L'Apothicaire calls itself the reference in Genevese mixology for over ten years, and runs on a house creed of good vibes only. The signature list is renewed with the seasons, with drinks such as Bad Trip, Desperados, Gaijin and Birdy priced around eighteen to nineteen francs, and the bartenders, drawn from bars around the world, will also build a cocktail to a guest's personality rather than the menu. It sits on Boulevard Georges-Favon in Plainpalais and opens from five in the evening, Tuesday to Saturday.
The name is literal: La Distillerie both mixes and distils, and the bar describes its offer as handcrafted cocktails, natural wines and locally sourced products, in that order. It is a neighbourhood room on Boulevard Carl-Vogt rather than a destination lounge, open early in the week for a short evening and late on Friday and Saturday, with Monday off. Reach it on coucou@, which tells you the tone before you walk in.
A cocktail bar in the Plainpalais quarter, away from the lake and the banks, on a street of small shops and restaurants.
Little Eminente Barrel is a rum bar in Eaux-Vives that describes itself as an intimate speakeasy, and the shelf is the point: a collection of nearly 140 rums, from the Antilles to Latin America and on through Asia, poured neat or worked into signature cocktails. The room holds up to fifty for private tastings and evenings, which is how the bar prefers to be used, as a place to sit down with a bottle rather than pass through. It opens at six, Tuesday to Saturday, and closes on Sunday and Monday.
Moon is a Prohibition-era speakeasy by intent, styled on 1930s New York and open only after dark, because, in its own words, the night is its domain. The cocktails start from clandestine recipes of the period and are brought forward with clarification and house-made spirits, and the food is what the bar calls a junk food revolution, Brooklyn-style comfort plates done generously. It is on Rue Henri-Blanvalet in Eaux-Vives, opening at half past five from Tuesday, with the latest nights on Thursday to Saturday.
These 5 are the starting point. The full BarMagazine directory covers every listed bar in Geneva, with a map, filters by bar type, and new openings as we verify them.
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