Fashion

The Connaught Is the Best Bar in the World

The Mayfair hotspot, known for their mean martinis, has just been awarded the title of World’s Best Bar by a committee of over 500 hospitality professionals….

Sure, you know a good bar. But do you know the best bar? Because, according to 500 hospitality experts, that title can only be bestowed on one establishment in the world: The Connaught Bar in London.

The World’s 50 Best Bars Awards crowned the Connaught Hotel outpost as 2020’s top global cocktail spot during a ceremony on November 5. “It’s hard to think of a bar anywhere in the world that has made excellence so effortlessly routine as Connaught Bar,” the committee said. “It evolves from one year to the next, always delivering with poise and studied purpose.” Their favorite libation? The Magnetum, a scotch and sherry mix. (Although you can’t go wrong with one of their signature martinis, which a white-gloved server prepares off a traveling trolley. Or anything with gin—the Connaught distills their own.) It’s not just the drinks, however, that create such an elegant ambience: the late David Collins designed the cubist-inspired interiors.

Image may contain Flooring Human Person Floor Lobby Room Indoors Furniture Chair and Lighting — The David Collins-designed interior at The Connaught Bar.DAMIAN RUSSELL

The Connaught has had a place on the Best Bar’s list since 2010, but this is the first time they’ve been dubbed the official winner. The distinction comes at a tough time: the United Kingdom just entered a second lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, closing the bar for the next month. Agostino Perrone, their director of mixology, was still hopeful as he accepted the bar’s award via Zoom on Thursday. “We love our cocktails, we love our bar, we love our guests, and we love our community.”

Closer to home, a beloved New York City haunt, Dante, was awarded 2nd place, and given the title of Best Bar in America. Famous for their negronis, spritzes, and (this writer’s personal favorite) a champagne cocktail topped with burrata water, they’ve become a shining star in the city’s competitive culinary scene under the ownership of Linden Pride and Nathalie Hudson. This summer, they opened a second outpost in West Village. It instantly emerged as an exciting example of how charming, and creative, pandemic-native bars can be. Their outdoor tables are divided by ornate, claw-footed gilded glass frames that are accented with playful scripts—“How about we get started with a martini?” reads one—and their black-and-white bistro table-sets evoke an evening in Paris. “I really tried to bring what Europe does so well in their outdoor dining and translate that to Dante,” Hudson told Vogue earlier this summer.

Rounding out the top five? The Clumsies in Athens, Atlas in Singapore, and Tayēr + Elementary and Kwānt in London.

With international borders closed and lockdowns in place, it’ll be tough for many to enjoy a stiff drink at The Connaught, or many of these bars, in the near future. So, for the time being, the World’s Best Bar shared a recipe for one of their newest drinks—a fruity, gin-champagne concoction called the Bumblebee—with Vogue. Cheers, everyone!

The Bumblebee

Image may contain Plant — Photo: Courtesy of The Connaught

Ingredients

1.7 oz Roku Gin and Haku Vodka Infused with Raspberry and Strawberry Oil

Splash of Sakura Distillate

Splash of Concord 8 Vinegar

1.5 oz Laurent Perrier Champagne

Directions

Stir over ice, serve into champagne coupe, top off with champagne. Garnish with half blackberry on ice chunk. Finish with grapefruit and basil spray.

Tweet LinkedIn PinShares0

Entertainment

A$AP Rocky Turned An Entire Manchester City Kit Into His Album Rollout

Photo: DannyB Photos / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

A$AP Rocky doesn’t do album rollouts quietly, and this one recruited an entire Premier League club to help. Manchester City, PUMA, and Rocky teamed up on a limited apparel run tied to “Don’t Be Dumb,” his 2026 album, timed around his September 5th show at Co-op Live.

The centerpiece is a long-sleeve PUMA King jersey in black and archive gold, with “DON’T BE DUMB” running down the sleeve and AWGE branding worked in throughout. A bold “MANCHESTER” graphic covers the back. Fans could also add limited “A$AP 11” name-and-number printing onto the club’s actual Home, Away, or Third kits, while supplies lasted at retail.

There’s a players-only version too, and it never went up for sale. That one sticks closer to City’s usual sky-blue identity, with its own sleeve detailing and back graphic — the kind of piece that exists purely because a handful of people got lucky.

The whole rollout kicked off with a one-night pop-up on September 4th, when PUMA turned a spot in Manchester’s Northern Quarter into a pop-up cafe for the night, mixing football, music, and street style into one room before the wider release hit the stadium store the next morning. Some of those jerseys even came with golden tickets to the concert or that Saturday’s match.

Rocky has called the project true to his own design language, and it’s not even his only club collaboration this cycle — a similar drop with AC Milan landed around the same time. At this point, the line between fashion week and matchday has basically disappeared.

Tweet LinkedIn PinShares0

Entertainment

Quavo And Lids Are Going All In On Atlanta With Their New Cap Pack

Photo: Finish Line / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Quavo has never been shy about his hat obsession, and Lids just gave him another outlet for it. Their new “Atlanta” pack drops September 12th, marking another round in a partnership that’s been running strong since 2019.

The collection is a love letter to the city, spread across three very different caps. One mashes up pinstripes, script lettering, and Braves branding into a single design, working navy, red, white, and light blue into the mix. Another goes the opposite direction entirely — fully iced out in crystal detailing, done up in black and red, with both the Falcons and the Braves showing up in the design. The third strips things back to an old-school “ATL” trucker cap in red, white, and gold, the kind of understated piece that lets the city’s name do the talking.

None of this is new territory for Quavo. He’s talked before about waiting on hat releases as a kid, and that same excitement seems to be what’s kept this partnership going years past most celebrity collabs. His earlier Lids run leaned on one moment — the Braves’ 1995 World Series win — but this pack pulls from the city’s whole sports history instead of just one highlight.

Lids has called Quavo one of the rare voices who can blend music, fashion, and sports without it feeling forced, and this drop backs that up. Given how fast his past releases have moved, Atlanta might want to set an alarm for September 12th.

Tweet LinkedIn PinShares0