This article is part of The Spill Awards 2025, covering the best in spirits, cocktails, bartenders and drinks culture. Find all of the stories here.
Truly excellent bars often come infused with unbridled ego. While that can be exciting at first, the one-dimensionality of the razzle-dazzle wears. At Esencia in Barcelona, you get an intense dedication to quality seasonal ingredients, balanced flavors, flawless craftsmanship, peerless presentation and a glowy setting that draws the interest of drinks enthusiasts, writers and cocktail kingmakers. It’s the kind of gleaming presentation and successful daring-do that land places like Esencia’s elder sibling, Sips Drinkery House, on The World’s 50 Best Bars list after just a few short years in operation.
But unlike many of its brethren, Esencia’s bravado and beauty are blended with kindness, open-hearted creativity and collaboration that feels like something so fresh, contemporary and tasty, that we had to award them Best Bar Concept.
After the Barcelona-based Sips Drinkery House was named the Best Bar in the World by The World’s 50 Best Bars in 2023, founders Marc Álvarez and Simone Caporale could have continued to “just” expand the notion of what a bar should be there. Sips features a central bar anchoring the space. Bartenders execute precise service with a graceful balance between theatricality and intimacy. The menu features a sequence of gastronomic cocktails presented in unique vessels handcrafted by artisans. Sips seemed to immediately quench a thirst for not just cocktails, but culture.
“In 2019, I met Marc and was inspired by his passion for cocktails and the world of liquid experiences,” says Daniela Fernández, a Colombian-born photographer, art director and founder of the artists collective, Dare, who is also one of the many Barcelona-based creatives inspired by Sips. “Our initial connection led to a close working relationship, and eventually I worked with both Marc and Simone as they developed their visionary projects at Sips and later Esencia.”
Last year, the team launched Esencia, which aims to explore a new way to drink that seems to reflect and honor while lightly satirizing our culture’s obsession with customizable, twee, experiential everything. Sips and Esencia share a front door and a bathroom, but the spaces and notions that drive them are largely separate. Esencia has more of a speakeasy vibe and a more contemporary and artful menu.
Imbibers embark on a journey at Esencia with a tasting menu of eight to 12 micro-cocktails. Every night from Tuesday through Saturday, a small cohort (about 16 at a time) can gather for the experience. The drinks are abstract in name and concept, but feel human and highly specific in execution. The Tokyo, for example, is comprised of nigori sake, white Port and grapefruit with a bite of white melon, miso and azuki; it’s juicy, fresh, tart and savory.
The flavors and presentations throughout the experience involve a range of esoteric ingredients and textures that evoke climates, places, feelings and sensations. It’s all very serious. But in the end, as tasty and intellectually compelling as the drinks may be, if guests aren’t having a blast, even the most rarefied outpost will wither. Stories, after all, are frequently born in bars, generally after a few too many, but in rare cases like Esencia, in the glass themselves.
Fernández’s enviable role at Sips and Esencia is to act as a sort of visual translator of the sippable stories Álvarez and Caporale are telling in the glass.
“My role as a curator and photographer there is about more than just capturing images,” Fernández says. “It’s about understanding the essence of the experience, creating strategies with Marc and Simone, and shaping how these stories are told through social media and visual narratives.”
The experience of working with the pair has magnified the sense that anyone who visits either of the Barcelona bars leaves with: Cocktails are about so much more than alcohol.
“Cocktails here aren’t just objects,” Fernández says. “They’re stories. Esencia is creating new and thoughtful experiences, presented in a way that resonates with people. It is elevating the narrative of what a bar can be, showcasing the complexities behind cocktail creation, from the importance of glassware and design to the meticulous research that goes into every ingredient and technique.”
Fernández’s work has escaped the realm of the camera and includes collaborations with other creators, from uniform designer Bastida to artist Albert Colbero, who has created their logos and their first t-shirt collection.
Álvarez and Caporale, meanwhile, are set to unveil a new drinks menu. Just another reason to make a beeline for Barcelona. Race you there.
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