission to revive forgotten cocktail traditions, entry is by password, distributed through the newsletter. The project has entered the World's 50 Best Bars six times, created Vermouth del Professore with Distillerie Quaglia in 2013, and runs its own bartending school in collaboration with Campari Academy. It placed No. 98 on The World's 50 Best Bars 51-100 list in 2025.

A veteran of the Milan cocktail scene: Edoardo Nono's Navigli original, open since 2002, pioneered fresh seasonal ingredients and in-house preparations over artificial syrups, with associate partner Chiara Buzzi aboard since 2018. The list splits into Restoring, Refreshing and Relaxing, with barrel-aged options and proper food from vegetable croquettes to steak. No.49 in Europe's 50 Best Bars 2026.
Palazzo Manfredi's cocktail terrace faces the Colosseum and the ruins of the Ludus Magnus, 'a modern monument to mixology' with bar manager Matteo Zed running rotary-evaporator redistillations alongside refined classics. The format is a curated tasting journey with a two-cocktail minimum per guest, and it placed at No. 77 on the World's 50 Best Bars 51-100 list in 2022.
From the team behind Jerry Thomas Speakeasy and Freni e Frizioni, La Punta is one of Italy's best-stocked tequila and mezcal bars, a Trastevere den of dim light, Mexican tiles and embroidered stools, its agave list built after research trips to Oaxaca, right down to the basement drinking room.
The garden bar of Hotel de Russie takes its name from Igor Stravinsky's 1917 Roman visit, Cocteau called the hotel 'paradise on Earth' while staying with Stravinsky and Picasso. Bar manager Mattia Capezzuoli leads the team under Maestro Salvatore Calabrese, with cocktails drawn from the hotel's Secret Garden and food envisioned by chef Fulvio Pierangelini. Smart casual, the sportswear stays at home.
The cocktail bar of The St. Regis Venice, at San Marco 2159, takes its cue from the architect Carlo Scarpa and keeps a jazzy mood. Its Worldwide Icons of Art list, launched in 2024, runs to 12 cocktails, each drawn from a work of art and poured into Murano glass. Silver Dreams nods to Warhol's Shots Marilyn paintings, Canal Art is a mezcal drink inspired by Banksy, and The Negroni Desire tips its hat to Dalí. Bars manager Ludwig Negri, who brings more than ten years in hospitality, leads the team. The dress code is smart casual, and the bar's own site lists a seasonal closure in January.
An all-day bar in the Ticinese area of Milan, decorated with motorcycles and vintage 1950s Milanese cars alongside leather seating and a Prohibition-styled bar counter. The cocktail program is run on sustainability principles. The venue also serves food, including Sunday brunch with a rotating menu.

Dario Comini's legendary fusion bar at Porta Monforte, operating since 1970 and a self-described pioneer of barchef mixology in Milan, clarifications, fermentations and scientific technique long before they were fashionable, served in a charmingly chaotic room of travel artefacts, hammocks, masks and endless spirits. A former regular of the World's 50 Best Bars list.
The Four Seasons Hotel Firenze's glass-roofed lounge fills the atrium of a 15th-century palazzo, interiors by Pierre-Yves Rochon, forty seats inside and forty out, live piano in the evening. Mixologist Edoardo Sandri likes unconventional ingredients; the house Vintage Negroni pays tribute to the cocktail Florence invented, and signatures run from Bagel & Lox to Yuja.
The pioneer of Milan's cocktails-and-pizza pairing, founded 2013 in Brera: Neapolitan pies by Lorenzo Sirabella (trained under Enzo Coccia) beside signature mixology from bar manager Edris Al Malat, in a warm, deliberately bare retro room. Eat, mix, experiment, share, recognized by 50 Top Pizza, Gambero Rosso and Forbes.

Diego Cabrera's Milan outpost, opened 2024 between Porta Volta and Sempione, part of the 'Guru Airways' family linking Madrid, Dubai and Milan. Always against the flow: author mixology as liquid stories, Spanish-Mediterranean 'savage food' tapas (pulpo al kamado, cochinita tacos), a daily Spanish aperitivo 6-8pm, and guest-shift nights. The Madrid flagship is a World's 50 Best fixture.

The first Cocktail Lab Bistrot, casual dining and drinking under one roof in Via Savona, led by pre-eminent bartender Dom Carella. The menu is framed as a lab project: rotating experiments, an 'Italici' section of Italian aperitivo serves, compact-size Martinis at €6, a Seedlip-based zero-proof list, and ingredients sourced straight from producers. Open from aperitivo hour until late.
Alfonso Califano and Natale Palmieri founded Cinquanta Spirito Italiano at Via Trento 44/46 in Pagani, in the province of Salerno, as a contemporary reading of the Italian bar of the 1950s. The drinks list honors the great classics of mixing while leaving room for experiment and cross-pollination, and the founders say their biggest investment went into their people. Once a month the bar hosts a 50xMille charity evening tied to a local or regional nonprofit, which receives the whole of the night's takings. It opens Wednesday to Monday from 5:30 pm to 2 am, closing on Tuesdays, and tables can be booked over WhatsApp through the website.
Dean and Dan Caten's (Dsquared2) rooftop trinity: two pools, Elio Sironi's fine-dining restaurant, and an American Bar where classic mixology gets an Italian rereading. The day arcs from poolside mornings through terrace lunches and tapas to aperitivo and after-dinner, every day of the year; the pools run June to September against the Milan skyline.

Giacosa traces its roots to a café founded in Turin in 1815, which reached Florence by 1860 and moved to Via de' Tornabuoni in 1927. House lore says the Negroni was born here in 1919, when Count Camillo Negroni had bartender Fosco Scarselli replace the soda in his Americano with gin. Today the bar stands at Via della Spada 15R, across the street from its original location, in a room whose renovation drew on archive photographs of the old café. Coffee and pastries fill the morning, and aperitivo takes over toward evening. The Negroni comes in several forms, from the classic to the house Negroni Giacosa, a Negroni Oldfashioned and a nitro version. Tables can be booked online or by phone, and walk-ins are welcome. In 2025 The Pinnacle Guide awarded it 1 Pin.
Founded at the end of 2019 and grown within three years into four venues, Florence, Rome, Venice and Villa Cora, Santa Cocktail Club is Giulio Fratini's soft-lit room on Piazza Santa Maria Novella, with bar manager Simone Covan running a laboratory-style drinks program and executive chef Massimo Scervino's kitchen blending tradition and experimentation.
Sentaku Izakaya brings the Japanese izakaya, a place where drinks and food are meant to arrive together, to Via Marchesana 6 in the heart of Bologna's old town. It opened in December 2023 as the next step for the team behind Sentaku Ramen Bar, which Nicolò Ribuffo and Claudio Alessandro Musiani started in the city in 2017, with Musiani now executive chef and owner. Bar manager Erick Munguia runs a cocktail program that joins izakaya conviviality to a contemporary mixology approach, with attention to raw ingredients and modern technique. The kitchen sends out small plates to share, from little bites built for the drinks to fuller dishes such as bao, katsu sando and a marinated roast cauliflower. In 2025 The Pinnacle Guide awarded it 1 Pin.
The deliberately eclectic bar of Aethos Milan on the Navigli's Piazza XXIV Maggio, furniture and décor that refuse any single era, most of it for sale. Bar manager Nicola Romiti's Summer 2026 menu is a garage of iconic cars, from a Fiat 500 of gin, olives and chicory coffee to a Ferrari Testarossa on lacto-fermented raspberry; Sunday brunch brings 'The Alchemy of Mixology' with a DJ.
The beating heart of the Mandarin Oriental Milan: a courtyard bar and all-day dining room amid lush greenery, Italian design and subtle Oriental touches, under two-Michelin-star chef Antonio Guida's culinary direction. From 7am breakfast through the 6-8pm aperitivo, by night it becomes one of Milan's most exclusive nightspots, with signatures like the pine-and-cherry Escape at the €28-35 mark.
Harry's Bar opened on 13 May 1931, when Giuseppe Cipriani Senior took a room at the end of Calle Vallaresso a few steps from Piazza San Marco, and it became, in the family's words, the place where writers, painters, artists, aristocrats, kings and queens would meet: Barbara Hutton, Katharine Hepburn, Orson Welles, Peggy Guggenheim, Truman Capote and Ernest Hemingway among them. Cipriani's own heritage pages trace the Bellini and the carpaccio to this room. Open every day from eleven in the morning to eleven at night.
Salotto 42 is a cocktail bar on Piazza di Pietra, facing the columns of the second-century Temple of Hadrian a short walk from Via del Corso. Open for close to twenty years, it is run as a book bar with a lounge-like interior and serves from morning coffee through aperitivo to late cocktails. It appeared on The World's 50 Best Bars list in 2010 at No. 49.

Azotea is a Nikkei cocktail restaurant on Via Maria Vittoria in central Turin, where Peruvian and Japanese flavors meet in the kitchen and in the glass. It was founded by Noemi Dell'Agnello, who runs the room, and bar manager and partner Matteo Fornaro, with executive chef Alexander Robles, originally from Cuzco, in the kitchen. The cocktails are designed to pair with the tapas and dishes, and the tailored interiors are part of the concept.

Bidder Bar sits on the sixth floor of the Grand Hotel Parker's on Corso Vittorio Emanuele, looking out over the Gulf of Naples. The hotel serves creative cocktails here alongside a traditional menu. A partnership with Campari has produced seven Spritz variations inspired by the seven Muses of the terrace.

D.ONE Torino is a cocktail bar in San Salvario, founded on 27 April 2017 by Simone Nervo and Vanessa Vialardi. Its drinks list sits alongside a pop gourmet kitchen, and the room blends industrial, Nordic and vintage design under soft lighting. There are 80 to 90 seats inside and 50 across two covered dehors, with a soundtrack running from jazz to lindy hop and rockabilly.
300Mila, on Via 47° Reggimento Fanteria, has been part of Lecce since 2006, and it refuses a single label: it is a café, pastry shop, restaurant and cocktail bar in one, with a shop and a workshop besides. Mornings bring coffee, its tartlets are billed as the sweetest part of the day, and evenings are about lights, detail and elegance. The space runs to a thousand square meters, with elegant furnishings, a Hopper painting as backdrop, vertical gardens and glittering cases holding thousands of wines, sparkling wines and spirits, from gin and rum to whisky, cognac and vodka, alongside a collection of cocktail shakers. Sustainable, inclusive and visionary has always been the philosophy of its patron, Davide De Matteis.
Affini opened around fifteen years ago in San Salvario, the heart of Turin's nightlife. Its crew works with traditional liqueurs, spirits from overseas, spices, herbs and tinctures, and the venue calls itself a pop and surprising food and drink address. The house also sells its own products, including a Turin gin and a kombucha.
Anthill is a contemporary cocktail and tapas bar on the fifth floor of Via Toledo 177 in Naples, a project of chef Giuseppe Iannotti. The venue pitches itself as a place to feel in Naples, New York and Barcelona at the same time. Its cocktails are served alongside a tapas menu, and bookings are taken by email.
Archivio Storico, on Via Alessandro Scarlatti in Vomero, is a tribute to the Naples of the Bourbon kings, and you enter it through a painting. A canvas three meters tall showing Charles of Bourbon's victory at Gaeta slides aside to reveal five rooms, each dedicated to one of the five Bourbon kings of the Two Sicilies and his queen, beneath ceiling paintings that tell the dynasty's story in the city. A large display case holds the spirits and liqueurs as in a library. The drinks have followed the theme, with five Martinis for the five kings and cocktails inspired by the pastry of the Monzù, the chefs of the noble houses, whose cooking also shapes the menu.
Argot is a late-night cocktail bar behind an unmarked door on Via dei Cappellari, near Campo de' Fiori, open from 10pm to 4am. The room mixes bare brick and exposed pipes with old armchairs and lace doilies, and the list runs from classics and twists to house creations served in vintage crystal. Entry is for members of the Arci association, as at several of Rome's private-club bars.
Astronomia is a secret bar in central Naples, reached through a hidden door at the back of the Gaaastronomia deli on Via Ferdinando del Carretto and down a flight of stairs. After a drinks list built around the signs of the zodiac, the bar has moved to a new menu themed on the planets and the solar system. The room pairs a black and white checkered floor with hot air balloon wallpaper and rough textured walls.
Bamboo Lounge calls itself an urban refuge in the center of Bologna on Strada Maggiore, where an exotic jungle atmosphere meets quality. Its seasonal cocktails reinterpret drinking traditions from around the world. Food runs through the day from breakfast and lunch into the evening, and happy hour is every day from 5pm to 8pm.
Bar Cavour is the cocktail bar of Del Cambio, the house on Piazza Carignano in central Turin that first opened as a café in 1757. Del Cambio describes it as refined, vibrant and cosmopolitan, with the Stanza Verde, an intimate private fumoir. It opens in the evening from Tuesday to Sunday, and tables can be booked online.
These 40 are the starting point. The full BarMagazine directory covers every listed bar in Italy, with a map, filters by bar type, and new openings as we verify them.