Coa Wins Asia’s 50 Best Bars for the Third Year Running

Coa, a small bar in Hong Kong devoted to the spirits of Mexico, was named the best bar in Asia for the third consecutive year on 18 July 2023. The ceremony for Asia’s 50 Best Bars was held in Hong Kong for the first time, and the home crowd saw a local bar win. No bar had led the list three times in a row before.

Coa

Jay Khan opened Coa in 2017 on Shin Hing Street, a stepped lane in Central. He had worked in Hong Kong bars for years and had travelled through Oaxaca and Jalisco visiting distillers, and he built the bar around what he had learned there. The shelves hold more than 200 bottles of tequila, mezcal and lesser-known spirits such as raicilla, bacanora and sotol, many from family producers. The name refers to the tool used to harvest agave.

The room is narrow and dim, with concrete walls and space for about forty people. Cocktails are few and carefully made; the Bloody Maria and a paloma with pink grapefruit soda are the standards. Much of the bar’s reputation rests on its staff’s willingness to teach, pouring small measures and explaining where each spirit comes from.

“Hong Kong is everything to me,” Khan said on the night.

The list

Jigger & Pony, of Singapore, was second and received the Legend of the List award for its consistency over the years. BKK Social Club, at the Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok, was third. The fifty bars came from 17 cities. Singapore had the most, with eleven, and there were 13 new entries.

Virtù, at the Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Otemachi, was the highest new entry. Mahaniyom Cocktail Bar in Bangkok was named best new opening. Analogue Initiative in Singapore received the Sustainable Bar award. Hiroyasu Kayama of Bar Benfiddich in Tokyo, who makes his own bitters and liqueurs from plants grown on his family’s farm, was named Industry Icon.

The Hong Kong years

Coa’s run marked the start of a period in which Hong Kong bars dominated the ranking. In 2024 the title passed to another bar a few streets away, Bar Leone, which held it in 2025 and went on to be named best in the world. Khan himself received the Industry Icon award in 2025.

Both bars are in the old lanes above Queen’s Road Central, within ten minutes on foot of each other and of Tai Kwun, and neither takes reservations. Go early in the evening or expect to wait. The hotel bar of Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong, Argo, is a short walk downhill.