Europe’s best cocktail bar is Dogma in Antwerp

The people of the Big 7 Travel have spoken: The best cocktail bar in Europe is Dogma in Antwerp. The travel website, with two million users worldwide, has compiled a list of the 50 best cocktail bars in the EU, and none beats Dogma.

“Dogma opened in 2013 and has been changing not only the cocktail scene in Belgium, but across the whole continent,” the website writes. “They focus on super high-end ingredients, and the stellar drinks are all the more enjoyable for the relaxed ambience. This is one bar truly pushing boundaries and is sure to inspire countless others.”

Dogma, on Wijngaardstraat in the heart of Antwerp’s city centre, indeed has it all. Rich brown leather sofas mix with exposed brick in a kind of posh-meets-industrial space. The menu includes their own versions of classics as well as dogma signature drinks like the Tall Dragon (gin, cucumber, ginger, honey and lemon) and Belial’s Nectar (rye whiskey, vermouth, herbal liqueur, chamomile, bitters and green Duvel foam).

Three years ago, Dogma won Marvin Media’s hospitality sector Rookie of the Year award, and a year later, the same company called owner Didier Van den Broeck (pictured) Belgium’s Best Bartender. That secured the bar a place in 2016’s Havana Club Cocktail Grand Prix in Cuba.

Big 7’s editorial team compiled a list of its favourite cocktails bars from every EU country. They then let readers and a panel of food experts vote. They coupled the results with online reviews both professional and user-generated.

Two Brussels cocktail bars also made the top 50 list: the homely, cosy Life is Beautiful on Rue Dansaert is at 22, while La Pharmacie Anglaise on Coudenberg, with breathtakingly beautiful cocktails, is at 42.

Photo: Bart D'Hooge/Nullam Microwaveum Food & Drinks