A Barcelona Bar Was Just Crowned The Best In The World

Every year since 2009, a commissioned list, co-sponsored by the company Perrier, sports a queenly roundup of The World's 50 Best Bars. It's a prestigious honor to be included on the list — and an even bigger one to play host to its official invite-only awards ceremony and gala, which takes place annually in a pre-selected location. Just like the lead-up to the Best Picture announcement at the Oscars, this year's October 4 ceremony included plenty of respectable sub-trophies awarded to bars that wowed the powers that be, made up of a panel of 650 anonymous libation experts from around the world. Everything culminated in the big reveal of the best watering hole in all the land. 

For the past two years, the title has gone to London's Connaught Bar, which is famous for its house-distilled gin and "Cubist-inspired interiors," per Vogue. This year, however, the winds blew south to Barcelona, where an unassuming-looking pastrami shop gives way to a ballyhooed speakeasy in the city's El Born district.

If Connaught Bar won over the World's 50 Best Bars panel with its nods to Cubism, then Barcelona's Paradiso recaptured its attention with what the organization calls a "Dalí-esque" wooden bar. Voted the World's Best Bar 2022, the amber-lit speakeasy is discreetly located behind a deli, where "creative-in-chief" and co-owner Giacomo Giannotti slings tipples. (Among them include the Supercool Martini, which puts an arctic spin on the de rigueur cocktail by building it around a "supercooled gin mix" that forms a boozy iceberg-like cube in the glass.) "Drinks don't look or taste like this anywhere but at Paradiso," write the list-makers. 

Paradiso's win seemingly follows a less-traditional path than, for instance, previous winner Connaught's "timeless elegance" and Cubist decor, complete with canapés. What's more, it also pulled the ceremony away from London for the first time in the history of the event, as CNN reported. Connaught Bar is still eighth on the list, but it gives way to other venerated up-and-comers like Barcelona's Sips (in third place), Mexico City's Licorería Limantour (in fourth), and Paris' Little Red Door (in fifth). And as for Paradiso — well, it may no longer be Barcelona's best-kept secret.