Creativity with liquids is a given, but these thoroughly unique watering holes raise the bar across design, atmosphere and setting.
Beyond the well-worn leather chair of a classic boozer, a new crop of bars is redefining what it means to drink differently. Some stand out for curveball locations: inside a 19th-century pharmacy, say, or through a blackout curtain in a pizza joint. Others surprise through concept – using out-there ingredients that intentionally play with your head, or serving cocktails in courses as if they were meals. Ready to be surprised? Here are 11 bars you won't see coming.
The bar that you board
Platform 18 at Century Grand, Phoenix
@centurygrandphx
To reserve, you book a ticket. Then your carriage awaits on Platform 18, where the bar is a 36-seat replica Pullman train conceptualised by a former Disney imagineer. Windows (really screens) simulate passing scenery, bartenders rock 1920s uniforms and seating is slick leather booths. The menu is a platform for complex, lab-developed drinks: East 52nd Street mixes bourbon, scotch and vermouth with wildflower wine and pickled grape. Overall, it's a world away from the always-delayed 07:47 from Kings Cross.
The world's smallest cocktail bar
Backdoor 43, Milan
@backdoor43_milano
Without a reservation, knock on the cat-flap-style window and a masked server will pass you a mystery potion to go. But let's be honest, you want in. A booking gets you an hour inside this four-person, curio-stuffed apothecary cupboard, where the bartender is entirely at your disposal and you're in charge of the sound system. Everything's made to measure, from tipples to tunes, leaving you to ponder the roots of the mysterious ancient maps covering the ceiling or the rare bottles filling the shelves.
The one inside a pizza shop
Danico, Paris
@danicoparis
Slip through the thick velvet curtain inside restaurant Daroco Bourse – fun fact: before it had pizza ovens, this was Jean Paul Gaultier's flagship store – to find a hidden bar offering a liquid trip through founder Nico de Soto's holiday album. Current stop? Peru. Machu Picchu is a playful burst of pisco and popcorn flavours, while Domingo al Chifa, named after the Peruvian Chinese cuisine chifa, blends rum with Peking duck spices and hoisin. You wanted unusual, oui?
The bar in a parking space
Cantina OK!, Sydney
@cantina.ok
(Image: Dexter Kim)
Locations don't get more clandestine than this hatchback-sized bar, hidden behind metal shutters down a service alley off Sydney's Clarence Street. Once a parking space – now with capacity for 20 upright humans (there are no seats) – it's quickly become one of the city's most iconic oddballs. Its engine fuel is obscure mezcals, many with marker-pen scrawled labels, that are selected by region and flavour kernel. The latter a poetic tasting note that ranges from an intuitive "Coffee and croissants" to the intriguing "Granny's wardrobe but yum."
The weird-ingredient den
Mace, New York
@macebarnyc
What do porcini, Manchego, parsnip, sweetcorn and panettone have in common? All are drinks ingredients (yes, drinks) at Mace – a bar that's spent a decade concocting unlikely liquids using flavour profiles borrowed from food. Spice jars are stacked behind the bar like a test kitchen, and even classic negronis and G&Ts can be spiced up by adding tinctures of clove, fennel pollen or cinnamon. Unusual, yes, but not unexpected for an establishment that adds ants to drinks.
The medical-grade bar
Svanen, Oslo
@svanen.oslo
A bar that's also a shrine to good health without the need to drink kale juice. Oslo's Svanen sits in a perfectly preserved 1890s pharmacy, with an uncannily low bar-counter from its chemist days, glossy wooden tincture cabinets, and a ceiling painted with Greek gods of medicine. While the decor is a time capsule, drinks are forward-thinking. Take the Dirty Fashioned, which works quirky brown butter, olive brine and liquorice bitters into single malt, calvados, rum and sherry. Sounds almost medicinal.
The bar cosplaying as a coffee shop
The Bellwood, Tokyo
@the_bellwood
Sepia photos, stained glass and vintage liquor ads all nod to the kissa – early 20th-century Japanese cafés where patrons sipped coffee, or something naughtier, while listening to jazz. Supposedly the birthplace of Japanese cocktail culture, The Bellwood honours the kissa, then goes wild. Bartenders in white lab coats make seasonal ingredients the DNA of new inventions: the New-groni, for instance, adds fermented-strawberry vermouth and distilled Tabasco to the classic. For a lucky four, a quartet-sized omakase bar pairs nigiri with custom cocktails.
The three-course drinking menu
Bar Us, Bangkok
@bar.us.bkk
Not sure if you're hungry or thirsty? Perfect. Bar Us's 'drinking room' (wordplay on dining room) serves cocktails as a multi-course meal. Starters are light and gin-led. Mains skew umami – the Ramen mixes gin, sake, yuzu liqueur, pickled ginger, nori, modern sour and ramen broth. For dessert, Banana Biscuit blends distilled banana with malt, umeshu (unripe plum liqueur), macadamia, pineapple and olive brine. The dimly lit interior, where shelves heave with mysterious botanicals, adds a touch of the mad scientist to the pioneering liquid sustenance.
The world's creepiest bar
Museum H. R. Giger Bar, Gruyères
@hr_giger_bar_museum
For design that gets down to the bare bones, and we mean literally, head to the bar inside the museum of Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger. If you don't know the name, Giger's the artist behind the nightmare-inducing xenomorph in Ridley Scott's Alien. That same biomechanical aesthetic shapes this womb-like drinking cavern: a spinal column arches across the ceiling and stool backrests are crowned with pelvic bones and flanked by skulls. It's possibly the only place where a drink is scarier than the hangover.
The bar in a spa
1892 Bar, Aleenta Retreat Chiang Mai
@aleentaretreatchiangmai
Urban wellness retreat Aleenta takes a unique spin on several things. Spa visits begin with a palm-reading, which a reflexologist uses to personalise treatments – be it an Ayurvedic head massage or acupuncture. The cocktail bar is similarly intriguing. First, that it exists. (Not a given in health-focused settings). Second, how serene it is. Overlooking the spiritual blessing garden, there's a 140-year-old piano, a no-shoes policy (as per Thai tradition) and eclectic drinks built around local spirits like chocolatey Kosapan Cacao.
The floating bar
Floyd's Pelican Bar, Jamaica
@official_pelican_bar
(Image: Adam Dillon)
Built by a fisherman named Floyd from scrap wood, this unique floating bar began as a coffee-break spot for gutting fish. Twenty years on, the ramshackle hut is still bobbing along – serving insanely fresh fish, cassava pancakes and potent rum punch. You have to arrive by boat, haul yourself up a rope ladder and can only pay in cash (and... toilet facilities don't exactly exist). But it's the kind of rustic, anything goes den – still packed with fishermen playing dominoes – where the atmosphere quenches as much as the drinks.
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