The 12 Best Cocktail Bars in Mexico City

Handshake Speakeasy

Eric van Beek, the 2018 Bacardi Legacy World Champion, operates a thirty-two-seat Art Deco speakeasy inside the NH Collection hotel that held No. 1 on North America's 50 Best Bars and No. 2 on the World's 50 Best Bars in 2025. Ninety-minute seatings move through a sixteen-drink menu where preparations run up to forty-eight hours: the Mexi-Thai fat-washes tequila with coconut oil and finishes with makrut lime leaf distillate and clarified tomato cordial. The black-and-gold room trades on intimacy and precision in equal measure. No bar in the Western Hemisphere operates at a higher level of sustained excellence. It won World's Best Cocktail Menu at the 2024 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards. It currently stands at No. 12 on North America's 50 Best Bars 2026.

Tlecān

Bernardo Serna and Eli Martínez Bello, who won the 2025 Altos Bartenders' Bartender Award, built a standing-room-only mezcalería on Álvaro Obregón whose name translates from Nahuatl as "place of fire." No reservations, no seats, and a program that channels pre-Hispanic drinking traditions through thirteen mezcals sourced from small-batch makers, with emphasis on female distillers. The Paloma Blanca, carbonated clarified grapefruit, mezcal, lime, grapefruit salt, distils the philosophy into a single glass. At No. 3 on North America's 50 Best Bars and No. 20 on the World's 50 Best Bars, Tlecān burns with conviction. It won World's Best Spirits Selection at the 2026 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards.

Bar Mauro

Brothers Ricardo and Eduardo Nava won the Campari One to Watch Award in 2025 with a 1970s Italian aperitivo bar that honors their grandfather's legacy. The Garibaldi, Campari, Cynar, bitter Italian aperitif, passion fruit, anchors a program that bridges Italian drinking culture with Mexican neighborhood hospitality. A cheeseburger anchors the food side. At No. 14 on North America's 50 Best Bars and No. 54 on the World's 50 Best Bars as a new entry, Bar Mauro is built for the kind of repeat visits, two, three times a week, that sustain a bar beyond its opening buzz. It was a Top 4 finalist for Best International Bar Team at the 2026 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards.

Licorería Limantour

The bar that launched Mexico City's modern cocktail era in April 2011 received the Rémy Martin Legend of the List Award in 2025, recognition of a venue that has appeared on every major ranking for over a decade. Bar Manager José Luis León Martínez, a 2010 World Class Mexico winner, runs the program from the original Roma Norte location with a menu that rotates seasonally and celebrates Mexican roots. The Margarita al Pastor, tequila, orange liqueur, and a house-made taco-spice blend, remains the signature. At No. 9 on North America's 50 Best Bars and No. 52 on the World's 50 Best Bars, Limantour is the foundation the rest of the scene stands on. It currently stands at No. 20 on North America's 50 Best Bars 2026.

Baltra Bar

José Luis León, who also oversees Licorería Limantour, runs this Galápagos-themed Hipódromo bar as an informal counterpoint to its sibling. Grey couches, light wooden tables, and Charles Darwin paraphernalia, vintage maps, butterfly lithographs, taxidermy, create a living-room warmth that encourages lingering. The seasonally evolving menu takes experimental liberties that Limantour's established identity does not permit. Ranked No. 20 on North America's 50 Best Bars, Baltra operates as the creative laboratory of León's expanding empire. The bar holds No. 78 on the World's 50 Best Bars 2025 and No. 48 on North America's 50 Best Bars 2026.

Café de Nadie

Carmen Huizapol, Mapo Molano, and Jimena Lopez, celebrated Pujol veterans and vinyl enthusiasts, built a cocktail bar around 1,500 albums displayed on the walls and a program where each drink draws inspiration from a song. La Borrachita folds tequila, Earl Grey tea, lychee liqueur, tomato juice, and guava oil into a composition that sounds unlikely and tastes inevitable. The high-fidelity sound system receives the same investment as the spirits shelf. Café de Nadie proves that a bar's soundtrack can be as curated as its cocktail list. Mexico City's cocktail culture draws from sources that no other city can access, pre-Hispanic tradition, agave biodiversity, and a culinary heritage that Pujol and Quintonil translate into fine dining while Roma Norte's bars translate into liquid form. The CDMX bar scene does not follow trends; it sets them. Book the seat, or the standing spot. It currently stands at No. 60 on North America's 50 Best Bars 2026.

Hanky Panky

Mexico City's first speakeasy, opened in 2016 behind a freezer door inside an Oaxacan food fonda, still operates under co-founders Walter Meyenberg, Gina Barbachano, and Ismael Martínez. Named after Ada Coleman's famous cocktail, the program delivers clever twists on classics in a 1920s-aesthetic room reached through a dark hallway. The Michter's Art of Hospitality Award in 2022 and a former No. 13 ranking on the World's 50 Best Bars confirm that Hanky Panky defined a format that the city's subsequent speakeasies have spent years trying to equal. It was a Top 4 finalist for Best International Bar Team at the 2024 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards.

Rayo

Inspired by the Aztec legend of Mayahuel and the lightning bolt (rayo) that created agave, this Roma Norte bar builds theatrical cocktails around Mexican spirits with a storytelling ambition that matches its technique. The Soldado Medina layers tequila, chilli-infused liqueur, green herbal liqueur, Maraschino, cactus sorbet, and lime into a drink that functions as both narrative and flavor experience. reached No. 5 on North America's 50 Best Bars in 2024, a recognition that reflects the bar's theatrical approach to Mexican spirits and its commitment to treating every drink as an origin story.

Bijou Drinkery Room

Hidden inside the Colegio Superior de Gastronomía with a password that requires only a smile, Bijou entered North America's 50 Best at No. 34 as a new entry in 2025. The menu system, a Rubik's Cube that guests twist to determine cocktail base and flavor, translates Harry Johnson's 1882 Bijou cocktail into an interactive format. Piet Mondrian-inspired interiors with stained-glass panels in clear, ruby, and emerald tones frame golden-age cocktails built with contemporary technique. Bijou turns the act of ordering into part of the experience.

Brujas

An all-women staff operates from the Casa de las Brujas, a Roma Norte building whose peaked roof resembles a witch's hat, producing herbal-led cocktails that honor female Latin American writers and activists. The menu changes frequently, the ingredients draw from Mexican herbalism traditions, and the atmosphere runs dark, esoteric, and intimate. At No. 65 on North America's 50 Best extended list, Brujas represents a vital current in Mexico City's bar culture: feminist, ingredient-driven, and rooted in traditions that predate cocktails by centuries.

Form + Matter

A cocktail bar occupying a Roma Norte apartment building, with a minimalist interior of wood, marble and concrete and an entrance on Calle Mérida. It was founded by David Rocha and José Olivas, both formerly of Handshake Speakeasy, with restaurateur Po Tsai. A custom-built laboratory is visible to guests through floor-to-ceiling windows, where the team works with clarification, fat-washing and the reuse of by-products. It sits at No. 13 on North America's 50 Best Bars 2026.

Kaito del Valle

Kaito del Valle, the name is a keepsake from its original Del Valle location; the bar now hides behind a vending-machine door on Hamburgo in Juárez, is led by co-founder and bar director Claudia Cabrera, Roku Industry Icon 2024, with an all-female bar team. Inside: an izakaya menu, a karaoke room and the 'Rising Sun Journal' cocktail list. No.25 on North America's 50 Best Bars 2026.

Order this: The Geisha