Bars & Nightlife

From the mainstream to the maverick, we present some of our solutions for your big weekend out… has helped create a friendly but rowdy community of drinkers that hail from Poland’s eastern borders. Craft beers are present, but so too are more standard lager. That said, as the night draws in, don’t be surprised to find yourself swapping them for shots whilst all hell breaks loose.

BEIRUT & KRAKEN

Poznańska 12

Somewhere, amid all the junk relating to the Lebanese conflict (grenades, sandbags, ammo boxes, a rocket…), you’ll find the spirit of Poznańska contained within this long, skinny bar. As fashionable now as it was when it opened, forget not to finish the evening in their connecting venture, the Pirates of the Caribbean-style Kraken Rum Bar. Everybody else does at some stage or other, with evenings often dissolving into a wild, happy whirl of international voices.

CHMURY / HYDROZAGADKA

11 Listopada 22

Pardon To Tu

Al. Armii Ludowej 14

Despite the upgrade in surrounds, they’ve retained the leftfield spirit of their old haunt thanks to flexi hours, a commitment to obscure sounds, and a wellspaced interior that references their former venue through its decadent color scheme and wall of favored musicians. The air of friendly, unforced cool is unmatched in the city!

Bar Pacyfik

Hoża 61

Seemingly based upon the kind of Tijuana dive bar you’d have happened upon during the Miami Vice era, Pacyfik is all candy floss pink and shades of teal: a raw-looking den that looks purposefully imperfect. Keeping the hip international crowd on the wrong side of drunk are kick-ass drinks such as their Clamado Michelada or Kimchi Bloody Mary – three sips and you think you’re Superman.

Beer Station Centrum

Lwowska 17

When temperatures nosedive, who doesn’t love a subterranean dive buried down a narrow set of stairs. Looking almost cave-like, there’s a spirit here that puts you instantly at ease. Run by a team of Belarussian exiles (Lukashenko Out!), the welcome from the owners is warm and sincere, and their presence

Set in a fleapit courtyard, it’s hard to tell where one begins and the other ends, but both are spiritually cojoined by a devotion to eclectic live music. Tight and crowded, it’s a place where audience and band become one, feeding off each other to generate an electrifying atmosphere.

Foton

Wilcza 9A

You know it’s been an epic weekend when you wake up on Monday knowing that Foton was involved. Conversation with strangers is natural after a few of Foton’s cocktails, and these are enjoyed to a cool backdrop made up of fleet of tumbling plants perched on steelframed irrigational contraptions.

Havana

Słowackiego 16/18

Set on the first floor of a PRL era tower, the super cool interior offers up a coherent display of retro posters, luscious plants and light wood trimmings that are respectful of this space’s former life as a 1960s cafe. Perched among hip freelancers and theater types learning their lines, sip away on trendy bio wines, adventurous lemonades, craft swigs or specialty coffee sourced from local roasters.

Klubokawiarnia Towarzyska

Zwycięzców 49

An offbeat locale inside a recharged 1950s pavilion, find Towarzyska crowned with a tilting neon sign. Offering a fridge full of craft beer, competent cocktails, homemade lemonades and other alternative-minded drinks, it’s the best late night in Saka Kępa – true, it’s just about the only one, but that’s beside the point.

Legends

Emilii Plater 25

Run by Graham, an ex-embassy bod and devout Everton fan (well, someone has to be), this Brit pub has become the de facto choice when the football is on. Or the rugby. Or the cricket. Or just about any other sport that expats care to watch. Whether it’s the Champions League or Bristol City on a wet, Tuesday night, there’s just no better space for boozy banter while the match unfolds.

NINE’S

Haberbuscha i Schielego 6 (Browary Warszawskie)

Owned by Robert Lewandowski, and named Nine’s in honor of the number he’s worn ever since starting his career at Znicz Pruszkow, this four-floor project has become Warsaw’s sports bar of choice. Filled with memorabilia (e.g. the boots Lewy wore when he broke the Bundesliga scoring record), features of this mega-pub include goal nets to act as petitions between seating booths, bar stools redolent of the plastic seats seen in stadiums, and tables embossed with pitch markings and other such frills. And on the top floor, a large screen facing onto seating that mimics the tribunes found in football grounds.

NOWY ŚWIAT ‘PAVILIONS’

Nowy Świat 26

For the highest condensation of bars in the capital head to ‘the pavilions’, a collection of ramshackle drinking cabins, shot bars and sheesha lairs inside a tight grid of shadowy back alleys. Adding to the gentle sense of confusion comes the realization that so many bars look the same –accessed through clattery, barred doors, visitors walk into what can only be described as murk and chaos.

Piano Bar

Żelazna 51/53 (Norblin Factory)

Norblin’s Piano Bar works all-year round, but in winter its sense of easy prosperity provides a glint of optimism when skies are bleak. Dazzling with its 12-foot chandelier, the Gatsby vibe is given added oomph by a design that makes use of chessboard floors and wisely-chosen extras. The program of concerts elevate the weekend atmosphere with funks and blues jams something of a forte.

Ritual

Mazowiecka 12

Looking dark and sensual, this two-level space unwraps before you like some elaborate adventure. Candles flicker, atmosphere crackles – moving towards the bar, slinky, sultry club creatures of unfathomable beauty prowl past with drinks poised in hand. Heating up gradually as the night progresses, Ritual moves organically from being a voluptuous bar to a spicy club as the night ebbs towards its heady conclusion.

The Shamrock

Zgoda 5

The Shamrock is little more than a shabby bare room lit by a greenish Carlsberg sign. But the dearth of aesthetic thrills is compensated via its atmosphere. Find a melting pot of nationalities slopping beers over each other while shouting their orders to Curtis and his family behind the bar – high on noise and bellowed banter, the atmosphere cranks yet further whenever Curtis grabs his guitar to lead his audience in song.

Worek Ko Ci

Bagatela 10

There is nothing ordinary about Worek Kości and it could as easily earn a place on this list for its décor as it could its burlesque entertainment program. Instead though, those amusements are edged out by their regular roster of lectures on criminal profiling, forensics, serial killers and execution methods. A passionate celebration of the beautiful and bizarre, this bar has no equal.

Wozownia

Pl. Trzech Krzyży 16 Festooned with herby plants, it’s a luscious backdrop to drink, one that’s lent a gritty urban contrast by the shabby walls of the tenements that frame the courtyard. As for drinks, there’s some classic cocktails which you’ll need to order from the bar inside the 200-year-old carriage house at the end. Warning: cards only!

W Oparach W Absurdu

Ząbkowska 6

Regional and craft beers lurk within the fridge, but for the seminal Absurdu experience you’ll need to order a tray of vodkas before bulldozing through the crowds that gather to listen to Balkan rock and Afro-Latin bands. Somewhere, hidden deep beneath the creaking antiques and moth-eaten Persian rugs, you might be lucky to find a wood-carved bar, and just exploring this musty space is an adventure in itself. Emitting the kind of alternative Boho spirit more frequently found in artsy places like Kraków, delve further still to uncover a mouse hole packed with excitable regulars.