Campari’s fourteenth Negroni Week runs from September 21 to 27, and the Asia Pacific program is the largest slate of international guest shifts the region has staged. Here is who is pouring, and where.
Four of the most decorated bar teams in Europe are working in Asia during the same week this month. Monica Berg and Alex Kratena of Tayēr + Elementary, No. 5 on The World’s 50 Best Bars 2025, Giorgio Bargiani of The Connaught Bar, No. 6, Iain McPherson of Panda & Sons, No. 34, and Erik Lorincz of Kwãnt London are all traveling for Negroni Week, the annual Campari and Imbibe initiative that runs from September 21 to 27 with proceeds going to Slow Food.
For anyone working behind a bar in the region, the interesting part is not the campaign. It is the calendar. Across nine markets, visiting bartenders are taking over roughly twenty rooms, many of them among the highest ranked in Asia, and several of the shifts pair names that rarely appear in the same city, let alone the same room.
Bangkok draws the heaviest concentration of international talent. Berg and Kratena open the city’s program with a two night residency at Capella Bangkok on September 21 and 27. McPherson follows at the same hotel on September 24, bringing the sub-zero work that has made Panda & Sons one of the most technically curious bars in Britain. Bargiani takes the bar at Aman Nai Lert Bangkok on September 26, and Lorincz closes the Bangkok run back at Capella on September 27.
Mainland China carries the widest geographic spread. The regional program opens in Chengdu on September 21, where Nicholas Ansel Liawinata of Carrots Bar in Jakarta, No. 21 on The 50 Best Bars Asia 2026, guests at Odyssey. Joash Conceicao of Singapore’s Offtrack, No. 16, takes over Mishang PRADA Rongzhai in Shanghai on September 22. Berg then continues from Bangkok to Bar Leone Shanghai on September 24, the mainland outpost of the Hong Kong bar named the world’s best in 2025, before finishing at Hope & Sesame in Guangzhou on September 26. That last one is worth circling: Hope & Sesame was named The Best Bar in Asia 2026, so it is the current regional number one hosting one of the most influential bartenders in the world.
Conceicao makes a second Greater China appearance in Macau on September 24, at Pony & Plume in Capella at Galaxy.
Hong Kong opens the week with a double shift. On September 21, Zuma Hong Kong hosts the city’s opening party with Matteo Cadeddu of Opium in Bangkok, No. 25 in Asia, and Michele Montauti of Aman Nai Lert Bangkok, each serving their own Negroni.
Ho Chi Minh City takes four shifts. Hiroyuki Yamada of Bee’s Knees in Kyoto, the 2025 Campari Red Hands Japan winner, is at Ne Bar on September 24. Cris Song, head bartender at Shanghai’s Pony Up, a new entry at No. 19 in Asia and the 2025 Red Hands APAC champion, is at Laila on September 25. Cadeddu returns for his second regional shift at Park Hyatt Saigon on September 26, and Lorincz continues from Bangkok to Stir on September 29.
Southeast Asia’s most charming detail is a swap. Demitria Dana Paramita, co-founder of Jakarta’s Hats Bar, opens Singapore’s program at Milli on September 21, then continues to Cabinet 8 in Kuala Lumpur on September 23. Two days later, Sam Yap Chun Fai of Cabinet 8 completes the exchange with a shift at Hats Bar in Jakarta. The two bars, both new entries on this year’s Asia list, simply trade places for the week.
Jakarta starts early, with Melvin Lim of Kuala Lumpur’s Bar Trigona, No. 38 in Asia, at Osteria Gia on September 18.
Manila opens with two teams in one night. On September 21, The Backroom at Shangri-La Manila hosts Agung Prabowo and Laura Prabowo of Penicillin in Hong Kong, the city’s first closed loop sustainable bar, alongside Kiki Moka of The Cocktail Club in Jakarta.
The program also runs past the week itself. Niko Idham Kholid of Jakarta’s Between the Sips guests at Drinking & Healing in Ho Chi Minh City on October 9, and Philip Bischoff, beverage manager at BKK Social Club, closes the regional run at The Haflington in Hanoi on October 28.
Negroni Week began in 2013 as a simple idea, that bars serving a three ingredient classic could raise money while doing it. Campari reports that almost 15,000 bars and restaurants in more than 90 countries took part in 2025, raising a combined $700,000, and that this year’s fund will again be distributed by Slow Food to support education, biodiversity and equity projects within hospitality.
For the region’s bartenders, though, the value of a week like this is simpler than the fundraising total. It is a rare chance to stand next to someone whose work you have only read about, and to watch how they build a drink you have made a thousand times.
