Ranked shortlist · 10 of 24 bars
Best bars in Kampala
The 10 most notable bars in Kampala, in rank order. The order is curation quality — how well attested and how complete each record is — not popularity, and no place on this list paid to be on it.
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1
The Alchemist Kitchen and Bar
31A Bandali Rise
listed by Meta and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.99 · rank score 2.518, percentile 100 of 24
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2
Bamboo Nest
Plot 61 Bandali Rise
listed by Meta and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.99 · rank score 2.455, percentile 95.65 of 24
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3
Nomad Bar and grill
Ggaba Road
listed by Meta and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.98 · rank score 2.425, percentile 91.3 of 24
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4
throneskampala
plot 34Bandali rise BUGOLOBI
listed by Meta and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.97 · rank score 2.342, percentile 86.96 of 24
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5
Zone7
Bugolobi
listed by Meta and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.95 · rank score 2.192, percentile 82.61 of 24
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6
Harkiss Wines and Spirits Collection
Akright City, Golf Course Road
listed by Meta and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.94 · rank score 2.174, percentile 78.26 of 24
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7
Terranga Restaurant, Bar & Gift shop
Bandali Rise
listed by Meta and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.93 · rank score 2.072, percentile 73.91 of 24
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8
Machame
Machame Street
listed by Meta and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.93 · rank score 2.047, percentile 69.57 of 24
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9
Kampala Rugby Grounds
Behind Forest Mall
listed by Meta and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.92 · rank score 1.981, percentile 65.22 of 24
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10
Isabella Lounge, Restaurant, Bar & Spa
ntinda kigoowa rd
listed by Meta and Overture Maps Foundation · record has a website, a phone and an address · Overture confidence 0.91 · rank score 1.949, percentile 60.87 of 24
How this list is made
Every place in this group was scored by the same model, with each term z-normalised inside the group and capped, so a famous chain cannot win by being famous everywhere. The weights, verbatim:
- attestation by independent providers
- +0.35
- record completeness (website, phone, address)
- +0.25
- Overture existence confidence
- +0.20
- Michelin designation (Wikidata, CC0)
- +0.40
- brand fame (Wikidata sitelinks)
- −0.15
- same-name chain collision
- −0.30
Curation quality, not popularity: how well attested and how complete a record is.
No licensable popularity signal; this ranks curation quality, not taste
Independent check: 5,951 places listed in Wikivoyage (CC BY-SA 4.0; validation only, never published or scored) were matched to our records by name within 250 m. Across the 5,651 that fall in groups of at least 10, the median matched place sits at percentile 73 and 24.2% are in the top decile, against 10% by chance; five families have enough anchors to report (arts, food and drink, lodging, shopping, sport), while health care (5), lifestyle services (17), travel (26) have too few and are not validated. A match needs both the guide and the catalogue to name the same place, which favours well-attested places — a term this rank itself rewards — so these are lower bounds; Michelin's 528 in-group anchors have a median percentile of 100, but that is partly circular: across the Wikivoyage matches, the 17 that also carry the designation term this rank scores sit at 99.93, against 72.55 for the 5,934 without it.
The catalogue carries no rating, review count, price or opening hours, so this file has none.
Nobody paid for placement: no ads, no sponsored results, no ratings for sale.
Data: AllThePlaces (CC0-1.0), BrightQuery (CDLA-Permissive-2.0), DAC (CDLA-Permissive-2.0), Foursquare Open Source Places (Apache-2.0), Meta (CDLA-Permissive-2.0), Microsoft (CDLA-Permissive-2.0), Overture Maps Foundation (CDLA-Permissive-2.0), PinMeTo (CDLA-Permissive-2.0), RenderSEO (CDLA-Permissive-2.0).