The World's Seven Best Hotel Bars

The bar might not be the first thing you think about when choosing a hotel. After reading this, maybe it will be.

All hotel bars are convenient for guests, to be sure. But to be an attraction in its own right, a hotel bar must have a honed sense of style, offer ambience that is serenely classy at one end of the spectrum or excitingly theatrical at the other, have decent finger food and -- not least -- pour great drinks.

Here are seven splendid hotel bars, culled from three continents, that hit all those marks:

THE BIG 4, Huntington Hotel, San Francisco ...