World’s hottest bar openings from spring 2025
The bar world matched nature’s energy in spring, with new openings blooming in all corners of the globe.
From Sydney to Shanghai, to New York to Vancouver, spring’s bar roundup was on a world tour as new venues to drink top-tier cocktails in cropped up far and wide. One of Hong Kong’s best bars cutting the ribbon on a sequel in Shanghai and big-name hotel openings in the likes of Osaka and Amsterdam were just a few of last season’s standouts.
For the full list of new bar openings that had us swivel around and take notice in spring, keep on reading. And for what happened over winter, you can check out our roundup here.
Want your new bar to be considered in our next seasonal roundup? Email info@thespiritsbusiness.com.
Herbs Taverne, Sydney
The Mucho Group, behind Sydney’s two temples to agave spirits in Cantina OK and Centro 86, have tried their hand at something new with a Negroni bar.
Named Herbs Taverne, its menu features 12 drinks spread across four sections with a focus on bitter drinks, namely European apéritifs and digestif traditions. In one section, guests will find the Negronis, in the others, apéritifs, three house-blended digestifs and three changing seasonal cocktails to round it out. On top of this, or behind the bar, guests will also spy a selection of 45 amaros, sourced from Italy, the US, Japan and beyond, including a pineapple rum-based amaro from Milwaukee and a Moscato digestif from Piedmont.
As for the space itself, guests will note a bit of 1900s theatre and a bit of 1960s diner in the design, a soundtrack that leans into early 2000s New York indie nostalgia, and the return of the free popcorn offering that claimed fame at the group’s other venues – this recipe promising to be ‘the best yet’.
Address: 213 Clarence St, Sydney NSW 2000, Australia
Sprout, London
Sprout, nestled within the newly opened Templeton Garden hotel, is a garden lover’s dream. Not in the least because it has an expansive garden in its back pocket for summertime drinking, but it also sources many of its herbs for its drinks from the garden itself, plus ingredients acquired directly from British farms with a market ethos.
The drinks programme is overseen by bar director Will Meredith (once bar manager of Lyaness), his business partner Ellie Camm and bar manager Dominic Royle, who spotlight vegetables and fruit in drinks such as tomatoes in a Collins, red onion in a Manhattan, turnip in an Old Fashioned and, pushing the boat out a little further, a drink centred around asparagus from the Loire Valley, which is also served with rum and dry curaçao.
Once an ingredient has outlived its season, its cocktail will then be replaced for something better suited to the month, keeping the venue both sustainably-minded and dynamic, and one to visit all-year-round.
Address: 1, 15 Templeton Pl, London SW5 9NB
Junebug, New Orleans
Junebug’s location on Camp Street is something of a sacred site to funk fans, with its links to Cosimo Matassa as the producer’s recording studio where the likes of Allen Toussaint would write songs in the 1970s.
The team have treated the space’s storied musical past with the appropriate care, fitting it with two turntables, floor speakers and a playlist made up for nearly 500 funk and soul records, said to be the product of ‘countless hours’ spent thumbing their way through local record shops.
And the same goes for the drinks – the bar is well-stocked with brandies and eaux-de-vie, plus a healthy list of cocktails to get through that includes New Orleans classics like the Sazerac and Frozen Ramos Gin Fizz.
Address: 744 Camp St, New Orleans, LA 70130, US
Penicillin, Shanghai
Penicillin in Hong Kong is known for creating some of the city’s best cocktails, and for also making its guests feel a little less guilty about drinking five of them in a sitting thanks to its impressive commitment to sustainability.
Shanghai cocktail fans can now enjoy the same treatment as founders Agung and Laura Prabowo have taken their closed-loop bar concept to a two-storey building on Nanchang Road, which has been transformed into a ‘bamboo sanctuary’ complete with a tree that hangs from the ceiling, bottled-lined bar and neon lights repurposed from local shops that closed down during the pandemic.
Within the space are four ‘chambers’ – a laboratory, the fermentation room, the kitchen and bar – from where the team recycle and upcycle ingredients that may otherwise have been wasted. While five of the favourites from Hong Kong have made the Shanghai menu, there are new cocktails to try, made with local ingredients, such as one that pairs lacto-fermented bananas with White Rabbit milk candy.
Address: 62 Nanchang Rd, Putung, Shanghai, China 200025
Câv, London
Câv comes from hospitality veterans Chris Tanner and Edwin Frost, who count Soho’s Dram and London wine bars Oranj and Half Cut between them, and have poured all their extensive drinking experience into a spacious spot under the railway arches of Bethnal Green.
For the cocktails, the pair use crowd-pleasing classics as a base and remix those with their own ideas. A Gimlet is made with peach, soju and yoghurt, a Dill Martini with Ramsbury vodka and anchovy oil, and a Tangerine Highball with Ocho Tequila, with all priced pretty fairly (for London standards) at £12 (US$16).
“We want Câv to feel elevated but maintain that approachable East London grit that Bethnal Green does so well,” said Tanner of the vision.
Address: 255 Paradise Row, Greater, London E2 9LE
Advocatuur, Amsterdam
The Rosewood Amsterdam opened in the city’s former Palace of Justice over spring to much anticipation, but for cocktail connoisseurs, the hotel’s glamorous Advocatuur bar was of particular interest.
With a beverage programme overseen by Yann Bouvignies, who swapped Scarfes in Rosewood London for this project, the space has its own genever distillery from where it produces its own in-house version of the Netherland’s native spirit under the name PrØvo.
Guests can sample PrØvo for themselves within ‘baby serves’ such as the Kopstuck – a homage to an age-old Dutch drinking tradition – as well as other signature cocktails from the bar’s debut Will of The People menu such as the Candy Store, which combines Roku gin with peach and jasmine soda, and comes served with sparklers for an extra sprinkle of theatre.
Address: Prinsengracht 432-436, 1017 KE Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Bar Benjamin, Los Angeles
Melrose Avenue restaurant The Benjamin Hollywood welcomed in a new drinking buddy upstairs in Bar Benjamin, from the same founding trio of Ben Shenassafar, Jared Meisler and Kate Burr.
The restaurant’s bar counterpart comes complete with a wraparound balcony offering views over the Hollywood Hills and a plush Art Deco design, but its cocktail menu is also earning its keep as a star attraction.
Devised by veteran bartenders Jason Lee (of n/soto, Baroo) and Chad Austin (of The Mulholland and inBootlegger Tiki), and inspired by their favourite foods and flavours, it includes standouts such as the Everything Gibson, made with bagel-infused Junipero Gin, garlic with onion, poppy, sesame and dry vermouth – much like a boozy bagel.
Address: 7174 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, California 90046
Suma, Kunming
The Shangri-La Kunming hotel in Yunnan, China, has opened its flagship bar Suma with help from the bartending big guns at Shingo Gokan’s SG Group.
SG Group general manager Michael Chen described Suma as a “love letter” to the province with the bar presenting 20 cocktails that reinterpret its local ingredients and flavours. One drink for instance, the Nanpi Mule, is based on a dipping sauce from Dai cuisine, while another, the Cucumber Salad, nods to the Kunming dish and is made with Wild Mist Gin, Kokuto De Lequio Yambaru Spiced Rum, cucumber, verjuice, lemongrass, and pineapple.
Suma then has various multi-sensorial spaces to sip the cocktails in, including an outdoor lounge with an open-air garden and fountain, and the bar itself, fitted with a tented ceiling of patterned fabric, hand-painted floral panels and woven textures to further accentuate its sense of place.
Address: No. 88 Dongfeng East Road, Panlong District, Kunming, Yunnan 650011
Parasol, London
Friends Andy Kerr and Tom Gibson first met 12 years ago, and after tending to other top-notch drinking dens separately around London in the time since (The Sun Tavern, Corrachio, to name a few), they’ve finally got around to opening one together.
Named Parasol, the pair have resurrected the basement space on Dalston’s strip that was once a nightclub partygoers might remember as The Nest – which, now, has been spruced up into a 150-capacity cocktail bar that takes its design cues from Kerr and Gibson’s time spent in living and working in Mexico and Morocco.
Inside, there’s plenty of fun to be had with the drinks, particularly with serves such as The Yuk Fu that blends El Gobernador Pisco with green chartreuse, lemongrass and pandan, and the Kinder Bueno, which mirrors the chocolate’s flavours by mixing Michter’s Sour Mash Whiskey with Two Stacks Irish Cream Liqueur, hazelnut and cacao. And although the space might no longer be a nightclub, its 2am closing times on weekends and ‘1980s NYC-style mutant disco’ playlist means the dance floor here will likely still see its fair share of use.
Address: 36 Stoke Newington Rd, London N16 7XJ
Cane & Tales, Osaka
Behind a dark green door on the 28th floor of the newly opened Waldorf Astoria Osaka awaits Cane & Tales, the hotel’s speakeasy bar that beckons in guests with its jazz age-inspired decor and drinks.
The space pays homage to Manhattan’s hidden bars of that time period in the 1930s, when jazz was at its finest – also a tie into the hotel’s legacy in New York – while combining glitzy city views with cocktails that reimagine the 11 tales from Scott Fitzgerald’s Tales of the Jazz Age.
Headlining the literary-themed libations is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a cocktail that gives the guests the choice between Glenfarclas 10 and 25 Year Old (or a non-alcoholic ‘whisky’ option) before being fused with fig-infused Pedro Ximénez Sherry, mancino rosso vermouth, Bénédictine DOM and Scrappy’s aromatic and orange bitters.
Address: 530-0011 Osaka, Kita Ward, Ofukacho, 5−54 グラングリーン大阪 南館
Quick Eternity, New York
Land ahoy! Moby Dick-themed bar Quick Eternity anchored up on the shores of the Hudson River at the start of May.
The bar, located on Lower Manhattan’s South Street Seaport, is described as a ‘modern reimagining’ of the watering hole where sailors would plot to take down the giant sperm whale, featuring a whale bone sculpture, exposed brick, a maritime mural and a driftwood bar top in its repertoire and set over a two-storey space with views of Brooklyn Bridge.
It’s also the first venue from Bryan Schneider, a bartender who’s created drinks for the likes of New York joints in Bad Roman and Twin Tails. Here, his cocktails pull references from Herman Melville’s novel, with the namesake Quick Eternity a riff on a Corpse Reviver made with navy strength gin, passionfruit and absinthe, and the Tequila-based Howling Infinite served in a pewter drinking horn.
It promises to be a whale of a time…
Address: 22 Peck Slip, New York, NY 10038, US
June, Vancouver
Vancouver’s bar flies got doubly lucky over spring with the opening of a bi-level concept from the team behind The Keefer Bar in Cambie Village.
Designed by Mexico City-based architect Héctor Esrawe, on one level sits June, the big brassiere space with three patios where you tuck into West Coast food (and many Martinis), while in the basement lies Lala, the 40-seat vinyl listening bar, which offers classic cocktails in a moody, intimate setting with velvet curtains.
The cocktail menu is led by a trio of Martinis – take your pick between the classic, the fifty fifty, and the dirty version – and also features a Burnt Gibson and signatures like the Blue Fizz, which combines Absolut with lime, calpico, blue banana and egg soda.
Address: 3305 Cambie Rd, Vancouver, BC V5Z 2W6, Canada
Related news
UK distillery openings hit new highs in 2019
