200 Best Bars in Mexico

A popular new restaurant and evening hangout at the restored Hacienda La Laborcilla delights patrons with a combination of Egyptian, African, and Moroccan-palace-chic in both indoor and garden settings. For tunes, listen to house, lounge, chill, and more danceable tunes. It's open from 6 pm to 3 am Monday through Saturday.

When you're looking for live music, cold beer, good bar food, and a satellite TV that's always tuned to the current game, make tracks for Jax, open daily until 11 pm.

Live music is played in this simple but fun grill. You can also enjoy burgers, steak, salads, and tacos here, as well as blues and good rock.

Originally located in the Hotel Zone, JB has now moved, with all its Latin rhythms, to the Zona Romántica. It's the best club in town for salsa, hands down. The crowd varies but tends toward the 30s–40s age group, and because JB is serious about dancing, it feels young at heart. It's a favorite of locals and upbeat expats alike.

Joe's Oyster Bar has become perhaps Mazatlán's most popular club, although it's really not much more than a palapa and a volleyball court. Locals and tourists dance to pop and hip-hop. Get there early and watch the sunset over a couple of drinks, a plate of shrimp, and yes, some oysters.

This is the spot for those who are into electronic music, with capacity for 1,000 revelers.

Kachimba is a great spot for live Cuban music. It's open Thursday to Sunday.

Hookah smokers here puff on fruit-flavored tobacco that wafts away into the open tropical night. On weekends, belly dancers weave their way between the tables.

An anchor of Playa's live music scene, cool Kitxen features bands from Mexico and the Caribbean playing everything from rock to reggae. Cash only.

Find hot live bands and cold beers under this Ixtapa palapa that opens at 6 pm every night.

La Azotea, located on the roof of Pueblo Viejo restaurant, is a popular haunt for the well-heeled and well-dressed crowd, making for supreme people-watching as well as great sunset views. There's a bar menu, too, for nibbling a jicama taco, for example: breaded shrimp with chipotle mayo in a thinly sliced jicama wrap.

La Bodega de Ajijic has dancing on the weekends and live guitar the rest of the week. It's closed Thursday.

At this welcoming, lively Cuban joint set in a fadingly grand mansion that wouldn't look the least out of place in Havana, every surface is splashed with graffiti. Inspired by the original Havana establishment where Hemingway once lapped up mojitos, La Bodeguita also serves inexpensive Cuban food and sells Cuban cigars. Much of the time, live salsa, timba, and rumba bands provide entertainment.

People of all ages come to salsa and drink mojitos made with Cuban rum at this wonderful Cuban bar and restaurant with a friendly vibe. The small dance floor fills up as soon as the house sextet starts playing around 9:30 pm. There's no cover.

Graffiti-styled La Bodeguita del Medio, a franchise of the famous Havana outpost, features live Cuban music every day.

Calle Sopeña hops with nighttime activity, thanks in part to interesting spots like La Capellina: restaurant by day, bar by night, La Capellina does great drinks and hosts live music ranging from Latin jazz to blues.

La Condesa has two locations, the larger and better of which is in the center of the city. Housed in a wonderful colonial building, it caters specifically to a younger crowd with loud music, space to dance, and a good range of cocktails and beers.

La Corte de los Milagros is a relaxing haunt where you can listen to Cuban-style ballads. It's open Wednesday through Saturday.

One of the most personable and funky bars in the area is also the oldest. Overlooking the town square, La Crema serves well-mixed cocktails such as the donaji, a mix of mezcal and orange juice rimmed with sal de gusano (chili-worm salt). A mix of canned tunes provides the beat: rock, lounge music, ranchera, and other Mexican music. A wood-fired pizza oven keeps energy levels high. There's dancing after 10 pm.

Calle Sopeña is one of the hottest streets on weekend nights. La Dama de las Camelias, with its dingy-hip furnishings and longtime regulars, manages to stay unpretentious while pulling off its dive-bar-meets-vaudeville theme. You'll find everyone from twentysomethings to sixtysomethings hitting the dance floor for salsa and cumbia. It's open until 4 am.

La Farola has been serving drinks to locals since 1916—and some of the patrons, it seems, might have been there when the joint opened up.

Appealing and unpretentious, La Fuente opened in this location in 1950. The cantina draws business types, intellectuals, and blue-collar workers, all seeking cheap drinks, animated conversation, and live music. Above the bar, look for an old bicycle. It's been around since 1957, when, legend has it, one of a long list of famous people (most say it was Jesús Álvarez del Castillo, founder of local newspaper El Informador) left the bike to pay for his drinks. 

Mexico is home to a growing number of artisanal brewers, and this is the place to try craft Mexican beers as well as additional selections from over 33 other countries. The bartenders are knowledgeable about their brews.

The vibe at this hip, open-air mezcal bar right on the Paseo del Pescador is pure kitsch, complete with colorful vinyl-cord chairs and tables covered with lotería cards. It serves dozens of varieties of mezcal from five different Mexican states, along with inventive cocktails and tasty dishes ranging from burgers and tacos to duck carnitas. You'll find occasional live music on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings. It's generally open from 4 pm to 2 am but closes early in the low season.

A cool—although a bit posh—bar with the largest TV screen in Puerto Vallarta, it attracts locals for "pre-copa" (pre-drinks) and to watch big soccer or boxing matches.

For some local color, stop at La Maestranza, a renovated 1940s cantina full of bullfighting memorabilia.

Many locals consider the merengue and salsa music played at this dance hall, southeast of Colonia Roma, to be some of the city's best. It also offers dance classes and live music.

Eight different mezcals, all from Oaxaca state, are used to create mixed drinks as well as shots to be savored. Try a cucumber-and-cilantro margarita, or one with red grapes, chilies, or ginger and mint. Many of the ingredients used in the indoor–outdoor bar's satisfying snacks—from sausages to bread and ice cream—are made by the owners themselves, a Swede and his Mexico City–born wife. The small but interesting menu meanders from oysters baked with spinach and Parmesan cheese to arugula salad, beef fillet on a coffee crust, and the Oaxacan specialty fried grasshoppers. Also available are Mexican wines and Dos Aves, San Miguel's artisanal beer.