Best Bar
1. Nicanor
Andrés Damerval’s idea goes beyond clever cocktails: talk to the bartender, discover a spirit, stay a while. More than twenty labels of Miske (an Ecuadorian agave spirit) share space with vermouths, classics and originals built around cacao, macambo, coconut and tropical fruits. Its 2026 arrival in the 50 Best Discovery list confirms what the bar has pursued since opening in 2021.
Código 86 began as a cocktail school, and that spirit of experimentation still shapes what happens behind the bar. Edwin Lobo turns fermentation, Latin American spirits, Ecuadorian microclimates and biodiversity into drinks with a clear point of view. Guests begin with chicha and the menu unfolds in chapters, from experimental signatures to reworked classics.
Sarah Ruiz arrives with serious credentials: at Juliana, she helped turn Ecuadorian ingredients into the world’s best cocktail menu in 2022. Her new La Floresta bar wants to strip the ceremony and just be a great neighborhood bar. Original drinks stay balanced and relatable with guayaba, coconut, coffee or sherry... Add genuine hospitality and BIG proves that sophistication works best when it stays down to earth.
Juliana turned the cocktail menu itself into a statement of Ecuadorian identity. Its landmark Diverso menu built around ingredients such as the macambo, the sunfo herb or the chontacuro larva won it World’s Best Cocktail Menu in 2022 and helped earn the bar a spot in 50 Best Discovery. The current philosophy remains fiercely local. Few bars make drinking feel so much like telling a country’s story.
In a field dominated by cocktails, Bajamar makes the case for beer. Brewing in Guayaquil since 2017, it moves from clean lagers and Scotch ales to IPAs, imperial stouts, sours and rotating experiments, helping give the city a serious craft-beer vocabulary of its own. The bar keeps things appropriately loose: pints, food, sunsets, live music... No tweezers, no smoke machines: the good old-school style, straight from the tap.
