148 Best Bars in Germany

This hip place is one of the city's top dance clubs.

In summer, head straight for the Stadtgarten and sit in the biergarten for some good outdoor Gemütlichkeit (coziness). At other times of the year it's still worth a visit for its excellent jazz club. Stadtgarten also runs a beer garden with cheap, tasty eats in the shaded Rathenauplatz park, by Cologne's synagogue.

On the first floor of the Theater Neue Flora, the Stage Club is a popular spot with a mostly older crowd, who turn up to see acts as diverse as Adele, Nigel Kennedy, and Right Said Fred, and dance to Latin and 1980s sounds.

The crowd at Neuhausen's Taxisgarten, with 1,500 seats, is mostly local and the food here is excellent, not to mention the beer. While parents refresh themselves, children exhaust themselves at the playground.

On a popular corner of Weserstrasse, the TiER cocktail bar's lively crowd often spills out into the street. It's often crowded and large groups aren't admitted to keep a more intimate atmosphere inside, but if you do get past the door, you'll find a cozy inside with top-quality cocktails. Floor-to-ceiling windows look out onto the street.

There's not much that doesn't take place at this international variety theater. Guests are entertained by international cabaret performers and the Palast's own variety orchestra. There's an excellent restaurant, Tiger-Gourmet, featuring vegan and vegetarian dishes, and the cozy Palastbar, under the basement arches, looks like an American bar from the 1920s. Despite the pricey dinner show, tickets often sell out, so book as far in advance as possible. It's just one block from the Zeil pedestrian shopping area.

Tipi is a tent venue between the Kanzleramt (Chancellor's Office) and Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Artists featured are well suited for an international audience, and you can opt to dine here before the show. Even the back-row seats are good.

Jazz musicians perform most nights of the week at this friendly, laid-back club.

Facing stiff competition from a number of newly opened and similarly loftily perched cocktail joints, the Tower Bar may have aged a tad since its opening in 1987, but its service, reasonably priced drinks, and views over the harbor and city all remain good reasons to reserve a window table for a sundowner or two.

Exotic cocktails are the specialty at the Polynesian-themed Trader Vic's, a smart cellar bar in the Hotel Bayerischer Hof. Dating back to 1971, it is as popular among out-of-town visitors as it is with locals.

A college crowd goes to industrial-style cultural center TraumGmbH to eat pizza, watch a movie, or dance (Friday is best for dancing).

The Türkenhof is a solid local pub that serves Augustiner and good, affordable food.

This scrappy little bar and brewery opened in summer 2013 after a successful crowdfunding campaign and has already become a local favorite for all ages. The three friendly American proprietors are beer aficionados who began brewing for fun, but soon realized there was a market for their small-batch craft products. On any given night, they’ll have a selection of local beers on tap, including brews from Wedding compatriots Beer4Wedding or Kreuzberg favorites Heidenpeters, as well as an impressive selection of imported bottles.

It's worth elbowing your way into this bar for the brewed-on-the-premises beer. Try the Dunkles Hefeweizen, or dark wheat beer, which is not produced as widely as the lighter version. As with most German brewpubs, there's a full menu, too, including a long list of wurst dishes.

A sweet little French-owned bar with a slightly naughty name, this spot has been a local favorite for several years now—simple and comfortable yet tres chic. Come here when you’re tired of Berlin’s beer-dominated bar culture, and order a kir royal or a glass of excellent French wine, paired with a meat-and-cheese platter. In good weather, nab a rickety sidewalk table; the bar’s corner location is great for people-watching.

This bar attracts with creative cocktail creations, modern decor, and friendly service. The venue is quite small and fills up quickly. Open from 4:30 pm to 12 am.

The elegant Watergate is a club for people who usually don't like clubbing. It sits languidly at the base of the Oberbaumbrücke, on the Kreuzberg side, and has two dance floors with bars. The terrace extending over the River Spree is one of the city's best chill-out spaces. In addition to hosting internationally renowned DJs, the club is the beautiful and intimate setting for infrequent but popular classical music nights.

It sounds like a recipe for disaster: pay 2 euro for an empty glass, fill it with your choice of wine from a number of bottles, and when you're ready to leave, pay whatever you think you owe. But this pay-as-you-wish bar has survived for more than 15 years; in fact, Weinerei is one of three such "Communist wine bars," all on the border between Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg. Although the wines aren't extraordinary, the charming concept has attracted cash-strapped Berliners steadily over the years. Note that the pay-what-you-want option is only available after 8 p.m.

This upscale bar, pub, and restaurant in a Renaissance building offers a huge selection of good wines.

This Irish pub has Murphy's Stout on tap, and on most nights there's live music starting at 8:30. 

The Wintergarten Varieté pays romantic homage to the old days of Berlin's original variety theater in the 1920s.

Named after a 1962 surrealist film by Luis Buñuel (known as The Exterminating Angel in English), this classy joint offers an elaborate cocktail menu in a well-designed space off Kottbusser Tor. The bar's loyal fans spill out onto the streets on busy nights, and an evening tapas menu comes from the neighboring restaurant, Gorgonzola Club.

With its combination of exposed brickwork, soft lighting, and soothing, curvy shapes—not to mention a drinks menu that runs to more than 250 different drinks, shots, and cocktails—it's little wonder that this popular cocktail bar draws fashionable people of all ages.

A bit rougher around the edges than most Berlin jazz clubs, Yorckschlösschen ("little York castle") has become the unofficial living room of the area's musicians and jazz aficionados. The club is plastered with posters and decorated with old instruments, and the stage isn't much more than a slightly raised platform—but some of the area's best play here. The Thursday-night jam session is free; other nights, a music charge will be added to your bill.

At this sleek bar, fresh produce, herbs, and spices elevate cocktails to an art form.

Sinkkasten, a Frankfurt musical institution, was renamed Zoom in 2013. By any name it is a great place for blues, jazz, pop, and rock. Saturday nights are Hit Happens, with hip-hop and techno-electro music. Zoom is open from 9 pm to 1 am every day but Monday, and live shows often begin at 11 pm.