Four city venues make the North America’s 50 Best Bars list

Since opening in 2021, the French-accented Bar Pompette has charmed cocktail lovers across Toronto. Now it’s wooed the judges of North America’s 50 Best Bars, too. When NA50BB announced its 2025 list on April 29 in Vancouver, Bar Pompette landed at No. 7, the best showing for a Canadian bar since the list was first compiled in 2022.

Three other Toronto bars made the top 50 list — Civil Liberties (No. 21), Bar Mordecai (No. 37) and Mother (No. 44) — with another five in the 50-100 list: Library Bar (No. 51), Civil Works (No. 55), Cry Baby Gallery (No. 68), Simpl Things (No. 83) and Slice of Life (No. 96).

And that’s not all: Bar Pompette also took home the Michter’s Art of Hospitality Award and Civil Works won the Siete Misterios Best Cocktail Menu Award, recognized for its creative use of water to enhance and showcase the flavours of the featured spirits.

It was an impressive showing for Canada’s biggest city, which in recent years has become a powerhouse of cocktail excellence, and one that has earned recognition from NA50BB since it first began in 2022.

North America’s 50 Best Bars is a relatively new competition, but one that is fast gaining traction in the bar community. It grew out of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, which has been around since 2002, when the British trade magazine Restaurant decided to create a list of the best restaurants in the world, based on the advice of 150 experts. The following year they held their first awards ceremony. Soon afterward, The World’s 50 Best Restaurants became independent from Restaurant magazine, although it is still based in the U.K., where it is owned and managed by the data and events firm William Reed.

Today, some 1,080 culinary experts take part in a structured and audited voting procedure to compile the yearly list of the world’s finest restaurants. The World’s 50 Best has become a guide for global culinary experiences as well as a barometer for gastronomic trends.

In 2013, 50 Best added its first regional lists, for Asia and Latin America. In 2017, it acquired The World’s 50 Best Bars (which had been published since 2009) and Asia’s 50 Best Bars (published since 2016). In 2019, the brand launched 50 Best Discovery, a travel- and experience-focused platform featuring thousands of bars and restaurants across the globe. And, in 2023, it launched The World’s 50 Best Hotels.

For the bars that make the list, it’s not just the recognition of their hard work that makes it so valuable. It’s also the community they join in celebration at the awards ceremonies and beyond.

In Vancouver, those who attended the awards ceremony at the JW Marriott Parq were able to hang out with legends like Julie Reiner of NYC’s Clover Club and Milady’s, who was named Roku Industry Icon, and Eric Van Beek of Mexico City’s Handshake Speakeasy, which took the No. 1 spot for the second year in a row.

But the celebration also spilled out across the city, as venues big and small hosted pop-ups, guest shifts, after-parties and other events throughout the week. The ceremony returns to Vancouver next year, and plans are already underway for even more events around it.

Meanwhile, for Bar Pompette and the other bars that made the list, the recognition offers both credibility and breathing space in an industry grappling with rising costs, shrinking margins and a powerful anti-alcohol movement. Lists like this also give other bars and restaurants something to aspire to, raising the standards for both craftsmanship and hospitality.

But in the end, it’s the consumers who really win—not only do NA50BB and similar lists, such as Canada’s Best Bars, encourage excellence across the industry, they offer a guide to good food, good drinks and a good time to be had by all.

NA50BB—The Top 10

For the full list of winners, please visit theworlds50best.com/bars/northamerica/list/1-50.

1. Handshake Speakeasy, Mexico City

2. Superbueno, New York

3. Tlecān, Mexico City

4. Jewel of the South, New Orleans

5. Sip & Guzzle, New York

6. Overstory, New York

7. Bar Pompette, Toronto

8. El Gallo Altanero, Guadalajara

9. Licorería Limantour, Mexico City

10. Kumiko, Chicago