Hotel Bars Of The Week

Your favourite tipple, the perfect ambience. Andy Lynes takes you on the world's most stylish pub crawl

Hotel bars have always been places of romance, chance meetings and very late nights soon regretted. But it's only recently that they have been transformed from a facility for guests to fashionable destinations in their own right. From London to Kowloon, we offer you the world's most stylish hotel bar crawl.

Recently refurbished as part of an AU$37m (£15.8m) overhaul of the hotel, the ever-so-sleek Blu Horizon Bar, Shangri-La, 176 Cumberland Street, The Rocks, Sydney (00 61 2 9250 6000, shangri-la.com) offers a front-row view of the harbour.

An opulent overhaul and trendy cocktails, such as a watermelon martini, have brought Fifty Seven Fifty Seven at The Four Seasons, 57 East 57th Street, New York (001 212 758 5700, fourseasons.com) bang up to date.

Enjoy a moody moment with a glass of whiskey à la Bill Murray at The Peak Lounge, Park Hyatt, 3-7-1-2 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-Ku, Tokyo (00 81 3 5322 1234, tokyo.park .hyatt.com) as featured in the film Lost In Translation.

The Bar at the jewellery and perfume-house owned Bulgari Hotel, Via Privata Fratelli Gabba 7/b, Milan (00 39 02 805 8051, bulgarihotels.com) is as fabulous as you would hope. Sip Tuscan wine and luxuriate in all that black marble.

Try vodka and crushed raspberries at the Hotel Plaza Athénée, 25 avenue Montaigne, 75008 Paris (00 33 1 53 67 66 67, plaza-athenee-paris.com), seen in the modish Sex and the City.

Hotel bars don't come with style pedigrees better than the David Collins-designed bar at Claridge's, Brook Street, London W1 (020-7629 8860; claridges.co.uk), all mirrors, leather and velvet.

While the Philippe Starck designed Felix Bar on the 28th floor of The Peninsula, Salisbury Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong (852 2920 2888, peninsula.com) offers amazing views of the harbour and city skyline.