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The 13 Best Bars in San Francisco

13 bars, chosen on the record: one on The World's 50 Best Bars, three on North America's 50 Best.

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  1. True Laurel
    ★ TOP 10NORTH AMERICA'S 50 BESTCocktail Bar

    True Laurel

    Bar Director Nicolas Torres and chef-co-founder David Barzelay, the team behind two-Michelin-starred Lazy Bear, built this Alabama Street bar on hyper-seasonal California ingredients: pinecone distillate, redwood tips, house-fermented field cider, and California bay tincture. The 2024 Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award confirmed what the program makes obvious: True Laurel treats environmental responsibility as creative fuel rather than constraint. At No. 17 on North America's 50 Best Bars, the bar changes its menu daily based on what arrives from local producers. No two visits taste the same. It was a Top 4 finalist for Best U.S. Cocktail Bar at the 2025 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards. The bar holds No. 14 on North America's 50 Best Bars 2026.

    753 Alabama St, San Francisco, CATue-Wed 4pm-10pm, Thu 4pm-11pm, Fri 4pm-12am, Sat 11am-12am, Sun 11am-10pm
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  2. Smuggler's Cove
    ★ TOP 10SPIRITEDTiki Bar

    Smuggler's Cove

    Martin Cate assembled over five hundred rums spanning three centuries of distillation history inside a retro-tropical Hayes Valley space that won the Spirited Award in 2016 and continues to operate at the pinnacle of American tiki. Seventy-five cocktails and counting, each built with the kind of sourcing obsessiveness that Cate, a cocktail historian whose book Smuggler's Cove became the definitive tiki reference, brings to every decision. General Manager Christopher Ward keeps the operation running at a level that justifies the word "destination." No rum bar in the country runs deeper.

    650 Gough St, San Francisco, CA 94102Daily 5pm-1:15am
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  3. ABV
    ★ TOP 10SPIRITEDCocktail Bar

    ABV

    Co-founders Ryan Fitzgerald, Todd Smith, and Erik Reichborn-Kjennerd won Best American High Volume Cocktail Bar at the Spirited Awards with a Sixteenth Street program that organizes drinks by spirit base and delivers them with the consistency that high-volume demands. The short menu masks the technique underneath, each cocktail calibrated for rapid execution without sacrificing the craft that Bay Area drinkers expect. ABV operates as the Mission's most reliable neighborhood bar precisely because reliability at this level requires extraordinary effort.

    3174 16th St, San Francisco, CA 94103Daily 4pm-2am
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  4. Trick Dog
    ★ TOP 10SPIRITEDCocktail Bar

    Trick Dog

    Josh Harris' Mission District bar won Best U.S. Cocktail Bar at the 2025 Spirited Awards by doing what it has done since opening: completely reinventing its menu every six months. The current iteration, "Meet Me In The City," features sixteen cocktails at eighteen dollars each, inspired by San Francisco photographers and their relationship to the city's streets. The semi-annual format demands a creative rigour that few bars sustain across a single menu, let alone dozens. Trick Dog treats the cocktail menu as a publishing event. The city reads every issue. It currently stands at No. 100 on North America's 50 Best Bars 2026.

    3010 20th St, San Francisco, CA 94110Sun-Thu 4pm-12am, Fri-Sat 4pm-2am
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  5. Pacific Cocktail Haven
    ★ TOP 10NORTH AMERICA'S 50 BESTCocktail Bar

    Pacific Cocktail Haven

    Kevin Diedrich, 2020 Best American Bartender at Tales of the Cocktail, built a program around Asian-Pacific ingredients that sits at No. 16 on North America's 50 Best Bars. Pandan, nori, yuzu, and lemongrass run through a menu that reflects Diedrich's Filipino and Chinese heritage without reducing cultural identity to a garnish. Partners Andy Chun and Jan Wiginton helped transform a former pisco bar on Sutter Street into a James Beard Outstanding Bar finalist. PCH demonstrates that identity-driven bartending produces better drinks, not just better stories. The bar was a Top 4 finalist for Best U.S. Bar Team at the 2024 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards. The latest lists place it at No. 41 on North America's 50 Best Bars 2026.

    550 Sutter St, San Francisco, CAMon-Sat 5pm-12am, Sun closed
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  6. Buena Vista Cafe
    ★ TOP 10SPIRITEDCocktail Bar

    Buena Vista Cafe

    Two thousand Irish Coffees per day, served continuously since Jack Koeppler and travel writer Stanton Delaplane perfected the floating-cream technique in November 1952 after a failed attempt to replicate Shannon Airport's recipe. The Spirited Awards granted Buena Vista its Timeless U.S. Award in 2024, the same recognition given to bars whose longevity reflects cultural significance rather than trend relevance. The view across San Francisco Bay to Alcatraz has not changed; the Irish Coffee has not changed; the tourists who discover it become converts who return. Some things require no reinvention.

    2765 Hyde St, San Francisco, CA 94109Mon-Thu 9am-11pm, Fri 9am-12am, Sat 8am-12am, Sun 8am-11pm
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  7. Jilli
    ★ TOP 10Cocktail Bar

    Jilli

    Jeong Hwang-hah, a former Airbnb UX designer who pivoted to hospitality, opened San Francisco's first makgeolli bar in June 2025, and the room has been fully booked most nights since. The curated selection spans U.S. and Korean producers, including Brooklyn's Hana Makgeolli and Southern California's Sang Makgeolli, in a space modelled on the Korean sool jib, a third place dedicated to gathering over traditional fermented rice wine. Jilli rides a market that has reached $105 million in the U.S. and projects to double by 2035. The timing is impeccable; the execution, patient.

    1503 15th St, San Francisco, CA 94103Tue-Sat 5pm-9:30pm, Sun-Mon closed
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  8. Valley Club
    ★ TOP 10Cocktail Bar

    Valley Club

    Eater SF and the SF Standard both named this Hotel G mezzanine bar Best New Bar for 2025, and the Lovemaker, a Negroni variant with gin, raspberry, vermouth, Campari, and cocoa butter, explains why. Owner Mitchell Lagneaux built a cocktail program that channels 1970s post-modern glamour through horseshoe-shaped bar service, halo lighting, and deep reds. The windowless room creates a world that operates on its own clock. Valley Club arrived in June 2025 and immediately established itself as Union Square's most atmospheric new drinking address.

    386 Geary St, San Francisco, CA 94102Mon-Thu 5pm-12am, Fri-Sat 5pm-1am, Sun closed
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  9. Bar Shoji
    ★ TOP 10Cocktail Bar

    Bar Shoji

    An offshoot of Michelin-starred omakase The Shota, Bar Shoji transforms from daytime café to evening cocktail bar with a program that honors its parent's Japanese precision. The Noguchi, wagyu-washed Japanese whisky, bourbon, awamori, Okinawa black sugar, shiitake, cardamom, and smoked hinoki wood, reads like a kaiseki course translated into liquid form. Chef Intu-on Kornnawong handles the sashimi and tebasaki wings that accompany the drinks. Thirty-five seats, ninety-minute reservations, and an energy that builds as the room darkens.

    140 New Montgomery St, San Francisco, CA 94105Tue-Sat 4pm-11pm, Mon closed
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  10. Bar Sprezzatura
    ★ TOP 10Cocktail Bar

    Bar Sprezzatura

    Carlo Splendorini builds cocktails around a Negroni program that has cycled through fifty variations since opening in November 2022, keeping five on the menu at any given time. The Tutto Fumo, Parmigiano-Reggiano rind-washed mezcal, apricot, Calabrian chilies, honey, lemon, and frothy egg whites, captures the Martin Brudnizki-designed room's Venetian ethos: serious ingredients, generous portions, no severity. Two-story windows and furnishings imported directly from Venice create a cicchetti-and-cocktails experience that transports without pretending San Francisco is anything other than itself.

    300 Clay St, San Francisco, CA 94111Mon-Wed 11am-9pm, Thu-Fri 11am-10pm, Sat 4pm-10pm, Sun closed
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  11. Starlite
    Hotel Bar

    Starlite

    Starlite is the lounge on the twenty-first floor of the Beacon Grand Hotel above Union Square, with 360-degree views, green velvet couches and an all-vinyl soundtrack from nightly DJs. The cocktails were designed by Scott Baird around San Francisco icons, the Cable Car among them, and the snack menu by chef Johnny Spero runs to hot fried chicken buns and baked oysters. Guests must be 21 and reservations are recommended.

    450 Powell St, 21st Floor, San Francisco, CA 94102Thu 4pm-12am; Fri-Sat 4pm-2am; Sun 4pm-12am; Mon-Wed closed
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  12. Bar Maritime
    Hotel Bar

    Bar Maritime

    Bar Maritime is a cocktail bar on the second floor of Palihotel San Francisco, steps from Union Square, with a program built on martinis and produce-driven cocktails from Larry Piaskowy and the bar team. It takes no reservations, and the Maritime Boat Club, a seafood restaurant with a low-intervention wine list, sits through a curtain at the back of the bar.

    417 Stockton St, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94108Tue-Thu 4pm-11pm; Fri 4pm-12am; Sat 2pm-12am; Sun 4pm-10pm; Mon closed
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  13. Cavaña
    Rooftop Bar

    Cavaña

    Cavaña is the rooftop bar on the seventeenth floor of the LUMA Hotel in Mission Bay, an ode to Central and South America whose name joins agave and caña. The cocktails are ingredient-driven and built on mezcal, tequila, rum and cachaça, with a kitchen serving small plates and mains until late.

    100 Channel St, 17th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94158Sun-Thu 4pm-12am; Fri 4pm-1am; Sat 2pm-1am
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Explore the whole San Francisco scene

These 13 are the starting point. The full BarMagazine directory covers every listed bar in San Francisco, with a map, filters by bar type, and new openings as we verify them.

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