It's a pleasing contradiction that one of Seattle's most exclusive bars is also one of its least pretentious. The Shanty Tavern in Lake City is a honky-tonk throwback, open only on Friday nights, when it features live music, usually with a country twang. Affable owner John Spaccarotelli has been behind the bar for half a century.

French restaurant Bastille Cafe and Bar, a longstanding Ballard favorite from Seattle restauranteurs James Weimann and Deming Maclise, was forced to shutter during the pandemic. The two bounced back by rebooting as Sabine Cafe & Market in the same location in October 2020. Over a year later, Bar Sabine opened in the former space of Bastille’s Back Bar, featuring bold cocktails — like the Born Again, made with hibiscus gin, vodka, Szechuan peppercorn, rooibos tea aperitif, and lemon oil — and a Middle East-meets-Pacific Northwest menu with excellent pita and hummus.

Along increasingly hip Ballard Avenue, full of new restaurants and bars, this live music venue represents the best of the good old days. Listen to country, folk, rock, and blues performers while knocking back PBRs served without a hint of irony.

This Fremont institution does a remarkable job of simulating a no-nonsense, working-class English pub, anchored by a sturdy mahogany bar with a dozen or so beers on tap. For soccer-loving lads and lasses, this is Seattle’s best sports bar.

Bar Miriam, under the same ownership as Baker’s in Sunset Hill, has been impressing local food critics with its food and drink menu since it opened earlier this year. The food menu include creative snacks like Kentucky-fried soft shell crab, smoked trout churros, and tandoori eggplant with cilantro-chili chutney, yogurt, and mint. The cocktails match the food in quality, with boozy concoctions like the Talent Scout, made with bourbon, pierre ferrand dry curaco, and angostura.

A soothing blond-wood interior, squeezed-to-order mixers, and friendly, fastidious bartenders combine to give Liberty its unique aura: It’s a cocktail lounge with the wholesome vibe of a juice bar.

Sporting an epic rooftop patio with views of Lake Union, the Space Needle, and myriad cranes soaring above the booming SLU neighborhood, Mbar perhaps the best rooftop bar in Seattle. It’s made even more memorable with a robust Middle Eastern menu with dishes like smoked eggplant croquettes, muhammara, falafel, and grilled lamb chops from the same restaurant group that owns Mamnoon, as well as some potent cocktails like the Cypress Avenue, made with gin, vermouth, mastic, and orange bitters.

This Capitol Hill bar is a good spot for someone looking for an excellent drink in a colorful environment but doesn’t want to brave the traffic of the neighborhood’s main nightlife strip on a weekend. The boozy slushies are perfect for a night of partying in the summer, and rotating cocktails like the Delores — made with tequila, smoked chili, mango, lime, and a tajin rim — are always well-balanced. The food includes snacks like deviled eggs and queso fresco poutine, burritos, and a variety of sandwiches.

It’s not seedy enough to qualify as a full-fledged dive, but there’s something admirably durable and dive-like about Linda’s. It’s the wise, seen-it-all matron of Capitol Hill bars, decked out in country-western attire. Dogs are also welcomed. Check out Linda’s sister bar, King’s Hardware, in Ballard for a similar vibe and menu.

“Viet style tree house” Phocific Standard Time (PST) is an intimate bar right above Pho Bac’s downtown location that serves cocktails made with Vietnamese ingredients and flavors. Try the trung muoi, made with a pho fat washed Japanese whisky, cream sherry, carcavelos wine, and salted egg yolk; or nuoc mat, a cocktail with soju, Cocchi Americano, logan, and citrus and jasmine flavors. Co-owner Yenvy Pham has whipped up a playful menu with offerings like a creamy, cheesy crab dip that perfectly compliments PST’s drinks.

You're in your 20s and you want to spend a night drinking cocktails, eating corn dogs, and showing off your tattoos. For this sizable Seattle demographic, Capitol Hill's Unicorn is heaven. It has over-the-top carnival decor and food that's way better than it has to be. Expect X-rated cocktail names like “unicorn jizz,” on the drink menu, a claw machine full of dildos, and a massive phallic unicorn hat reserved for those who visit on their birthdays.

This wonderfully grungy Belltown haunt features a huge collection of retro pinball machines along with some other old-school arcade games. The music is also generally from the 70s and 80s, and the walls are painted with large murals of scantily clad men and women and neon signs writing words like “fuck”. The drinks and food are serviceable; the vibe is what makes this spot stand out.

Belltown’s spin on a speakeasy is a secret within a secret. It’s a “hidden” bar on an alley between 1st and 2nd Ave, but once you get past the novelty of the location, the real discovery is the fantastic list of skillfully executed cocktails.