The 2025 Guide to Ottawa's Cocktail Scene
Are you visiting Ottawa and looking for the best bars in town? Or are you a local deciding where to go for a date or a night out with friends? This list is for anyone who enjoys great food, excellent drinks, and smooth music. We have compiled the 10 best bars in Ottawa for you to try.
I’ve been following Ottawa’s cocktail scene for more than a decade. Over the past five years, I made it a personal project to study the scene closely: tasting widely, documenting menus, and tracing the evolution of Ottawa’s most ambitious bar programs and the people behind them. What began as a hunt for a well-made Old Fashioned in the kind of bar where Don Draper might have slipped into became a citywide journey. The venues below represent the establishments that currently define the city’s cocktail culture. Some are intimate rooms devoted entirely to drinks, others are restaurants where the bar program rivals the kitchen. Together, they form the backbone of Ottawa’s most compelling drinking destinations.
What Defines Ottawa’s Best Cocktail Bars
Ottawa’s strongest cocktail programs share a few defining traits. Clear ice programs have become increasingly common, signalling a commitment to technical precision. Many bars now maintain an extensive spirit selections and build menus around seasonal ingredients or house-made components.
Equally important is the vibe. The best venues balance technical skill behind the bar with spaces designed for memorable conversations: dim lighting, thoughtful music, and attentive knowledgeable bartenders.
Stolen Goods occupies a distinct position in Ottawa’s bar landscape by excelling simultaneously in three areas: a genuinely intimate room, a rigorously constructed cocktail program, and a food offering that exceeds expectations for a bar without a full kitchen. Chef Adam Ghor delivers dishes that are precise and well-matched to the bar’s flavour profiles.
📍106 Sparks Street
Bar Ocelli has raised the standard for what a cocktail lounge can be in Ottawa. The moody interior, polished service, and technically precise drinks evoke the atmosphere of internationally respected cocktail bars.
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📍17 William Street
Zoe’s Lounge is a great cocktail bar that meets the level of excellence that you would expect from Fairmont. The majestic entrance of the Chateau certainly adds something to the experience. The layout, design and historic character of the lounge provide the perfect atmosphere for the cocktail enthusiast.
📍 1 Rideau Street
Riviera is an elegant, historic restaurant with a serious focus on its bar program. Sitting at the bar offers a more hands-off experience but a front-row view of exceptional craftsmanship. Riviera stands as Ottawa’s premier destination for Negronis and one of the city’s best places to enjoy expertly executed food and cocktails. For cocktail enthusiasts, it is worth returning to again and again.
📍 62 Sparks Street
Apothecary
Apothecary is a beautiful venue and an appealing watering hole. The cocktail program succeeds in presentation and showmanship, particularly with cocktails like The Mortician. Apothecary is a bar worth visiting, if not for some cool cocktails, then for the sheer pleasure of spending some time in its moody space.
📍 54 York Street
Coffee by day and cocktails by night. Drip House has a reputation for doing things properly, and its cocktail bar upholds that standard. It’s become a popular weekend spot, but I’m particularly fond of their weekday vibe. It’s elegant yet informal. Skilled bartenders, quality spirits, and one of the city’s best happy hours make it a place worth returning to.
📍 692 Somerset Street West
Bar Lupulus has a great reputation, both in terms of food and beverages. It’s a cozy spot serving elevated dishes, making it a perfect venue for friends or a romantic date night. If you enjoy craft beers & cocktails, or natural wines, you will find that Bar Lupulus is right up your alley. It’s impressive that they have so many specialties (food, beer, wine, cocktails) and execute perfectly on all these fronts.
📍1242 Wellington Street West
Mati is a trendy Italian-inspired live-fire restaurant and cocktail bar. It’s the right place to go when you want to be seen: Seafood towers, tomahawk steaks and every iteration of Clase Azul can be found here. But it’s more than a beautiful establishment: the cocktail program at Mati is solid, and the bar team is very skilled at what they do.
📍428 Preston Street
Perch
This small establishment is one of Canada’s best fine dining destinations. That doesn’t take away from the fact that beverage manager Shannon Marshall puts a significant effort into creating sustainable and innovative cocktails made exclusively from locally available ingredients.
📍300 Preston Street
Ottawa’s Cocktail Scene in 2025
Ottawa may not command the international reputation of cities like New York or London, but its cocktail culture has matured significantly. A growing number of venues now treat drinks with the same seriousness once reserved for kitchens.
The bars listed above represent the establishments currently pushing the city forward. These are places where thoughtful design and skilled bartenders come together to create memorable nights.