Bar Leone

Bar Leone feels less like a concept bar and more like the Roman neighbourhood rooms Lorenzo Antinori grew up around: wood panels, football jerseys, Italo disco beside Pavarotti, and a team in white jackets who pour with speed rather than ceremony. The drinks are classics done with obsessive consistency, the Leone Martini pulled cold from the freezer, the Bellini served in a small tumbler like Harry's Bar in Venice. Queues are part of the deal, but once you are seated the room is warm, loud in a good way, and impossible to rush. If you want one Hong Kong bar that explains why the city dominated the global lists in 2024 and 2025, start here.

The address is a ground-floor room on Bridges Street in Soho, a short walk from Central or Sheung Wan MTR. There are roughly 45 seats, no reservations, and a door queue that starts well before 17:00 on weekends. Put your name down, wander nearby, and wait for a text when a table opens. Inside, vintage tiled floors, café tables, and Roman memorabilia set a relaxed tone that belies the bar's ranking pedigree. Service is bilingual and unhurried once you are in, and the mortadella focaccia with smoked olives has become as talked about as the cocktails.

Start with the Leone Martini, Antinori's house serve of Ginepraio gin, dry Marsala, orange blossom water, and an almond-stuffed olive, pre-batched and poured straight from a bottle chilled in the freezer. The Bellini follows the Venetian original in a small tumbler: peach, prosecco, almond eau de vie, and a fluffy cream cap. For something with more spice, the Spring Break Manhattan uses chamomile-infused Mancino Rosso Amaranto vermouth and saffron orange bitters. The Olive Oil Sour and a Yuzu Negroni round out the Italian-Japanese crossover that keeps regulars coming back. Pair any round with the mortadella sandwich and smoked olives.

Bar Leone sits at G/F, 11-15 Bridges Street in Central, a few minutes on foot from Central or Sheung Wan on the Island Line. It opens Tuesday to Sunday from 17:00 to midnight and is closed Monday. There are no reservations: join the waitlist at the door and the team texts when your table is ready, so arrive at opening on weekends or expect a wait on Friday and Saturday nights. Budget about HK$125 per cocktail. The bar publishes updates on its website and Instagram rather than a public phone line.

After years of centrifuges and rotary evaporators at Charles H and Argo, Antinori designed Bar Leone as a deliberate step back: no re-distillation, no show garnishes, just precise batching, seasonal Italian ingredients, and classics poured at speed. The Leone Martini is pre-mixed and stored in the freezer so every serve hits the same temperature and dilution. Vermouths and amari come from Italian producers, bitters are measured rather than guessed, and a small range of cocktails is also canned to take home. The result is a programme that reads simple on paper and tastes exact in the glass, which is harder to sustain than any single technique.

Bar Leone sits at No.4 on our 2026 Asia ranking, Hong Kong's highest-placed room, and retains The Best Bar in Hong Kong 2026, sponsored by Amaro Lucano. It spent 2024 and 2025 at No.1 on Asia's 50 Best Bars and took No.1 on The World's 50 Best Bars 2025, the first time a debut bar topped that global list. Guangzhou's Hope & Sesame sits just ahead on our 2026 Asia ranking, and Hong Kong still placed six rooms on our list, led by Bar Leone, with Gokan, Coa, Mius, Argo, and Montana rounding out the city set.