The newly launched Pinnacle Guide wants to recognize great bars around the world. Think Michelin, but instead of stars it’s “pins.” The group’s debut list is now live, with 37 bars awarded across seven initial markets. Twelve bars received two pins, 25 received one pin, and on this inaugural list, no bar received the highest mark of three pins.
The Pinnacle Guide was founded by a trio of bar industry veterans: Hannah Sharman-Cox and Siobhan Payne of London Cocktail Week and Dan Dove of Global Bartending. “We thought the bar industry would benefit from an additional recognition system,” says Payne, with Dove noting that such an undertaking required more input than just the opinions of the founders. To make it happen, they embarked on an 18-month consultancy period, soliciting feedback from trusted sources in the industry before landing on the final product.
The Pinnacle Guide operates on a self-submission system, in which bars nominate themselves via an intensive, multi-part written assessment. It’s free to apply. A small number of entries make it to the next stage, an in-person evaluation process conducted by anonymous reviewers comprised of about 100 industry experts, bartenders and bar enthusiasts from diverse backgrounds. Each reviewer receives in-depth training from The Pinnacle Guide team, so they can effectively judge against the criteria. And each bar is assessed by multiple reviewers.
Whether it’s Michelin or 50 Best, what happens behind the scenes is typically opaque. Judges evaluate venues on select criteria, but the criteria is vague and rarely published in detail. The Pinnacle Guide is going the opposite route by laying out the evaluation rubric in clear terms. So, while judging always has an element of subjectivity, bars know exactly what they’re being graded on. That includes excellent drinks and service worth traveling for, but also hiring policies, staff training and well-being, and environmental consideration—for example, minimizing water waste or successfully developing a zero-waste cocktail program. Each bar must also have at least two non-alcoholic cocktail options on their menus to make the cut.
“We hope this inspires bars to improve themselves, and that everyone begins to take these things into account,” says Payne.
The Pinnacle Guide founders Siobhan Payne, Hannah Sharman-Cox and Dan Dove |
To be awarded one, two or three pins, a bar must respectively demonstrate excellent, outstanding or exceptional work on both sides of the bar. To earn three pins, a bar must submit an exceptional written application and provide exceptional service during anonymous visits. The founders noted that, in this first round of applications and evaluations, there were bars that demonstrated three pin qualities in one but not both of these aspects. Hence, no three-pin awards were given in this first round of the guide.
Bars awarded two pins include a few global heavy-hitters, like Paradiso in Barcelona, Atlas in Singapore, and Panda and Sons in Edinburgh. Two pins also went to Pretty Decent, a mezcal-focused cocktail bar and boutique plant shop in Louisville, Kentucky, that to date has not appeared on other global lists. The roster of one-pin bars includes The Dead Rabbit in New York, but also less-heralded spots in Minnesota and Maine.
“We want to recognize bars that maybe were not recognized previously,” says Payne. “Maybe they’re outside major cities or are in places slightly less well trodden. We wanted people to get a chance to tell us why they deserve to be recognized.”
That’s where the self-nomination process comes into play. The founders stressed that they didn’t want to pigeonhole the guide into just recognizing five-star hotel bars or scientific mixology bars. Instead, bars are assessed against their own stated concepts, so beach bars, sports bars and lovable dives are all fair game, as long as they adhere to the criteria.
“We hope there are some great unsung heroes on this list,” says Sharman-Cox. “Now having seen this first list, lots of bars who never got that recognition will hopefully see themselves in these bars.”
The process is meant to be instructive and to elevate the industry as a whole. The Pinnacle Guide’s founders give feedback to each evaluated bar, even if they don’t earn a pin. This constructive feedback can be used to work on deficiencies and improve potential blind spots, and bars are invited to reapply with such suggestions in mind.
For now, The Pinnacle Guide evaluates bars in seven markets—the U.K., U.S., Australia, Dubai, Mexico, Singapore and Spain. This first round features a heavy dose of the U.K., primarily because it’s the founders’ home base and they received a lot of interest from area bars. But the guide’s geographic lens will expand as the brand grows, adding new markets and reviewers.
When a bar does earn a pin, there’s no big show that requires winners to travel to a central location. Rather, a member of The Pinnacle Guide team travels to the bar to hand over the award in person. Below are the results from the inaugural list of pinned bars.
The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pin Bars
ATLAS, Singapore
Bitter & Twisted Cocktail Parlour, Phoenix, USA
Nipperkin, London, UK
Origin Bar, Shangri-La Singapore, Singapore
Panda & Sons, Edinburgh, UK
Paradiso, Barcelona, Spain
Pretty Decent, Louisville, USA
Selva, Oaxaca, Mexico
The American Bar at Gleneagles, Auchterarder, UK
The Spy Bar at Raffles London, UK
Thunderbolt, Los Angeles, USA
True Laurel, San Francisco, USA
The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin Bars
Artesian, London, UK
Ballroom by Barbary Coast, Singapore
Blue Bar at The Berkeley, London, UK
Couch, Birmingham, UK
Cure, New Orleans, USA
El Primo Sanchez, Sydney, Australia
Kiki Lounge, Isle of Man, UK
KOL Mezcaleria, London, UK
Kwant Mayfair, London, UK
Little Rituals, Phoenix, USA
Magnus on Water, Maine, USA
Maybe Sammy, Sydney, Australia
Meteor, Minneapolis, USA
Milady’s, New York City, USA
Nightjar Shoreditch, London, UK
Passing Fancies, Birmingham, UK
Rattlebag, Belfast, UK
Roka Dubai, UAE
Sexy Fish, London, UK
Sexy Fish, Manchester UK
Side Hustle, London, UK
Swift Soho, London, UK
The Dead Rabbit, New York City, USA
The Guards Bar & Lounge at Raffles, London, UK
Velvet by Salvatore Calabrese, London, UK