Sidecar

Delhi's Cocktail Scene and Where Sidecar Sits In It

India's serious cocktail culture is younger than many drinkers assume. For most of the 2000s and into the early 2010s, the country's bar scene was defined by large hotel lobbies, imported spirits served with minimal ceremony, and a handful of stand-alone bars that prioritised volume over craft. The shift toward technically rigorous, ingredient-focused cocktail programs happened gradually — and nowhere more visibly than in Delhi. By the late 2010s, a small cohort of bars had begun competing on the same terms as programmes in Singapore, Tokyo, and London: ferments, fat-washes, clarified spirits, hyper-local botanicals. Sidecar, operating out of a market address in Greater Kailash II, is the bar that most clearly announced that Delhi had arrived in that conversation.

Its award record makes the case without much need for interpretation. Sidecar first appeared on Asia's 50 Best Bars list in 2020 at #40. It climbed to #16 in 2021, then #14 in 2022. In 2023 it reached #18 in Asia and entered the global World's 50 Best Bars list at #67 — a significant marker, since the global list draws from every programme in the world, and Indian bars have historically found it difficult to break through. By 2025 it sits at #62 in Asia and #167 in the global Top 500. The trajectory over five years tells a more useful story than any single ranking: consistent presence, a peak, and a recalibration that still keeps it well inside the tier of bars that serious travellers plan trips around.

Greater Kailash II: The Neighbourhood Context

The M Block Market in Greater Kailash II is not where you would expect to find a bar competing with the drinking rooms of Hong Kong and Singapore. GK2's market strip is a middle-class South Delhi institution: pharmacies, tailors, a McDonald's, the HDFC Bank branch that serves as a landmark for first-time visitors looking for Sidecar's address. The bar sits just to the right of that branch. Nothing about the street signals what is happening inside.

That contrast is part of what makes the Delhi cocktail scene interesting to track. Unlike Mumbai, where premium bars tend to cluster in hotel properties or high-rise addresses with views designed to justify the prices , see AER Bar and Lounge in Mumbai for a representative example of that format , Delhi's most respected programmes have often built their reputations in neighbourhood settings without the support of a hotel infrastructure. The address in GK2 means Sidecar operates on its drinks alone. There is no lobby to walk through, no room-rate guest to fill seats. The audience is there specifically for the bar.

For visitors staying elsewhere in the city, South Delhi's bar circuit is worth treating as a destination in its own right. Our full New Delhi bars guide maps the broader scene, including other GK-adjacent and Hauz Khas options worth building an evening around. Delhi's dining context is equally worth planning in advance: our full New Delhi restaurants guide covers the pre- and post-drink options across the city.

The Cultural Logic of the Indian Cocktail Bar

Understanding what a bar like Sidecar represents requires some grounding in what India's drinking culture has had to work against and with. The country's colonial-era relationship with spirits , particularly gin and whisky , left a complicated inheritance. On one side, a deeply embedded Scotch whisky culture among certain social classes; on the other, a regulatory environment that for decades made importing bottles and opening serious bars significantly harder than in comparable Asian markets. Cocktail culture in India has always been filtered through those constraints, and the bars that broke through did so partly by building around local ingredients , Indian gins, regional citrus, indigenous spice profiles , rather than trying to replicate a London or New York template.

That ingredient logic gives the better Delhi bars a cultural specificity that extends beyond nationalism. It is not about Indian cocktails as a statement; it is about Indian ingredients as a genuine resource. The subcontinent's botanical range , the cardamom of Kerala, the saffron of Kashmir, the tamarind and kokum of the coasts , gives technically minded bartenders material that their counterparts in Tokyo or Copenhagen would have to import at considerable cost. Bars operating at the level Sidecar occupies are not merely making cocktails that happen to be made in India. They are making cocktails that could only be made here, and that specificity is what the Asia's 50 Best judges have consistently rewarded.

For another data point on how this plays out in different Indian contexts, Bar Outrigger in Goa offers a useful comparison: the coastal ingredient palette and more relaxed social setting produce a different register of the same underlying phenomenon.

Sidecar Within Delhi's Peer Set

Delhi now has a cluster of bars operating in the same technical tier, and placing Sidecar among them is useful for anyone planning a serious drinking itinerary. Home, Lair, Hoots', and Aqua each represent distinct positions within the city's premium bar circuit, ranging from hotel-based formats to neighbourhood programmes. Sidecar's GK2 location puts it outside the central hotel corridor and gives it a different social texture from a rooftop or lobby bar.

The Google rating of 4.7 across 2,859 reviews is a useful corroborating signal here. Award-list placements reflect a judges' consensus formed at specific points in time; a large review base accumulated over years reflects a consistent experience across a much wider range of visitors. Both point the same direction. For a reference point on what that combination of critical recognition and broad approval looks like in a comparable Pacific context, Bar Leather Apron in Honolulu holds a similar dual status among serious bar travellers.

Planning a Visit

Sidecar is located at M29 in the M Block Market of Greater Kailash II, immediately to the right of the HDFC Bank branch on the block. The neighbourhood is well-served by Delhi Metro (the nearest stations on the Pink Line bring you into South Delhi within manageable distance), and auto-rickshaws and app-based cabs cover the last mile without difficulty. GK2's market strip is most active in the evening hours, and the area has enough restaurants within a short walk to make a full South Delhi evening practical without doubling back to central Delhi.

Given Sidecar's sustained award presence and a Google review count approaching 3,000, walk-in availability on weekend evenings is not guaranteed. For anyone with a specific date in mind, checking current booking arrangements before arrival is advisable. Weeknight visits are generally more accessible. The bar draws both a regular neighbourhood crowd from South Delhi's professional class and visiting drinkers arriving specifically because of the World's 50 Best listings , those two audiences coexist at most hours, but the balance shifts depending on the night.

For anyone building a broader Delhi itinerary around food, drink, and culture, the full EP Club guides are the most efficient place to start: hotels, wineries, and experiences all have dedicated pages covering the full range from entry-level to premium.