If there was one year that felt like Jakarta finally spoke with clarity, it was 2025 — a year that kept bartenders awake past closing, a year where we all felt something shift.

Jakarta didn’t just appear on Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2025 — it arrived with intent.

For the first time, four Jakarta bars entered the Top 50, all as debutants, marking the city’s strongest showing to date and signalling a new level of regional relevance.

Leading the charge was Modernhaus, which debuted at No. 12, earning both Best Bar in Indonesia and the Three Cents Best New Opening Award. Defined by precision and architectural restraint, Modernhaus has quickly become shorthand for Jakarta’s modern cocktail identity.

Just behind it, The St. Regis Bar Jakarta entered at No. 22, representing the city’s refined hotel-bar lineage — a space where classic rituals, live jazz, and contemporary storytelling coexist. Carrots Bar followed at No. 34, its intimate 14-seat basement in SCBD proving that scale has little to do with ambition. Rounding out the list was Cosmo Pony at No. 38, a collaborative lounge whose mid-century warmth and community-first ethos has made it one of the city’s most magnetic rooms.

Together, these four bars reflect a scene that is no longer monolithic — one where hotel bars, independents, experimental spaces, and community hubs all speak different dialects of the same language.

Cosmo Pony and the Language of “Power”

In 2025, Cosmo Pony doubled down on identity with the launch of its Cocktail Power menu — a concept that reframes drinks not by base spirit or flavour profile, but by the energy they carry.

Each cocktail is positioned as a social force: a connector, a mood-setter, a conversation starter. On paper, it reads like a menu — but when you’re in the room, it feels more like a manifesto, shaped by Jakarta’s rhythm and the people who walk through its door.

Drinks such as Smoked Coconut Highball, Matcha Colada, and Soy Cubano blur boundaries between cultures and textures, mirroring the city’s layered personality. The launch unfolded organically through DJ nights, collaborations, and gatherings, reinforcing Cosmo Pony’s belief that cocktails are meant to live among people, not just on menus.

In a year defined by accolades, Cocktail Power felt like a quiet assertion that recognition is meaningful, but narrative is what lasts.

Celebrating the Moment: Modernhaus and The St. Regis Bar Jakarta

Recognition didn’t pass quietly — it became a reason for the city to gather.

To mark its No. 12 ranking, Modernhaus hosted a day-long celebration that felt distinctly on-brand. The afternoon was reserved for friends and media — a private gathering framed as gratitude rather than spectacle. When night fell, the doors opened to the public, and every signature cocktail was priced at IDR 12,000, for one night only. It was a simple, generous gesture: a bar sharing its moment with the community that helped build it.

Meanwhile, The St. Regis Bar Jakarta, celebrating its No. 22 placement, introduced “A Toast to 22” — an elegant, multi-night celebration rooted in ritual and refinement. The programme blended commemorative cocktails, live jazz, and curated guest experiences, reinforcing the bar’s position as both custodian of tradition and active participant in Asia’s evolving cocktail dialogue.

Different philosophies, shared values: gratitude, generosity, and inclusion.

Guest Shifts as Cultural Exchange

If awards marked recognition, guest shifts defined momentum — and became a constant through the year.

At Modernhaus, regional exchange took centre stage on 22 October 2025, when Jon Lee of Penrose joined forces with Brandon Tan. Lee reimagined Modernhaus ingredients into five entirely new cocktails, translating Malaysian creativity through Jakarta’s lens. The night felt less like a takeover and more like a dialogue — two cities, one bar, shared language.

At Carrots, the Better in Pairs series peaked on 23 August 2025 with Taln & Aum of Bar Us. The 14-seat space filled beyond capacity, cocktails vanished in record time, and guests lingered late into the night. Playful yet precise, the evening embodied Carrots’ belief that hospitality is built through intimacy, humour, and shared experience.

Meanwhile, The St. Regis Bar Jakarta continued its Raising The Bar series on 13 November 2025, welcoming Marco Dongi of Bar Sathorn. Beneath Lasvit chandeliers and live jazz, Dongi’s Thai-inflected, narrative-driven cocktails unfolded as conversations rather than performances — reinforcing Jakarta’s role as host, not observer, in Asia’s cocktail ecosystem.

New Openings, New Directions

Beyond accolades and guest shifts, 2025 also belonged to new rooms and fresh ideas.

Truce Bar introduced a “slow bar” philosophy to SCBD — restrained, spirit-forward, and contemplative. Dualism challenged guests to taste contrasts, presenting ingredients in paired expressions that explored tension and balance. Pulque Agave Social House expanded Jakarta’s spirits vocabulary with a vibrant focus on tequila and mezcal.

Unfinished Prjct. blurred the line between guest and creator, inviting participation into the cocktail process. And Abstrct Bar Jakarta, under World Class Global Bartender Aris Sanjaya, leaned fully into narrative mixology — cocktails as stories, not formulas.

Each opening added a new accent to the city’s voice.

A City in Conversation

2025 ultimately reads as the year Jakarta grew into its own voice — steady, confident, and widely acknowledged.

Awards brought visibility, but the culture that followed defined the movement: bars welcomed guest shifts, menus evolved, and collaborations became routine rather than exception.

Many of us watched these moments unfold across counters and barstools — listening to stories from visiting bartenders, trading notes about new menus, and seeing familiar faces return week after week.

What stood out wasn’t just the number of recognitions, but how Jakarta continued to open doors and shape its identity through community and presence.

In quiet moments after service, a bartender summed it up somewhere between the last pour and the lights coming up: “The best bars don’t chase moments — they create places where moments keep happening.”

If 2025 taught anything, it’s that Jakarta isn’t waiting for permission anymore — it’s building a culture worth paying attention to.