Handshake Speakeasy

The first read is controlled theatre: dark tones, black-and-gold detailing, curtain-drawn entry cues, and a compact main room designed around 90-minute sittings rather than casual drift. That format matters in Mexico City, where serious cocktail bars increasingly split between neighborhood drinking rooms and destination bars built around technique, pacing, and recognisable design language. Handshake Speakeasy belongs to the latter camp, but the point is not secrecy for its own sake. The room works because the drinks program has enough discipline to justify the stagecraft.

Mexico City's bar scene has not needed validation for years, but the global awards cycle has changed how international drinkers read the city. Condé Nast Traveler noted in 2023 that Handshake Speakeasy placed No. 2 for a second consecutive year in North America's 50 Best Bars, making it the leading Mexican bar in that ranking cycle.¹ By 2024, the bar had moved from contender to reference point, taking No. 1 on The World's 50 Best Bars and No. 1 on North America's 50 Best Bars, then holding the North America title again in 2025. In 2026, Tales Spirited Awards named it a Top 10 Nominee for Best International Cocktail Bar, while Top 500 Bars ranked it No. 4 in its 2026 list. Those signals place the bar in the small tier where a reservation is less about novelty than about seeing how a city's technical cocktail vocabulary is being exported.

“This year the coveted top spot went to Mexico's Handshake Speakeasy.”

Bon Appétit

Clarified classics, agave structure, and the Mexico-first drink language

The useful way to read the menu is through technique rather than theme. The program is known for drinks that appear visually simple, then reveal the work behind them through clarification, controlled texture, and compact flavor architecture. That approach fits a broader international movement away from speakeasy cosplay toward transparent technical programs, where prep, dilution, temperature, and glassware do the heavy lifting. Here, the Mexican frame stays present through tequila, mezcal, sotol, and local producers, rather than through decorative national motifs.

Eric van Beek's role as drinks director gives the bar an identifiable creative center, but the stronger editorial point is the service model around him. The team is described as rotating through bartender, prep, maître d', and till responsibilities, which explains the unusually synchronized style of hospitality often associated with the bar. In a high-volume awards bar, that matters: drinks can be technically ambitious, but the experience falls apart if the room cannot reset, explain, and serve at pace.

“Last year, Bar Leone was in second place behind Mexico City's Handshake Speakeasy. Now, the two have traded places.”

Condé Nast Traveler, 2022

Recognition outside the awards circuit also tracks the bar's influence. Eater described Tunki as a collaboration between Belmond's Casa de Sierra Nevada in San Miguel de Allende and Mexico City's lauded Handshake Speakeasy in 2021, an early sign that the bar's identity was already mobile beyond its own room.² That kind of hotel-bar crossover is now common in luxury hospitality, but it is revealing here because it shows how a Mexico City cocktail program could travel without being reduced to a guest shift or branded garnish.

Two rooms, two speeds, one tightly managed format

The current address gives the bar two registers. The ground-floor room keeps the compact, Prohibition-inflected language associated with the original concept, with a small main bar and tightly staged sittings. The basement adds a Japanese izakaya-inspired second space, including a cold line along the bar designed to keep drinks chilled through service. The contrast is useful rather than decorative: one room leans toward controlled ceremony, the other toward a looser, higher-energy rhythm.

That dual format also explains why the bar can absorb global demand without turning into a single overextended room. Awards bars often struggle once rankings create a tourist funnel; either the regulars vanish, or the room becomes a photo stop with drinks attached. Handshake Speakeasy has tried to solve that through segmentation, letting different soundtracks, service tempos, and seating formats carry different kinds of guests while keeping the cocktail program as the through-line.

Mexico City drinkers looking for a wider map of the scene should treat this as one pole rather than the whole story. Aguascalientes 232, Amaya, Azul Historico, and Balagan point to other versions of the city's drinking culture, from restaurant-adjacent bars to more casual formats. For broader planning, use our full Mexico City bars guide alongside our full Mexico City restaurants guide, our full Mexico City hotels guide, our full Mexico City wineries guide, and our full Mexico City experiences guide. Mexico's wider bar circuit also rewards comparison beyond the capital, including Acre Restaurant in Los Cabos and Agave Bar in Guadalajara; farther afield, ¡BE! Club in San Sebastián gives a useful European counterpoint.

How to judge the hype without letting rankings do all the work

The awards are too significant to ignore, but they are not the only lens. Bon Appétit summarized the 2024 moment by noting that the coveted No. 1 position went to Mexico's Handshake Speakeasy, and that line captured a real shift in cocktail geography: Mexico City was no longer being framed as an exciting regional scene, but as a city setting the global pace. Condé Nast Traveler later described the rankings exchange with Bar Leone by noting that the two bars had traded places after Handshake Speakeasy led the prior year, which underlines how quickly the global bar conversation now moves.⁴

The verdict is simple: this is a reservations-first cocktail bar for drinkers who care about technique, pacing, and Mexico's role in the international bar conversation. It is not the place to understand every register of the city's nightlife, and it should not be treated as a substitute for smaller neighborhood rooms. Its value is narrower and stronger than that: a polished, high-control view of how Mexican spirits, modern prep, and hospitality choreography can operate at the awards-bar tier.