Naples’ Best Bars
With sultry cocktail clubs, laidback breweries and waterfront haunts, Naples and nearby Marco Island offer plenty of ways to imbibe.
1. Ankrolab Brewing Company
Located in East Naples’ Bayshore Arts District, Ankrolab has all the makings of a great modern brewery: eco-friendly, industrial design; breezy, indoor-outdoor setup with garage doors that open to the leafy beer garden; and a robust, diverse beer list. The vibe is young and artsy, with murals adorning the walls, and there’s always a food truck or two parked outside to fuel the crowds, who congregate here for the constant rotation of live music and other events.
2. Barbatella
Like a good Italian restaurant, stylish Barbatella takes its wine seriously. The more than 100 vinos poured by the glass are perfect to pair with the wood-fired pizzas, decadent pastas and grilled standouts from land and sea. As for cocktails, the menu is inventive and features amaros in refreshing ways, like with the Barbatini, made with citrus vodka, limoncello, basil, lemon and prosecco. If you love dinner and a show, inquire about the Opera Nights, when sopranos perform.
3. Bar Tulia
Located in the middle of Fifth Avenue South, the brainchild of star restaurateur Vincenzo Betulia is a standard-bearer for artfully crafted cocktails in Naples. (So much so that the team recently debuted a second location for Bar Tulia in North Naples at the Mercato shopping district.) With its dimly lit, narrow space, the bar is ideal for date night or a solo drink. Feel the urge to nibble? The assortment of charcuterie boards, wood-fired pizzas and highbrow bar food is sure to satisfy.
4. The Bevy
Located a few blocks from the Naples Pier, this indoor-outdoor, plant-filled gastropub serves some of the area’s freshest cocktails. The 10-drink cocktail menu frequently changes, with plenty of fun, buzzy concoctions, like The Bevy Punch. For spirit-forward drinkers, the Woodford barrel-aged Manhattan is an exercise in patience: The cocktail rests in a small oak barrel for 12 days and the extended aging helps the flavors meld, making it worth the wait.
5. The Club Room at Campiello
In 2020, in a space adjacent to Campiello, restaurateur Richard D’Amico added live entertainment with the restaurant-within-a-restaurant The Club Room at Campiello. The lounge carries on its parent restaurant’s Italian swagger with its menu and vibe. “We imagined this space as a melodic jazz-era oasis,” D’Amico says. After dinner, servers roll out the Cart del Salone, stocked with top-shelf spirits and liqueurs, for an elegant finale. Note: The Club Room closes for the summer.
6. The Cave Bistro & Wine Bar
Opened by trustees of the illustrious Naples Winter Wine Festival wine auction, this bistro has the look and feel of an underground wine cave and access to handpicked vintages sold at the owners’ nearby bottle shop. Vino may be the calling card, but the thoughtfully composed cocktails, locally informed beer list, hearty French and Italian-focused dinner menu, and late-night snacks are equal draws.
7. Celebration Park
A series of galvanized steel sheets provide shade over the wraparound bar, overlooking the water at this food truck park. Take away the food, and the bar is still a draw from noon until about 10pm every day. Wine and higher-end spirits match any bar downtown, and “build your own buckets” are a hoot—five picks of either imported beer, craft suds or splits. Add in game-day-colored punches, live music and some flat screens, and you have the definition of fun in the sun.
8. Dorona
During the Celebrity Startender Series at Dorona, local luminaries pour drinks behind the bar, with proceeds benefitting a local charity. That’s the kind of creativity and heart that drives all of Ingrid and Fabrizio Aielli’s restaurants, including this one, and it’s why Dorona is a local favorite for raising a glass. The restaurant is named after an Italian wine grape, so you can be sure the vino selection is expertly curated and ample.
9. The Hampton Social
Even though it’s about a mile from the beach and in Mercato, one of Naples’ busiest shopping districts, The Hampton Social feels as if it’s steps from the water, with its white-washed dining room, nautical accents and “rosé all day” vibe. While there are plenty of beachy and zero-proof cocktails, blush wine is the libation of choice. There are nearly 20 bottles on offer, plus a special bottle of the day and the frosty blended frosé.
10. Lima Restaurant and Pisco Bar
Go here for a primer on pisco (the Peruvian brandy often likened to tequila). Though the pisco sour is the most familiar cocktail, Lima doesn’t limit the spirit to a single application. Owner Amanda González Zúñiga’s husband and business partner, Dario, is partial to the César Vallejo cocktail. Named for the famed Peruvian poet who lived his final years in France, the drink blends French verbena-infused pisco with St-Germain elderflower liqueur, muddled cucumber and lime.
11. The London Club
You enter through a hallway adorned with a cheeky Princess Diana installation at this Bellasera Resort jazz lounge. High-back u-shaped booths offer privacy, while rows of tables are closer to the stage, where a red velvet curtain serves as the backdrop. With two nightly seatings, the live music is accompanied by towers of chilled lobster, oysters and other fine seafood. To drink, the martinis are flawless, as are the nearly 40 wines poured by the glass.
12. Ocean Prime
Locals love the bar at this white-tablecloth establishment, owned by star restaurateur Cameron Mitchell. The appreciation for fine wine is evident from the hundreds of bottles (many of which are available by the glass) lining the glass-encased walls. Whiskey aficionados nerd out over the extensive spirit list, where coveted names—Macallan, Laphroaig, Whistlepig—make an appearance.
13. The Oyster Society
The Fitzgerald quote on the wall is just the tip of the Jazz Age-style iceberg at Marco’s The Oyster Society. Aside from the extensive oyster selections (up to 24 at a time) and other stellar seafood, the restaurant shines with its cocktails, including true-to-form classics and original recipes inspired by the season (like the mezcal-based Smoke, Fire & Piña for summer). Happy hour takes place daily from 4:30 to 6 p.m. with generous drink specials and small bites.
14. Seventh South Craft Food + Drink
Seventh South places equal emphasis on the from-scratch cuisine and cocktail programs. Longtime Naples bartender Barry Larkin is at the helm, doling out superb service and inspired food and drink around the clock, with lunch and dinner service daily, late-night dining most nights and weekend brunch. Larkin’s bar book is filled with detailed notes on every cocktail they’ve ever served—all of which incorporate top-class spirits with housemade infusions, syrups and bitters. Everything is fresh.
15. Sidebar
More than 250 whiskeys, bourbon and rye, plus 50 mezcals line a wall behind the bar, and a Coravin system pours single servings of hard-to-find wines. The cocktail list changes frequently and features boutique spirits in modern twists on classic libations. While weekdays come with a more mellow, happy hour vibe, weekends are more clubby and young, with crowds spilling out onto the sidewalk of this ground-floor lounge just steps from Fifth Avenue South.
16. The Vine Room
A doorknob poking through the vines may be the only noticeable sign for this sultry lounge, modeled after modern-day speakeasies. The cocktail list reads like a round-the-world trip, with a menu divvied up by continent (a VR Margarita topped with salted foam in South America; a Mekhong rum-based Spirit of Thailand in Asia). Go for the dealer’s choice for a cocktail with bells and whistles, like The Flavour Blaster, a smoke-filled bubble that floats atop your drink for you to pop.
17. Ziggy D’Amico’s Whiskey Bar & Diner
In 2020, D’Amico & Sons rebranded into Ziggy D’Amico’s Whiskey Bar & Diner, with an emphasis on whiskey. A nearly 40-bottle list, separated by region, includes selections from Tennessee and Kentucky and global pours from Ireland, Scotland and Japan. Try a couple at a time with the Whiskey Fights, a head-to-head comparison of two bottles. Cocktails are irreverent and playful; interiors are bright, contemporary and sleek; and the patio is generously sized and welcoming to pups.
