At the world’s best bar, there is no bar.
Sips in Barcelona is the reigning kingpin of the World’s 50 Best Bars, and anyone who’s been inside — they’ll vouch for me on this, I swear — can confirm that within that bar, there is very much no bar. Rather than asking about trees falling in forests and whether or not anyone was there to hear it, we should be holding philosophical discourse on whether or not a bar without a bar is even a bar.
The whole idea of the bar isn’t just the place where everybody knows your name, but also the definitive, ingrained setting at which that welcoming encounter occurs — a long countertop lined with stools with customers on one side and the bartender on the other. From your perch, you can view the rows of spirits and selection of beers available, engage the bartender in a bit of banter, and embark on a conversation with a stranger on either side of you.
Such quaint notions are being tossed aside, though. There are bars with no bars, back bars with no bottles, and bartenders who don’t make any drinks — not in front of you à la minute, at least. Instead, there are bar carts and kitchen counters, as well as feature-rich work stations that seem like they were designed by NASA. In a cocktailing world where rotovaps, fat washing, tricked out ice in dozens of shapes and sizes, and specific glassware for every drink on
