Best of Philly Bars: Here’s Where to Drink Right Now
From thoughtful neighborhood happy hours to a masterclass in agave, these are the best bars in Philly.
Happy hour at Wilder / Photography by K.C. Tinari
Any dummy with a Mr. Boston guide and a handle of Tito’s can pour out a line of lemon drops on alumni night. But the crews working behind the stick at Philly’s best bars aim for something a little higher. And the hometown crowds have come to expect more, too. Which is why, every day at 4:30 in the afternoon, Wilder (above) in Rittenhouse rolls out the Best Happy Hour menu, as thoughtful, curated, and comprehensive as your favorite old-school mixtape. There are smart (and funny) $9 cocktails like the Blender’s Broken, with its rum, OJ, and lime juice, and weekly amaro specials; $5 craft beers; and wines by both the glass and the bottle. In the kitchen, they’re pushing out crispy-gooey scamorza-stuffed arancini, ricotta toasts drizzled with honey, and $2 oysters. For two hours, the bar, lounge, and patio seats become a place where anyone can just drop in for a drink, a bite, and some good company after a long day — no reservations required.
Meanwhile, at La Jefa in Rittenhouse, cocktail explorer Dan Suro pours all his obsession with the humble agave into a single cocktail named for it. The Agave, our Best Cocktail, is blanco tequila infused with cooked agave, served with lime, Colima salt, and an orange peel — nothing more. It is a love letter to Mexico’s iconic succulent. And even at $27, it’s totally worth it.
In Chinatown, Hop Sing Laundromat has become a singular destination for those label-chasing completists trying to knock a taste of an impossible-to-find Old Overholt or an 18-year-old Yamazaki whiskey off their bucket lists. Lê, the owner and curator of Philly’s Best Bottle Selection, has spent decades collecting rare spirits for his bar, and a few months ago he finally started opening them and pouring out his treasures two ounces at a time.
Hugo Spritz with elderflower at Bar Tacconelli / Photograph by Ed Newton
On the other side of the Delaware, this year’s best new bar, Maple Shade’s Bar Tacconelli balances a brilliant cocktail program full of stylish chocolate Negronis and elderflower spritzes with a snacky menu of Italian small plates that’s so good we just can’t stop telling people about it.
And if you’re looking for a place to settle in for a beer, Best New Brewery Concordance Ferments in Hatboro, which operates out of a centuries-old mill, feels like a welcoming tavern from a Tolkien novel (even if the upstairs dining room looks out over a Wawa parking lot) and pours a Nordic farmhouse ale so clean and sweet and crisp it may finally cure you of your IPA fixation.
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Published as “Top Shelf” in the August 2026 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
