About the guide
An Old Fashioned tells me everything I need to know.
I'm Lou — Swiss-born, raised in Switzerland, shaped by years in London, and now based in Madrid. I've spent that time sitting at bars across Europe and the world, and I've developed opinions strong enough to annoy most bartenders.
This guide exists because bar recommendations online are broken. Too many lists are sponsored, algorithmic, or written by people who'd give five stars to a cocktail with a smoke machine and a six-week waiting list. I don't.
I went to hospitality school and have worked behind a bar — though never fully professionally. What I bring is somewhere between trained instinct and obsessive enthusiasm: more books on cocktails and bitters than most people think is reasonable, more hours than I'll admit chasing the perfect clear ice at home, and an embarrassing amount of time dedicated to the pursuit of the perfect Old Fashioned in my own kitchen.
My litmus test is the Old Fashioned. Like an omelette for a cook, it has almost no ingredients to hide behind — just whiskey, sugar, bitters, and ice. How a bar handles that tells you everything about their skill, their dedication, and whether they actually respect the drink.
Every bar in this guide has been visited personally. I pay my own bill. No one gets a listing for being trendy.
Plaza Mayor, Madrid
Taste benchmarks
What I'm scoring for
Spirit-forward drinks
Warm hospitality
Bars with identity
Classic execution
Confident restraint
Hotel bar energy
Automatic red flags
Smoke machines
Instagram-first design
Concept over drinking
Six-week waiting lists
Verdict scale
Must visit85 – 100
Worth it70 – 84
Average55 – 69
Skip40 – 54
Don't bother< 40
Scoring pillars
Hospitality & welcome
25%
The most important pillar. Was the bartender attentive from the moment you sat down? Did the bar feel like it was taking care of you, or just serving you? A 10 means you felt like a regular on the first visit.
Technique & execution
20%
Are the classics made correctly? The Martini is the lie detector test — dilution, temperature, and balance tell you everything. Technique is not innovation; it is precision in the fundamentals.
Spirit-forward integrity
20%
Does the base spirit lead the drink, or does it hide behind citrus and sugar? A bar that respects its spirits lets them speak. Overloading acid and sweetness to mask mediocre product scores a zero here.
Atmosphere & identity
15%
Not a decor score — an identity score. Does the bar know what it is? The best bars have soul baked in: history, a point of view, a reason to exist beyond serving drinks. A themed bar with no conviction scores low.
Restraint & confidence
10%
Does the bar resist the urge to add one more ingredient, one more garnish, one more theatrical flourish? Serving a cold, clean Daiquiri without apologising for its simplicity is a statement of confidence.
Menu intelligence
10%
Coherence over length. A 12-drink menu with a clear point of view beats 80 options. Are the classics present and treated seriously? Original drinks should be purposeful, not just creative for creativity's sake.