World's 50 Best Bars heads to Milan for the first time

The World's 50 Best Bars 2026 heads to Milan on 7 October, the first time in the ranking's 18-year history that its ceremony has been held in Italy.

The event moves into the Palazzo del Ghiaccio, a former ice rink turned event space, with red-carpet arrivals and a drinks reception ahead of the countdown. Perrier sponsors the evening, as it has for previous editions in London, Barcelona and Singapore.

The ranking comes from the confidential votes of an Academy of more than 800 bartenders, journalists and drinks-industry figures worldwide, a panel The World's 50 Best describes as gender-balanced by design. The move also puts a cocktail-forward city centre stage: Milan's aperitivo culture, built on bars that treat a Negroni or a Campari spritz as a daily ritual rather than an occasion, gets a night in the global spotlight.

Eighteen years of ceremonies, and Italy finally gets its turn to host the countdown.

Regional lists point the way

Asia's 50 Best Bars 2026, already revealed, put Mius in Hong Kong near the top: bartender Shelley Tai's solo debut, a walk-in-only room built around a tight 12-drink menu where every cocktail uses six ingredients or fewer. Argo, also in Hong Kong, took a different route, a Gilded Age-style botanical conservatory drawing its drinks list from the city's culinary history.

North America's 50 Best Bars 2026 named Sip & Guzzle in New York and Handshake Speakeasy in Mexico City among its leaders. Sip & Guzzle splits its room into a refined, Japanese-inspired side and a louder one; Handshake works almost entirely in agave, building its list around tequila, mezcal and sotol from named producers.

A season for bar rankings

The Milan ceremony lands in a crowded season for drinks lists, days after 50 Best's own rebrand as The 50 ahead of its hotel ranking, and alongside a steady run of new-bar openings such as Death & Co's fifth room in Seattle.

The full global top 50 is unveiled on the night in Milan. Whether Mius, Argo, Sip & Guzzle or Handshake cross from their regional lists into the worldwide one will not be known until then.