Las Vegas has 11 cocktail bars in the BarMagazine directory, and Cleaver leads the pack. This guide covers the cocktail bars specifically; the full Las Vegas picture, all 11 bars of it, lives on the city page. Each listing is verified, with the address, opening hours and what to order.
Nectaly Mendoza's steakhouse sibling to Herbs & Rye won Best U.S. Restaurant Bar at the 2024 Spirited Awards with a program that proves cocktail ambition and red meat belong on the same ticket. Classic Las Vegas steakhouse aesthetics, celebrity portraits, elegant lighting, frame a seasonal cocktail menu that runs as seriously as the prime cuts. Top Four finalist at Tales of the Cocktail 2020, Regional Top Ten Honoree in 2022, and operating with the same Mendoza philosophy that drives his Sahara Avenue flagship: classic cocktails, fair prices, no compromises. The empire runs deep.
Nightlife visionary Ryan Doherty and award-winning mixologist Juyoung Kang, twenty-plus years of experience, formerly of Fontainebleau's Collins bar (Esquire Best Bars in America 2024), opened a 3,400-square-foot explorer's estate in the Arts District in April 2025. The Tom Kha Fizz reimagines a Ramos Gin Fizz with tom yum spices and coconut. The Nine Countries layers mezcal with yuzu-koshō. The moody, maximalist space fills with world artifacts that give the room the character of a well-traveled collector's study. Doberman treats the cocktail menu as a passport.
Twenty-seven seats behind a green door marked with a white donkey in the Cosmopolitan's Block 16 food hall, Ghost Donkey channels a mezcal-and-tequila program through a space intimate enough that every guest sits within conversation distance of the bartender. Artisanal mezcal tasting flights, specialty nachos spanning mole chicken to truffle options, and a late-night energy that builds as the Strip outside peaks. Ghost Donkey treats agave spirits with the curatorial seriousness of a mezcalería in a setting that operates with speakeasy discretion.
Owner and mixologist Nectaly Mendoza built a classic cocktail program on West Sahara Avenue that won Best American High Volume Cocktail Bar and Best American Bar Team at the 2024 Spirited Awards before Mendoza received the 2025 Industry Icon of the Year at the Next Wave Awards. At No. 86 on North America's 50 Best extended list, the bar delivers cocktails under twenty dollars inside a room of crushed red velvet wallpaper, black leather booths, and twinkling chandeliers. BarMania, Mendoza's WWE-inspired speed-cocktail competition raising funds for childhood cancer research, runs annually since 2015. The icon status is earned, not awarded.
Bar Manager Lu Lopez, formerly of the Cocktail Collective at the Palazzo and Youngblood in San Diego (North America's 50 Best Bars), built a Mexico City-inspired cocktail bar on South First Street with thirty creatively crafted drinks, a wall of vinyl records spanning Chet Baker to Wu-Tang Clan, and an intimacy that the Strip cannot replicate. Co-founders Chef D.J. Flores and Aaron Cappello of Nivel Hospitality Group designed the room for cinematic atmosphere and high-touch service. Nocturno sets a new standard for the Arts District with every pour.
Branden Powers, the visionary behind Evel Pie and The Golden Tiki, opened this Japanese-inspired cocktail lounge and listening bar in August 2025 with Ghost Noodles held by invisible chopsticks, disco bathrooms, and a transformative portal aesthetic themed around a fictional muse named Aya. Stephen Grobstein runs a Japanese listening lounge early evenings with vintage reel-to-reels and analogue equipment. The Wagyu Smoked Old Fashioned anchors a program that treats every drink as a scene in an ongoing performance. Pachi-Pachi is Downtown Las Vegas at its most theatrically ambitious.
Over two million cascading crystals define a three-level bar where each floor serves a distinct cocktail philosophy, classic concoctions at the first level, modern creative at the second, champagne-forward at the third. A 2025 Spirited Awards regional honoree and Las Vegas Magazine Hall of Fame inductee for 2024, The Chandelier occupies a central position in the Cosmopolitan that makes it unavoidable and a cocktail program that makes it essential. The recently reimagined menu under Head of Mixology Tsegaye extends a tradition established by Mariena Mercer's legendary Verbena. Scale and quality rarely coexist this comfortably.
Consulting partner Sam Ross, founder of Attaboy, currently No. 66 on the World's 50 Best Bars, guided the team of Evan Hosaka and Daniel Yang in building a kintsugi-inspired lounge on the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and East Fremont that replaced the seventeen-year-old Downtown Cocktail Room in October 2025. The Japanese philosophy of celebrating beauty in broken pottery informs a minimalist industrial space with natural textures, stone, leather, warm woods, and golden highlights. Weekend DJ sets and a happy hour program give the room range. White Whale carries the heritage of its predecessor and the pedigree of its consultant.
On the casino floor of The Palazzo at The Venetian Resort, pairing a craft cocktail program with a 40-foot digital art wall that wraps the room. During the day it operates as a sports-viewing bar; after dark it shifts to a nightlife format with resident DJs and table service.
A rooftop cocktail lounge on the 60th floor of Circa Resort & Casino, overlooking downtown Las Vegas. The room is finished with gold bullion display cases, metal busts of Las Vegas founding figures and archival photography, and opens onto a terrace with fire pits. The drinks list centers on reworked classics, including a build-your-own Old Fashioned. An upscale dress code applies.
These are the cocktail bars specifically. The full Las Vegas guide ranks the best bars of every style, and the directory lists all 11 with a map and filters.
Best bars in Las Vegas