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These are the best bars in NSW in 2026, according to bartenders

All the results from the fourth annual Boothby Best Bars NSW Awards.

These are the best bars in NSW in 2026, according to bartenders

What makes a great bar? There's the hospitality, first and foremost — it helps, too, if the drinks are delicious. You want a well designed place, somewhere nice to spend some time in — you want atmosphere, experience, and a good time. You also want a sense of place.

That sense of place is what the Boothby Best Bars NSW awards are about. We asked NSW bartenders and bar owners to nominate the bars they think are best in their state. And then we polled the industry — elite bartenders, influential bar operators, and the smartest bar minds going around — to find out how the rankings should look.

Get a look at the list below.

The 2026 winners

Pasan Wijesena

2026 Person of the Year NSW presented by Jack Daniel's Bonded

Pasan Wijesena

Pasan Wijesena opened Earl’s Juke Joint in a former butcher’s on King Street in Newtown in 2013. Named for a revered New Orleans drummer, the bar opened at a time when Newtown was dominated by big barn pubs and cut price drinks for the university crowd; Earl’s — a previous winner of the All Time Great NSW awards — was the precinct’s first taste of proper drinks. Pasan followed up Earl’s with the Lynchian Jacoby’s Tiki Bar on Enmore Road in 2017, before opening Sydney’s best small pub, The Magpie, in 2024. Pasan has been a trailblazer for the Inner West, and an outspoken advocate in recent years of the need for alcohol excise reform — an admirable example of what a considered, modern day hospitality operator ought to be, and why the NSW industry voted him the 2026 Person of the Year presented by Jack Daniel's Bonded.