Hong Kong is, officially, the best place in the world to order a cocktail right now — and the man behind that headline has quietly opened a second bar. Montana is the Cuban-inspired Hong Kong bar that Lorenzo Antinori, founder of the World's Best Bar 2025 Bar Leone, dreamed up with one of Europe's most decorated bartenders. It sits a two-minute stroll from its famous sibling, and it trades the queue-round-the-block hype for something looser: rum, rhythm and a 1970s Miami swagger.
What is Montana?
Montana is a Cuban-inspired cocktail bar on Hollywood Road, in the slice of Central that bleeds into Sheung Wan. It opened in the summer of 2025 and has spent the months since becoming one of the most talked-about rooms in town. The concept is a love letter to the golden age of Havana cocktails — and to the rum-soaked, neon-lit Miami that Cuban migrants helped shape in the 1970s and '80s.
The name itself is a deep cut: Montana is an obscure drink from the repertoire of the Club de Cantineros, the legendary Havana bartenders' guild that codified Cuban cocktail culture in the 1920s and '30s. That tells you everything about the level of nerdery behind the bar. This is serious cocktail history dressed up as a party.
Who is behind Montana?
The pedigree here is about as high as it gets. Montana is a partnership between Lorenzo Antinori and Simone Caporale — two bartenders whose CVs read like a tour of the planet's best bars. Antinori is the founder of Bar Leone in Central, which in October 2025 was crowned the World's Best Bar at The World's 50 Best Bars — the first bar in Asia ever to take the global top spot. Before Leone, he tended bar at London's Savoy and Dandelyan and designed the opening menu for Argo at the Four Seasons Hong Kong.
Caporale is his match. The Italian is the co-founder of Sips in Barcelona, itself named the World's Best Bar in 2023, and co-owner of Boadas, the Catalan city's oldest cocktail bar — a place founded in the 1930s by a Cuba-trained bartender, which neatly closes the loop on Montana's theme. The pair met in London in the early 2010s, when Antinori was a barback admiring Caporale's work; as they told the South China Morning Post, they finally planted the seed for Montana over more than one tequila at a 50 Best event in Madrid.
Antinori has transplanted the laid-back, unpretentious spirit of Bar Leone — and some of its friendly staff — into a sunnier, louder register. If you want the wider lie of the land, our guide to the best bars in Hong Kong maps where Montana and Leone sit among the city's heavy hitters.
What should you drink at Montana?
Start with rum, and start light. The menu is a tight list of nine cocktails that gets progressively stronger the further down you read, with the signatures marked by a star. The natural opener is the Montana Daiquiri — Havana rum, raspberry eau de vie and lime, served in a flower-shaped glass with a maraschino cherry, and built on a recipe from that 1930s Club de Cantineros manual. It's bright, fruity and dangerously easy.
Then climb. The Hotel Nacional layers rum with apricot brandy, lime, sour pineapple and absinthe — tangy and very drinkable, though a third might put you under the table. The Café Havana, a smooth, savoury riff on the espresso martini with Beefeater gin, cold-brew, sherry, salted honey and banana cream, is the one Time Out Hong Kong's reviewers singled out as their favourite. And the El Presidente — a rarely-seen Cuban classic, here "aged" in a bottle coated with dulce de leche — shows off the kitchen-grade obsession in the glass.
On the menu — a taste of the cocktails
| Cocktail | What's in it |
|---|---|
| Montana Daiquiri ★ | Havana rum, raspberry eau de vie, lime |
| Hotel Nacional | Rum, apricot brandy, lime, sour pineapple, absinthe |
| Café Havana | Beefeater gin, cold-brew coffee, sherry, salted honey, banana cream |
| El Presidente | Rum, fig-leaf bourbon, chinotto, quince vermouth, bitters |
A nine-strong list; signatures are starred (★) and grow stronger down the menu. Montana doesn't publish a price list — expect drinks broadly in line with Central's premium cocktail bars (roughly HK$130–170), and confirm on the night.
If this is whetting your appetite for the wider scene, our round-up of the best cocktail bars in Hong Kong and our pick of five new Hong Kong bars worth a visit are the obvious next stops.
What's the food like?
Better than a bar this fun has any right to serve. Perched behind the bar is a rotisserie oven, where the team roasts whole chickens and seasonal pineapples. Ask about the piña of the month: rum-marinated pineapple, slow-roasted with house seasoning and served with a shot of frozen coconut rum. It's the bar snack worth asking for by name.
The rest of the snacks lean Spanish and Cuban. There are chips piled with prosciutto, pickled chillies, mascarpone and Bar Leone's famous smoked olives; a pan con tomate focaccia with Cantabrian anchovies and salsa verde; and properly spicy corn ribs. The deep-cut order is the "Doritos veal tonnato" — a crunchy spin on the Italian classic that's high on the list to try.
The room and the rhythm
Downstairs is where the energy lives: black-and-white tiled floors, dark wood and flashes of ox-blood red, styled less like a polished Havana hotel bar and more like a Miami dive — think Mac's Club Deuce on South Beach. Every time newcomers walk in, the staff holler "Ritmo!" — "rhythm" in Spanish — and the whole room lifts.
Climb the stairs and the mood shifts to a more intimate lounge in shades of dark green and burnt sienna, hung with portraits of musical icons. There's a piano up here, with live music nights part of the plan. The soundtrack throughout is pure throwback joy — Latin funk, salsa and disco, where Gloria Estefan, Celia Cruz, Abba and Selena all get a turn. It is, fundamentally, a bar that wants you to have a good time and not take yourself too seriously.
That spirit runs right across the city's best drinking dens. For more of it, see our guides to Hong Kong's hidden bars and speakeasies and a proper night out in Lan Kwai Fong.
How much does Montana cost, and how do you visit?
Montana doesn't publish its prices, but it sits at the premium end of Central's bar scene — budget roughly HK$130–170 a cocktail and treat that as a guide rather than gospel. There's no cover and no minimum; you can perch at the bar for one drink or settle in for the night.
The most important thing to know: like Bar Leone, Montana is walk-in only. No reservations, first-come-first-served, and it fills fast from Thursday to Saturday. Go early in the evening for a seat, or roll the dice later and enjoy the wait. You'll find it at 108 Hollywood Road (荷李活道108號), Central (中環), at the western, Sheung Wan-leaning end of the strip. The nearest MTR is Sheung Wan, Exit A2, about an 8–10 minute walk up the hill; from Central, ride the Central–Mid-Levels Escalator up to Hollywood Road and walk west. Bar Leone is two minutes away, so a double-header is the move.
Montana — Essential Facts
Frequently Asked Questions
Thirsty for more?
From the World's No.1 to the city's grungiest dives, find your next drink in our guide to the best bars in Hong Kong 2026.