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A strikingly elegant bar-restaurant in Cancún’s smartest mall, La Isla, with decor that’s a hybrid of Baroque and Art Nouveau.

Beside Laguna Nichupté, this is one of the most popular Cancún outlets of the Anderson group (see Carlos‘n’Charlie’s, Cozumel). Party atmosphere, often with rock bands, guaranteed.

Looking a bit like a giant Roman temple, Cancún’s Hard Rock is impossible to miss. The rock’n’roll bar formula is familiar worldwide, but this one is a real crowd-puller.

A dark, Boho-ish little bar with a Latin-jazz soundtrack. Roots offers the promise of “food, music, and art”. There’s a clutch of other intimate, buzzing bars on the same street, just off Avenida Tulum.

Isla’s funkiest beach bar. With a palm roof to give shade, it’s right on the sand, just steps away from the sea, and offers Mexican snacks to go with the cocktails and chilled beers.

This mellow place, a few streets from the beach, offers excellent breakfasts and superior coffee and fresh juice combos later in the day.

The hub of Playa nightlife has been declared “one of the world’s best beach bars”. Stake out one of the rope-swing seats by the bar (see Nightspots).

A spectacular chrome-and-glass bar that wouldn’t be out of place in New York or Miami Beach. Luminous house cocktails are the cool specialty.

Ever popular bar-restaurant with a huge outside terrace that’s one of the fixtures on the Quinta Avenida promenade. The style is hippy-Caribbean, helped along by chugging reggae and rock bands.

A mixture of modern chic and Caribbean style – a mellow, coolly comfortable “jazz-bar-restaurant” beneath a giant palapa palm roof above the Quinta.