The Old Fashioned Bar

Bar Spirit Forward on Lavelle Road is the kind of place that makes you rethink what a cocktail bar can be. Tucked into the ground floor of Hotel Southern Star, it has a dark, intimate and sophisticated atmosphere with warm lighting, leather seating and a very polished bar setup. The space is relatively intimate, which actually adds to the experience and makes it feel more like a proper cocktail destination than a conventional loud Bengaluru pub. It was also ranked India’s Best Bar in the 2025 edition of the 30 Best Bars India list, and has since made it to No. 30 on Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2026. The cocktails were easily the star of our evening. We tried the 3 Gin Vesper, Red Riding Highball, A

Went to Bar Spirit Forward for my birthday with a friend and had a really good time overall. We were two people and ended up ordering 6 cocktails, more than half a dozen bar snacks and a full plate, so we tried quite a bit of the menu. The cocktails were easily the highlight. Really well made, complex flavours and everything tasted delicious. You can tell there’s a lot of thought that goes into the drinks. The vibe is also really nice, intimate, chilled out and a great place to spend a few hours. The staff were amazing too. Super friendly, attentive and knew their stuff without being overbearing. The only thing that really didn’t work for me was the chicken. It had a weird aftertaste tha

I really liked all the cocktails, all smooth, delicious, yet so spirit forward. Food really lacked in its impact, dishes were not well salted, or balanced, the dips were disappointing. Drinks tried: What we do in the shadows, Cobra Kai, Southern Star, Glitchy Grinch Dishes tried: Crab Rangoon, Goan Choriz and Prawn Mini hot dog, Chicken Presse, Chilli con Pollo Croquettes

Great atmosphere, delicious food! The service is excellent, energy is fun, music is a tad bit too loud (really though, it was not easy to have a conversation without straining). The entrance was a bit hard to spot but it was pretty great from there! I absolutely loved every dish I tried! The dip with the crab rangoon was lip-smackingly good!

Honestly, have been the most excited to go to the number 1 bar of the country. After enjoying my fair share of trying new cocktail bars, I knew I have to be visiting this one. I did, how did it go? Not so well. I have been to most of the best cocktail bars of Bangalore but I didnt expect this one to fall short of everything. The place kinda missed the vibe for me from the beginning, kept telling myself it will get better, it didnt. Okay so we loved the personalised experience of writing names on the bar counter. As we sat and started ordering, we just felt the vibe was missing and the bartenders were rather busy chitchatting among themselves rather than interact which is fine as long as food