30 bars we loved in 2025

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Speakeasies, wine bars, listening rooms, quirky theme bars, friendly locals, bars with their own labs, bars-within-bars—and did we mention speakeasies? 2025 has been a fantastic year for the already vibrant Indian dining-out scene, with older bars making themselves stronger and newer ones entering the fray in a variety of formats and styles (with speakeasies leading as the most popular format by a mile).

“There are more diverse bar experiences cropping up across the country. Look at the rise of music bars and wine bars—we have introduced a new category for wine bars this year," says Vikram Achanta, co-founder of 30BestBars India.

“We’ve also seen bars focused around a particular spirit, especially tequila, mezcal and other agave-based spirits, and we have seen the rise of the bar-within-the-bar...It’s been a playful year," he says. When we at Lounge set out to name our favourite bars, we looked at all these categories and tried to represent most of them in this list, which is by no means a ranking of any sort but a shout-out to our favourite spaces.

We reached out not just to the team but to our network of independent writers who contribute regularly to Lounge, and are great at nosing out those cool new spots everyone’s talking about. “This year saw the rise of several distinct trends, for instance cities like Kolkata, Jaipur, Hyderabad—not the immediate cocktail hubs that come to mind—booming," says Karina Aggarwal, founder of Gigglewater Beverage Concepts, an F&B consultancy.

Picantes were the drink to order this year, says Aggarwal, while bar takeovers peaked. The Indian bar scene is now part of a global shift towards drinking less but better, with trends spreading across the world