Two Floors in Juárez, Booked Only on OpenTable
The two-level Juárez cocktail bar that books only on OpenTable, with tea-forward drinks and a 100-peso miniature menu that lets you sample the room before committing.
An Enoki Mushroom Old Fashioned lands on the table clear as water, and the server explains what you are about to taste before you have decided whether the theatre is charming or overplayed. That is the compact at Handshake. The room commits to laboratory mixology — clear pours, tea infusions, sweet-savoury pairings — and the staff commits to explaining why. If you want a drink handed to you without commentary, this is not it.
The bar sits on Calle Amberes in Colonia Juárez across two levels, with a basement that runs live music and events, and The World's 50 Best Bars ranked it second in 2025. Bookings go through OpenTable only, and a table is held for an hour and a half. The bar is trying to be a serious modern cocktail room with a scarce door. Both halves of that are working.
Handshake earns its ranking on the drinks, and the seat is booked on OpenTable or not at all.
Editorial Deep
Order the Matcha Yuzu first. It is the drink that tells you whether the room's tea-and-produce grammar lands for you, and if it does, the rest of the menu opens up: Once Upon a Time in Oaxaca, the Enoki Mushroom Old Fashioned, the Guava and Jasmine, the Fig Martini. The style is clear pours and layered sweet-savoury profiles, and the technique is genuinely skilled — nothing on the list is a novelty for its own sake.
Dark, low-lit, and physically tight. Two levels stitched together by a narrow staircase, with a hidden basement room that opens for live music. Lighting is candle-and-sconce warm rather than overhead; the wood and low ceiling absorb sound so a full room reads as murmur rather than roar. Seating is banquette and small tables — this is not a bar you stand at with a drink.
A mix of Mexico City locals who plan a month ahead and international cocktail travellers, weighted toward the second on weekends. The energy is attentive rather than loud — people are here to talk about what is in the glass, which is why the servers narrate the ingredients. On a Friday at 10pm the room hums; on a Wednesday at 8pm it breathes, and the staff has time to walk you through the menu properly. If you want a bar where nobody is thinking about the drink, this is the wrong room.
The Octo-Dog is 370 pesos. Two signature cocktails and a snack for one person lands in the range of a serious cocktail bar anywhere — high for Mexico City, defensible for the technique on display. The miniature classics at 100 pesos are the value play on the menu; the full-size signatures are priced against the international peer set rather than the local one, and reviewers do register that as steep.
This is the best version of a modern, technique-forward cocktail room in Mexico City right now, and it is the anchor for a two-drink night rather than a long session — sittings are capped at 1 hour 30 minutes anyway. Come back on a Wednesday when the room breathes and you can talk to the bar. Do not come back with six friends, do not come back looking for a place to end the night late, and do not come back if the ingredient monologues wore on you the first time. Everyone else has a reason to return.
Order this
Drink this.
Matcha Yuzu, plus the 100-peso miniature classics for a first visit
“Book the OpenTable drop or take Wednesday walk-in odds — the drinks earn the effort.”
The World's 50 Best No. 2 for 2025, and the reason is on the glass rather than the door. Come for a two-drink night with two or three people, order the Matcha Yuzu and one of the miniature-classics rounds, and book on OpenTable, its only booking route. Skip if you want a low-theatre bar or a table for six.
The Verdict
