Best Oʻahu Cocktails Bars — Editor's Picks
O'ahu has an exciting cocktail scene. From restaurants to speakeasies to hole-in-the wall bars, here are our favorites.
Sip on This
Honolulu’s cocktail scene has been thriving for decades. With so many talented bartenders in the city, it can be hard to decide where to go — especially if you’re short on time. Whether you live here or are visiting, here are 14 of our favorite spots to enjoy craft cocktails. The list includes a Japanese-style listening bar, restaurants, speakeasies and bars owned by award-winning mixologists.
1. Brick Fire Tavern
Brick Fire Tavern offers an extensive amaro bar with inventive craft cocktails that change seasonally. This winter, instead of ordering dessert, try bar manager Arielle Hafen's Not Your Nonna’s Tiramisu, made with VSOP Brandy, Coffee Liqueur, Créme de Cacao, cream, egg yolk and mascarpone. Hafen's cocktails are complex, well-balanced and dangerously delicious.
2. EP Bar
Inspired by Japanese listening bars, such as JBS and Bar Martha in Tokyo, EP Bar combines DJ sets with craft cocktails in a dimly lit, brick-walled space with amber lighting and floor-to-ceiling records. Leave your dancing shoes at home, this is a place to enjoy good music, chill and sip highballs.
3. Pint + Jigger
Co-owned by James Beard Award finalist Dave Newman, PInt + Jigger is a local institution in Hawai'i with an extensive list of craft cocktails, spirits and craft beer. With Newman moving on to his next project in late December 2025, now is the time to go. But not to worry, if you donʻt catch him this winter youʻll still get to enjoy his catalog of cocktails in the space he has built to last.
4. Wild Orange
Look for the soda vending machine down a dark hallway inside Hawaiian Brian’s (HB Social Club) to find this uber hip speakeasy. Wild Orange serves craft cocktails and vegan bar food with a Manhattan-meets-Vegas ambiance.
5. Green Lady Cocktail Room
Green Lady Cocktail Room offers absinthe drips and prohibition-era cocktails in a sexy speakeasy setting. Ask for room 8 at the White Sands Hotel, where you'll find award-winning bartender Maddie Finnegan cranking out cocktails like nobody's business.
6. Heyday Pool Bar & Restaurant
Heyday Pool Bar & Restaurant is a tiki-style pool bar with swings in place of barstools at the retro White Sands Hotel. Gotta try the frozen pina colada made with fresh pineapple. If you are a guest of the hotel, you could also take your cocktails behind the bar to the hidden grotto.
7. Yours Truly
Yours Truly is a speakeasy bar located at the AC Hotel in downtown Honolulu. Come for tiki cocktails and more served in festive glassware, bar snacks and incredible ambiance. The bartenders browse Chinatown markets each week for fresh ingredients and cocktail inspiration. This is a place to bring friends and party or to sneak away by yourself.
8. Bar Leather Apron
Bar Leather Apron has won multiple accolades, including a James Beard Award for Outstanding Bars in 2023. Award-winning Justin Park makes painstakingly perfect cocktails in this upstairs whiskey bar hidden in a downtown office building. Reservations in advance are a must.
9. Skull & Crown Trading Co.
Skull & Crown Trading Co. crafts over the top tiki cocktails, including one that prompts the bartender to light the bar on fire. Guest can also enjoy a full dinner menu and desserts. The ambiance, which includes antique tiki bar relics and a creepy mermaid, is part of the show.
10. Fete
Fete bar manager, Fabrice McCarthy, changes his cocktail menu with the seasons, using local ingredients and a “let the ingredients shine” mentality. Cocktails are innovative, such as his riff on a classic French salad, The Granny Smiths, made with French apple brandy, apple-fennel-parsley syrup, celery juice and anise.
11. Giovedi
Giovedi bar manager, Michael Henderson, crafts sophisticated, refreshing cocktails you want to crush all night long. Henderson likes to balance both sweet and savory components, such as apples and cucumber, and often incorporates Italian amaros into his cocktails to add depth of flavor.
12. Monkeypod Kitchen
Monkeypod Kitchen is our favorite recommendation for large parties and families. Co-owned by Hawaiʻi Regional Cuisine co-founder Peter Merriman, Monkeypod is famous throughout the islands for its Mai Tai with lilikoʻi foam. There are two locations on Oʻahu: Waikīkī and Ko ʻOlina.
13. The Lei Stand
The Lei Stand at Romer House Waikīkī is known for its neon lights, photogenic cocktails and playful island energy. Come for drinks, dinner, live DJ sets, lei-making and more.
14. Lady Elaine
Lady Elaine co-owner and beverage director, Kuʻulei Akuna, likes to play when it comes to creating libations — like with her One Point One, a riff on a daiquiri made with goat’s milk yogurt–washed Kō Hana agricole rum. Working by the motto “There is a drink for everyone, but not every drink is for everyone,” her cocktails run the gamut from refreshing to boozy.