Best Bars in Klang Valley

A kind-of-always-updated list of what the Foodgae squad deems to be the best bars in town: KL, PJ, the whole Klang Valley shebang. Listed in order of personal preference. Hashtags for what we go there for.

Last update: 18 Sep 2022 (no photos yet, for the most part!)

Must-go:

1. Gekko: #cocktails Exeunt Bar Shake, enter Gekko. That dastardly bartender has moved to a nice new nook, with more convenient dining options all around – although we miss the gorgeous bar counter at Bar Shake. Anyway, they have bar bites here. The smoked stuff are a must-try, especially the stunning smoked cream cheese. And, oh yeah, drinks. All the cocktails are top-tier stuff. Sublime, legendary, mangosteen saketini (more mangosteen-y than mangosteen), the clear Bloody Mary, experimental stuff like bak-kut-teh-whisky…we could go on and on. Passionfruit with Tumugi? Mango or pear with rum? Banana bourbon? Spicy screwdriver? Everything slaps. And like we said before, once you down the route of proper fresh fruit cocktails, it’s hard to turn back. Places like Gekko and Bar Ishinohana in Tokyo just do it so, so well.
2. Ver
3. 61 Monarchy: #whisky So I’ve had cocktails here before. I’ve had the Douglas Laing whisky highballs (great value) too. But really, your best bet is to ignore all that and come for the whisk(e)y alone. Dizzying selection available, highly informative and friendly staff, and one of the best atmospheres IMO. Much prefer Monarchy to Whisky Bar. Oh, and yeah, a good range of flights too (although as of July 2020, it seems that may be temporarily off the menu?)! What a place.
4. Jann: #cocktails Painfully underrated. Love almost all their cocktails here. Killer happy hour prices (RM 40 for 2 cocktails from the happy hour menu) and generally solid drinks
5. Reka bar: #cocktails The shiny new place everyone’s screaming about. Love the concept of the menu and love a couple of the drinks. Good gems peppered here and there throughout. Highlights include the dusun (tuak and tempoyak further fermented with tequila), Drink Your Toast (lovely warm cocktail, comforting and creamy, and reminiscent of a certain drink at Jann), and the stunning Cloud and Clear (one of the standout drinks). Expecting great things from this place.
6. Canvass: #cocktails Not a bar, not really. Unless you sit at the bar counter and don’t eat, I guess? Great drinks though, with a great focus on sustainability and zero-waste. Fair warning, the drinks aren’t ALWAYS great, since they vary a lot from each visit (understand their concept and how they operate, and this makes sense). But when they hit their peak, boy almighty are these special.
7. Stretch: #cocktails Yet again, not a bar. Great food, great pizzas, great cocktails though.
8. Monster & Beer: #beer Catapulting its way up the list and into my heart comes Monster & Beer – a bright beer bar with lots of quirky, great artwork everywhere. When’s the merch coming? This stuff is great. As is the food – courtesy of the Shokudo peeps, with almost every item on the M&B menu a real hit (18 Sep 22 update: the menu has undergone some changes, as has the kitchen staff (presumably), the food really isn’t as good anymore). Genuinely surprised by the food the first time I visited and have been consistently satiated ever since (except for one visit where the quality dipped a bit). Beer-wise, they usually have a decent selection too. Distribution license for Kaiju etc. Great, great happy hour prices!
9. Hyde: #cocktails I mean I enjoy the fact that by default, their cocktails aren’t sickly sweet. But they do also put some thought into the drinks. One of the better bars around.
10. Ales & Lagers: #beer Let’s face it, if the old Great Beer Bar was still around (great lamb bowls, great stuffed curry in chicken wings, best intestines in town, good yakitori, great craft beer, great people), it would be number one on the list. But GBB has moved on, and so have we. And as it turns out, we’ve moved back to Ales & Lagers, which stocks lots of craft beers, usually has 3 options on tap (typically 2 from Modern Madness!) is super comfortable, has great air-conditioning, a nice communal table and breakaway seats, and is tucked away into a print shop in Publika. You could get dinner at Senya beforehand, it’s right underneath. Or you can get the Texas BBQ place to send food over. Ales & Lagers is the sort of casual craft beer bar we wish were everywhere in the city.
11. Gavel: #beer Now that they have craft beer on tap (typically 3 on rotation, with stuff from Rogue and Beerfarm) to supplement their fridge of craft beers (a growing selection, at that) and wine selection, I think it’s worth adding Gavel to the list. The food has always been very good (and painfully underrated). Now the drinks are too. And RM 28-30 or so for craft beer on tap is pretty decent, especially when you’re looking at the higher ABV pulls. One of my favorite spots in the city.
12. Happy Stan: #cocktails Karl’s here now. Personally never been a fan of coffee cocktails, so I avoid that and get the others. Can always ask him to whip up something special too. Generally solid.
13. Botak Liquor Bar: #cocktails Up and down stuff. Great the first 3 visits, disappointing in August 2019 (horrendous, horrifically spicy chili chocolate cocktail and a very sweet starfruit curry drink), promising in early 2020 (slightly too sweet still), and mixed in 2021 (very impressive during a few visits, not-so for other visits for diff drinks)
14. Rakh
15. Small Shifting Space: #wine would be higher up if they had more wines by the glass. But oof what a gorgeous small space. Love the wine bar concept, with rotating food programmes.
16. School of Animals: #beer Same team, same vibe as Monster and Beer, but in a smaller place, transplanted to KL. Food isn’t anywhere as good, and selection very slightly more limited.
17. The Chow Kit: [24 Nov ’21 update: the new cocktails by Bar Mizukami are very disappointing, may potentially drop further after another revisit to test] Surprise, surprise. Had a bunch of cocktails on 2 separate visits, and enjoyed all of them. Go and try! Good food too.

Can-go:

1. Trigona : You know what, it’s not too bad. Some good drinks, some mediocre drinks. Food is very extravagantly priced. The bar area looks stunning. The views from the windows are pretty sweet too. Great vibes push this bar up the list. Also they won KL Best Bar 2019 – I mean, yeah, pointless insider circlejerk award but still!
2. Three x Co : Need to revisit to rejig the memory but vaguely recall drinks being pretty decent. Also, whisk(e)y by the shot was very decently priced, which shoots it up the list. Nice place, tucked away inside BSC. Relatively spacious compared to some other bars, and has a nice atmosphere.
3. Skullduggery : Some cocktails here were actually pretty good. Might be worth giving them a heads up on your preferred sweetness level though, like most places. And it’s quite nice inside, though it gets very packed. Due for a revisit to assess more of the menu.
4. Frank’s: tried a couple of drinks. Probably need a revisit to reassess, but nothing too impressive.
5. Whisky Bar : Dislike the atmosphere and the steep, steep prices, but the whisky selection is admittedly great. If money is not a concern, this would likely be higher up in your personal list. Also, you can have dinner at Malaysia’s best yakitori spot before walking down the hill to Whisky Bar.
6. Coley : The new place sure is pretty, but the bar seats are annoyingly high, and it tends to get annoyingly crowded. The cocktails are very one-note too. Most are fun on the first try, but you’d rarely come across any that you’d want to repeatedly order. Although they do have some great guest bartenders over sometimes! Like Old Man HK.
7. Taps Beer Bar : Good craft beer selection that’ll destroy your wallet. Doesn’t quite have the same feel as GBB of old, or even the current Ales & Lagers. Not sure what it is, but the whole atmosphere of the place isn’t great. And might be best to avoid the food, pretty bad. Good bands though!
8. Soma : essentially placing this bar based solely on one drink – the peanut butter drink, because it was the only one we had from the actual menu. We also had the 3 omakase drinks for RM 100 which all ended up pretty mediocre/bad. We do need to revisit to assess the other drinks. But the peanut butter was nice!
9. Nomi Tomo : Go if you’re into sake. Great vibes.
10. 13th Suzuki Shoten : Lovely sake bar inside Publika. Not to be confused with the 13th Suzuki Hanten, which is in Lorong Yap Kwan Seng, is run by the same owner, and serves Szechuan food by a Japanese chef. This sake bar does some good tidbits too, I’m told. Lovely setting inside too.
11. PS 150 : You used to be alright, what happened? We visited before they officially had the front entrance and raved about the place. Quality gradually, then rapidly, slid downhill, especially after Angel pretty much stopped directly bartending there. Tried the place again on 17 August. Lychee no. 3 is nowhere what it used to be. Aggressively sickly sweet. Also, the music is largely trash now (remember the good old times when people would ask for the playlist links?), and played at annoyingly loud volumes. It’s always packed though, especially with travelers and expats, so we suppose they’re doing well.

If you’ve nowhere else to go:

1. Rentak Bar: Dope vibes. Hidden away on top of Cafe ETC. Great when there’s a guest DJ in the house, especially if they play jazz or retro Jap-pop. The drinks are still being tweaked at the moment – 1 or 2 were too sweet. Feel of the place helps make up for it, somewhat.
2. Bar Moku: #cocktails Sharp improvement on the second visit. Well worth a visit. (18 Sep ’22 update: has since plummeted drastically)
3. Pahit : Not a huge gin fan, so maybe that was why I wasn’t overly impressed by the cocktails at Pahit. Having said that, they had a pop-up at Tiffin Food Court and the cocomelon (gin, honeydew, evaporated milk, sago inside a coconut) was delicious.
4. Powerplant : Yes, really. They have somewhat decent pours of Guinness, depending on the outlet. Plus satisfying fried chicken. Nothing mindblowing, but it’s better than Kyochon in our estimation
5. Uncle Don : Never thought much of the food. But hey, relatively affordable Guinness
6. Locker & Loft : cheap whisky by the shot, which is good. Cocktails bit better than Pawn Room
7. Red Chamber : Some drinks are actually pretty interesting, but most are too syrupy sweet.
8. Sebastian’s Gastro Bar : [24 Nov ’21: RIP old Sebastians. No more Guinness. Times have changed a lot] Forgive the odd choice and the nostalgia-lenses, but I’ve such good memories of Sebastian’s. The food was great. The alcohol – do they even have cocktails? Doubtful. And even if they do, it’s anyone’s guess how good they are. Just get a Guinness there. We had good pours of Guinness. Just Guinness and great food, and you’re likely to have a better experience than drinking concentrated sugar water in most cocktail bars in the city. Dingy neighborhood-bar feel, by the way.
9. Pawn Room : Meh cocktails across the board, but whisky selection a bit better (and more expensive) than Locker & Loft
10. Attic Bar : Only saving grace is the drinks are pretty cheap
11. Berlin : There is purportedly alcohol in the cocktails, so that’s one thing going for them. But the place doesn’t look too awful, I guess
12. Mantra Bar : just wanted to point out that everything was bad when I tried it but I only tried it once. On the list because the place is relatively nice
13. Bar Atas : it’s popular
14. Kenshin: it’s hidden

On Foodgae’s To-Try List:

• Coppersmith
• Junglebird
• Rum Bar
• Folio
• Cabinet

RIP:

Omakase + Appreciate : Farewell to the OG hidden bar, highly underappreciated, with some of the best drinks around. Amazingly talented and inventive bartenders – the standard routine here was to give them some tasting notes / flavors, and leave with a challenged, expanded, and often pleasured palate. There were at the forefront of the Malaysian cocktail scene IMO and it’s painful to see them go. Karl is at Happy Stan though, so visit him there. I’ll leave this entry here for memories.