The Old Man

Aberdeen Street and the Shape of Hong Kong's Cocktail Scene

Aberdeen Street rises from Central's financial grid into Soho's denser, narrower territory, where the buildings press closer and the evening crowd moves on foot between bars, restaurants, and late-night staircases. The lower stretch, around the mid-point of the street, has accumulated a concentration of serious drinking over the past decade, part of a broader shift in which Hong Kong's cocktail culture moved away from hotel lobbies and toward independently operated rooms with defined programs. Bar Leone and Argo are among the bars that now populate that independent tier, and The Old Man at the lower ground floor of 37-39 Aberdeen Street is the address that did the most to establish it.

The bar's trajectory through the World's 50 Best rankings tells a clear story about where Hong Kong sits in the global cocktail conversation. A number-five position in Asia's 50 Best in 2018 became number one in Asia by 2019, a year when it also held tenth place globally. By 2020 it had moved to fifteenth globally. Rankings shift, and the bar's position has settled into a different band since then, sitting at 71 in Asia's 50 Best by 2024 and 313 in the Top 500 Bars list in 2025. What that arc reflects is not decline but the rapid expansion of ranked competition across the region, with new bars from Singapore, Tokyo, Bangkok, and Seoul entering lists that were far less contested in 2018.

A Literary Frame Around Technical Work

The bar's name and conceptual frame reference Ernest Hemingway, a decision that places it in a tradition of bars that use literary identity as a structuring device rather than pure decoration. Hemingway's relationship with drinking was documented and deliberate, and his name still carries enough cultural weight to function as a shorthand for a particular kind of earnest, unfussy drinking culture. Whether that frame translates fully into the physical experience at Aberdeen Street is something each visitor decides for themselves, but it has given the program a coherent editorial identity that distinguishes it from bars that rely on ingredient provenance or local heritage alone.

Hong Kong's bar scene has historically split between two formats: the grand hotel bar, where Caprice Bar and OZONE at The Ritz-Carlton operate in a register defined by scale, view, and service formality, and the independent room, smaller in footprint and more focused in its program. The Old Man belongs to the second category. Its ground-floor positioning on Aberdeen Street means you arrive without a lift or a lobby, which is precisely the point: the bar presents itself as a place for drinking rather than a destination for occasion-performance.

What the Rankings Actually Mean for a Visitor

A bar that held the number-nine position globally in 2019 and number one in Asia the same year carries a specific kind of credential. The World's 50 Best methodology draws on votes from drinks professionals, which means the recognition reflects peer assessment rather than critic reviews or customer ratings. For a visitor, that distinction matters: the bar is not highly ranked because it is approachable or photogenic, but because people working at the level of serious cocktail programs across the world considered it worth placing above most of their competitors.

The practical implication is that the program operates at a level where technique is assumed and execution is the differentiator. The wider context for that level of technical ambition in Hong Kong includes bars like 8½ Otto e Mezzo Bombana, which operates inside a different format but within the same expectation of precision. Globally, bars that have occupied similar ranking positions, including Kumiko in Chicago, Jewel of the South in New Orleans, and Bar Leather Apron in Honolulu, share a common commitment to considered menus and service that treats the guest as someone with a genuine interest in what they are drinking.

The Soho Setting as Context

Soho in Central occupies a specific position in Hong Kong's drinking geography. It is not the city's most glamorous drinking address, which arguably sits higher up the hill or in Tsim Sha Tsui across the harbour. It is, instead, the part of the city where people go when they want a particular bar rather than a particular atmosphere. The density of the area means that an evening in Soho often involves more than one address, and The Old Man sits well as either an opening or a closing stop, depending on the pace of the night.

Other cities with comparably dense independent bar cultures, such as New York with Superbueno or Houston with Julep, tend to cluster their leading rooms in specific neighbourhoods, and Soho performs that function for Hong Kong. Frankfurt's independent bar scene, where The Parlour operates, follows a similar logic: quality concentrates in a walkable area where word of mouth and repeat visits sustain the program. Aberdeen Street benefits from exactly that kind of neighbourhood logic.