The Most Secret Hotel Speakeasy Bars in the World

Somewhere in Butcher & Still, the stylish steak house at the Four Seasons Hotel Abu Dhabi at Al Maryah Island, a hidden elevator leads to the Hideaway, a secret room two levels below. Inside, diners sip Prohibition-style cocktails surrounded by cabinets and display cases filled with objects inspired by the era, including lavish fur coats and jewelry. The only way to find the space, which is available solely for buyouts, is with the help of a hotel employee.

The Hideaway is representative of a new generation of speakeasies and similarly covert cocktail corners being created by some of the world’s leading hotels. And, by all accounts, travelers are increasingly looking to discover them. “It used to be about the Instagrammable moments at hotels, but now people want to do what no one else is doing and go to places no one else has,” says Tania Swasbrook, a travel advisor and cofounder of the agency Vgari.

The cover has been blown on some, such as London’s Spy Bar, a subterranean storage room turned classified drinking spot inside the Raffles London at the OWO. Once the sole purview of those in the know, it now turns up on Google—and the hotel’s own website. Then there’s Charles H., which is tucked away in the basement of the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul and made the 2021 World’s 50 Best Bars list.

Yet plenty of hush-hush spots remain hard to find: this kind of detail is the coin of the realm among concierges, butlers, and well-connected travel advisors. “It’s the ones you can’t find online that hark back to the origin of the speakeasy,” Swasbrook says. 

One of them is Minos Sound Room, the whispered-about speakeasy at the recently opened Hotel Volga that hosts the hottest DJs in Mexico City. Another is the secret parlor with seating for two inside the literary-themed Blue Cigar Writer’s Lounge at Raffles Doha, in Qatar. If you know of it at all, chances are you can also pinpoint which bookshelf you push to reveal it.

At Malliouhana, the Anguilla resort, some guests are presented with a puzzle box that opens to reveal a custom-made paper invite to Albert’s, the resort’s original wine cellar, which has been freshly renovated to offer hush-hush tastings. “The invitation is usually spontaneous, which is the most fun thing about it,” says Beth Flowers, an advisor at the agency Brownell Travel.

Some spots are still decidedly hard to find. At Botanic Sanctuary Antwerp, a 13th-century monastic complex that’s now a five-star hotel, dimly lit cellars amplify the cloak-and-dagger nature of the Unprecedented, a rare-whiskey club that has its HQ somewhere on property. “We don’t actively promote it, and there’s no signage,” says Sandrine Versavel, the hotel’s director of sales and marketing. Still, club members will occasionally invite hotels guests for tastings and events, provided they adhere to a strict no-phones, no-photography policy. Consider it proof that some secrets are better when shared.

A version of this story first appeared in the May 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headlines “Spirit of Secrecy.”