In a world of cookie-cutter cocktail bars with predictable concepts, the World’s 50 Best Bars 2024 showcased some revolutionaries that have been shaking up the status quo. From a cartoonish speakeasy in NYC to a British pub defiantly planted in Paris, these maverick mixologists aren’t just pushing boundaries – they’re pretending they don’t exist.

Consider the salmon. These remarkable fish undertake fantastic voyages, traveling up to 50 kilometers in a single day as they return to the rivers of their birth, battling against the current, to spawn. It’s a display of headstrong, mission-driven determination that wouldn’t be out of place among the bars and bartenders winning acclaim with a spot on this year’s World’s 50 Best Bars 2024 list. 

One of them, in the host city of Madrid is even called Salmon Guru in tribute to the fiercely determined, go-against-the-flow fish.

How Salmon Guru Set About Educating People…Without Being Too Educational

In fact, Salmon Guru has spawned too – into an experiential space, the Salmon Guru Lab, where the craft for the pure joy of discovery they displayed at the original has found a new nearby home.

“Salmon Guru is a sanctuary where culinary masters and mixologists push boundaries; where innovation meets imagination, transforming each visit into an extraordinary journey of flavors that feeds both appetite and wonder,” founder Adrian Sehob explains.

If the expansion seems effortless – besides the Salmon Guru Lab there’s their Salmon Guru Dubai, and now Viva Madrid, a golden-era cantina in a renovated listed building – cocktail culture is surprisingly young in the Spanish capital. Before it was all gin and tonics.

“That trend must have lasted nine or ten years,” Adrian recalls. “Bars in Madrid could stock up to 400 kinds. We realized all the gins were different in aroma, structure and bodies.”

Director of Salmon Guru, Mel Da Conceição, who joined the company in 2017, smiles at the memory. “When I started, people only wanted gin and tonics.” Mel and the team would use the gin as reference and gently encourage their guests to try something different, “by educating people without being too educational.”

“They’d try it and they’d love it and they’d come back and try something else,” she remembers. “Now 99% of the drinks we sell are cocktails.”

Looking back at the transformation, Adrian nods, “Right, we maybe sell one gin and tonic every two weeks.”

When Is A Bar Not A Bar?

The proprietors of Double Chicken Please barely even consider themselves a bar. “Double Chicken Please is a creative studio, at its heart,” GN Chan tells us in his scattergun explanation – all NYC energy with a Taiwanese accent.

“Guided by our core concept of ‘design hacking,’ the bar deconstructs and reimagines the conventional elements of drinks, dishes, products, and experiences by blending design and hospitality,” he explains. Through this approach, Double Chicken Please, across its two spaces, pushes creative boundaries to deliver unexpected, captivating experiences for its guests.

At the back, he says, “The Coop is almost like a liquid dinner.” There’s a drink based on cold pizza, “but we don’t just juice a cold pizza, we do a lot of deconstructing – we need to find what people can enjoy that gives them the same flavor.”

There’s a drink called Shack Shake coming soon too – based on the burger chain Shake Shack – that GN says is a juicy, meaty-flavored cocktail which, after endless testing with meats with different fat contents, they’re just about ready to launch.

In front is the newly renovated Free Range, where they “think outside of the box and focus on collaborations.” There are drinks inspired by Mickey Mouse and Doraemon, and a new drink, inspired by Winnie The Pooh, that really exemplifies their process.

“We have such a diverse team now,” co-founder Faye Chen says, “that ideas come from everywhere. For example, the bartender behind the Winnie the Pooh cocktail is from Belarus. He told us that if we googled ‘Soviet Winnie The Pooh,’ it’s a completely different Winnie The Pooh. It’s a black-brown figure. It’s really dark.”

“So, the idea was we’d combine the Western Winnie The Pooh and the Eastern European one, and reflect that light and dark in the flavors,” GN Chan adds.

A Peculiarly Parisian Kind Of Pub 

Then there’s Cambridge Public House, in Paris. Unusually, for such a patriotic and proud culinary nation as France, as the name suggests, Cambridge Public House was inspired by British pubs.

Inside, the decor is simple, the service is laid-back, and they screen live sports. On the menu, there are pies and sausage rolls, “made with French ingredients,” Hugo quickly points out, in his strongly French-accented English. And there is, admittedly, a killer cocktail program – even if some regulars just want a draft Guinness.

The Persistence And Resilience Behind Being An Innovator

While these bars each take different approaches to challenging industry norms – whether through experimentation, cultural fusion, or geographic transplantation – they share a common thread of perseverance in pursuing their unique visions.

Colin Chia, co-founder and CEO of Nutmeg Collective, understands this well. The collective run a stable of bars, including Nutmeg & Clove, The Last Word, Room 0202, and Draft Land, all in Singapore, and a couple of speakeasies in Bangkok. Colin is the co-founder of the Bangkok Bar Show too.

“But we stuck to our guns and kept believing in the flavors we were introducing,” he nods. “Don’t change your mind after six months and change to another concept. If you set out to do something, it means you’re going to put a lot of hard work into your program before opening.”

That way, by treading a path less pursued and toughing it out, more bars going against the flow might be featuring in the World’s 50 Best Bars lists soon.