A Fancy Melbourne Bar Just Got Named In The World’s 50 Best Yet Again

To anyone who’s been there this will come as absolutely no surprise, but a cool as hell inner-Melbourne cocktail bar has been named in the World’s 50 Best Bars for the second year in a row.

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Fitzroy’s Black Pearl, situated on the ever-popular Brunswick St strip, was anointed the top bar in the Australasia region at the World’s 50 Best Bar awards, which were handed out in London earlier today.

In the overall awards, Black Pearl managed to snare 30th place overall. It’s the second year in a row the hugely popular bar has featured in the list, and while it’s something of a slide from the 22nd-place finish the bar achieved last year, it remains Australia’s one and only entry on the Top 50 list. In the extended list of 100 best bars, Above Board in Collingwood managed to sneak in at 95th place.

Excruciatingly hip London joint Dandelyan scooped the top spot in the list, deposing fellow Londoner and previous champion American Bar at The Savoy Hotel for the top spot overall. This, despite the fact that Dandelyan’s owners had announced the bar’s permanent closure just two days before the awards were handed out.

The Black Pearl has long been a favourite of industry insiders and savvy Melbourne drinkers, and its recent success on a global scale has only confirmed what many have known for a while now: It good.

The 2018 list of Top 50 bars represents 26 cities from 20 different countries, and was voted on by in excess of 500 industry experts. The full list is as follows:

THE WORLD’S 50 BEST BARS 2018

  1. Dandelyan – London, UK
  2. American Bar – London, UK
  3. Manhattan – Singapore
  4. The Nomad – New York, USA
  5. Connaught BarLondon, UK
  6. Bar Termini – London, UK
  7. The Clumsies – Athens, Greece
  8. Atlas – Singapore
  9. Dante – New York, USA
  10. The Old Man – Hong Kong, China
  11. Licoreria Limantour – Mexico City, Mexico
  12. Bar High Five – Tokyo, Japan
  13. Native – Singapore
  14. Floreria AtlanticoBuenos Aires, Argentina
  15. Attaboy – New York, USA
  16. The Dead Rabbit – New York, USA
  17. Oriole – London, UK
  18. Coupette – London, UK
  19. HimkokOslo, Norway
  20. Speak Low – Shanghai, China
  21. Sweet Liberty – Miami, USA
  22. Baba Au Rum – Athens, Greece
  23. Operation Dagger – Singapore
  24. Le Syndicat – Paris, France
  25. Lost and Found – Nicosia, Cyprus
  26. Employees Only – New York, USA
  27. Central Station – Beirut, Lebanon
  28. Scout – London, UK
  29. Three Sheets – London, UK
  30. Black Pearl – Melbourne, Australia
  31. Tales and Spirits – Amsterdam, Netherlands
  32. Linje Tio – Stockholm, Sweden
  33. Little Red Floor – Paris, France
  34. 28 Hong Kong Street – Singapore
  35. Happiness Forgets – London, UK
  36. La Factoria – San Juan, Puerto Rico
  37. Paradiso – Barcelona, Spain
  38. Indulge Experimental Bistro – Taipei, Taiwan
  39. El Copitas – Saint Petersburg, Russia
  40. Tommy’s – San Francisco, USA
  41. Blacktail – New York, USA
  42. Candelaria – Paris, France
  43. Schumann’s – Munich, Germany
  44. Trick Dog – San Francisco, USA
  45. Fifty Mils – Mexico City, Mexico
  46. Swift – London, UK
  47. Salmon Guru – Madrid, Spain
  48. Buck and Breck – Berlin, Germany
  49. Bar Benfiddich – Tokyo, Japan
  50. Lost Lake – Chicago, USA

Weird. All these supposedly “good” New York bars listed and not a single one of ’em is Turtles All The Way Down in Bed-Stuy, clearly the far superior joint.

Fancy cocktails are all well and good but I bet all of your asses none of them have a Simpsons arcade machine and screen Jeopardy with the sound on at Happy Hour.

You tell me which bar you’d rather go to.

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