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What constitutes impressive bar design? Ahead of the Best Bar Design Award 2025 opening for a fresh round of submissions, feast your eyes on some stunning and super smart interiors shortlisted from last year’s entries.
Gorgeous bars certainly make a night on the town even more alluring, but a well-designed one transcends mere aesthetics.
From cleverly integrated sustainable touches to ergonomics that drive genuine connection between bartenders and bar goers, these elements create a bar that can resonate with guests on an emotional level, which is perhaps the most important factor of all.
Ahead of the Best Bar Design Award 2025 opening for submissions on Monday 27 January, discover eight examples from the 2024 shortlist that do a stellar job of fusing imagination and pragmatism.
Blessing Shophouse, Bangkok
Throughout Blessing Shophouse, there are clues about the building’s former life as an antique furniture shop. Take the bed, which is more than a century old, reimagined as a bar on the second floor; the chair modernised with a base that takes the form of an auspicious octagon, or the glass panels transformed into Chinese benches.
Building upon its entrepreneurial legacy, Blessing Shophouse instils an atmosphere of prosperity and wonder through lucky bat motifs – the ground-level bar area depicts a fantastical bat cave – and a bamboo garden teeming with silver spray painted plants. Narrow spaces now appear deceptively larger with the help of standout design features like a stainless steel mirror-finished moon gate that acts as a passageway between its rooms.
Kanché Izamal, Izamal
Journeys to Izamal, a small city in Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula around one hour’s drive from Mérida, typically include a stop at Mayan Pirámide Kinich Kak Moo. Next to this ancient landmark, fruit trees, bushes and medicinal plants enliven Kanché, a bar deftly integrated into the terrain. A tribute to the Mayan practice of cultivating produce in elevated wood structures known as ‘ka'anché,’ Kanché marries history, nature and culture into all of its fibres. Everything here flaunts a distinctly Mexican imprint, from the ingredients grown at the nearby orchard developed in partnership with sister restaurant Kinich to the expanses of zapote wood paired and repurposed tortilla-making tables.
Sogni, Milan
In a 19th century building that was a kindergarten in its former life, Sogni welcomes revellers with shimmering metallic walls and vintage chairs that reveal a reverence for Milanese heritage. Floral sofas dot the living room, an airy space with dramatic lanterns descending from an arched ceiling. It’s ripe for lingering with aperitivos, but further explorations will lead visitors to a classically designed wooden bar accentuated with zinc and burnished mirrors and the intimate Refettorio, distinguished by an imposing horseshoe-shaped communal table and shelves showcasing Sogni’s own tableware. Even when the DJ is going strong, the winter garden laden with verdant planters exudes a delightfully tranquil aura.
Good Friends Club, Penang
Kopitiam, or ‘coffee shop,’ culture is prevalent in Penang, Malaysia, but Good Friends Club reinterprets that nostalgic conviviality in a contemporary bar setting. Past a light green metal door, patrons perch on custom ergonomic stools fabricated by a local maker. These seats place guests at the same height as the long stainless steel bar’s stations, so they can conveniently engage with bartenders and learn more about the house-carbonated sodas, for instance, or the infusions that embrace Malaysian ingredients to pare back Good Friends Club’s carbon footprint. A soft pink neon glow and energetic pops of magenta and electric blue whimsically contrast with well-preserved original concrete walls and white tiles.
N°Between, New York
Reached by way of a loading dock and narrow, photography-lined corridor that feels like an enigmatic Tokyo alleyway, N°Between is hidden among the storefronts in the buzzy Chelsea Market food hall. Drawing from the disparate realms of manga, the Japanese space age, and 20thcentury Shōwa-era casual izakayas, the design scheme is quirky, conjuring a fictional dystopia of yore that mixes cement, stainless steel, walnut and bronze. The bar’s centrepiece is the vast library of vinyl, the album covers juxtaposed with an array of bottles that calls to mind retro basement hangouts. Candles and rustic seating clad in a mahogany veneer heighten the cosy listening experience to be paired with a good drink in hand.
Kwãnt Mayfair, London
Solo imbibing is an art form at Kwãnt, where a party of one is prominently seated at a hefty rectangular table beside the bartenders in action. Those bartenders, whose efficient stations are just a metre from the towering display of bottles, embellish their concoctions with cut-to-order herbs. Grown in-house, they symbolise Kwãnt’s sustainability efforts, a philosophy reinforced by the fact that the bar only receives orders from vendors once a week. Whether visitors ensconce themselves in a plush barstool, low banquette or at one of the chess tables, the cane ceiling, enveloping Venetian blinds, and hand painted Polynesian tapa art make them all feel like they’re whiling the night away in a bygone salon.
The Bar Next Door, Nairobi
Given that The Bar Next Door is precariously situated on leasehold land, the building ultimately needed to be a straightforward and multifunctional; one that could be constructed quickly and easily re-used if needed. The result is a nimble yet striking industrial-style structure that melds steel and frameless glazing. Inside the soaring two-storey space made with local materials and fuelled by solar energy – including a VIP section complete with a pergola that maximises Kiambu vistas – are six different service stations that ensure a seamless flow of traffic and efficiency from its bar team. Vibrant artwork mingles with blocks of colourful glass and cocooning banquettes, but there’s also a sprawling, animated garden to soak up the sunny Kenyan weather.
Mamba Negra, Medellín
Medellín’s mountainous landscape is the star of Mamba Negra. One of the city’s first rooftop bars, it sits atop a LEED Gold-certified building, confirming its ecological credentials, amplifying the scenic surroundings that fill the expansive windows through an interplay of illumination and shadow. Bottles glimmer against a backdrop of amber-hued corrugated glass, for example, bringing warmth to swathes of monochromatic grey and black. Orange lighting casts mesmerising reflections on lattice patterns, with burnt wood, leather and native flora further lending the interior an organic vibe. Bespoke workstations behind the bar island allow staff to comfortably whip up drinks while sparking conversations with guests as they take in the heady views.
The Best Bar Design Award is open to is open to any style of bar across the globe and will open for submissions on Monday 27 January 2025. Follow 50 Best on Facebook, Instagram and X to stay in the loop.
