Get FREE email communications from Fodor's Travel, covering must-see travel destinations, expert trip planning advice, and travel inspiration to fuel your passion.
Bars and clubs are scattered all over Santiago, but a handful of streets have such a concentration of establishments that they resemble block parties on Friday and Saturday nights. Pub crawls along Avenida Pío Nono and neighboring streets in Bellavista yield venues aimed at a young crowd (the drinking age is 18). Across the river and further west, Lastarria hosts a busy bar scene. To the east in Providencia, the area around Manuel Montt and Tobalaba metro stations attract a slightly older and better-heeled crowd.
What you should wear depends on your destination. Bellavista has a mix of styles ranging from blue jeans to basic black and, in general, the dress gets smarter the farther east you move, but remains casual.
Note that establishments referred to as "nightclubs" are almost always female strip shows. The signs in the windows usually make it quite clear what goes on inside. The same is true for certain cafés with blacked-out windows, called "cafés con piernas" (literally: coffee with legs).
Open since 1943, Santiago's foremost jazz club has hosted the genre's greats like Louis Armstrong and Herbie Hancock, as well as esteemed Chilean performers. Performances take place between Wednesday and Saturday, and cost between 5,000 and 7,000 pesos. While you're clicking your fingers, order pizza, pasta, and other Italian dishes from La Fábrica, with which the club shares a roof.
Located within Patio Bellavista, La Casa en el Aire is a great place to catch live bands. There's also a larger venue with a terrace at Antonia López de Bello 0125. If your Spanish is good, you can listen to storytelling and stand-up, too, or even perform. There's a happy hour daily from 4 to 9.
This brightly colored house in Bellavista is a great place to take in local music with a down-to-earth and generally young, local crowd. Peñas are traditional watering holes where la nueva canción chilena, a kind of Latin American resistance folk music, was first popularized. Due to their historically political nature, peñas became clandestine during the dictatorship.
Sign up for Travel Tips & News
Thank you for your interest!
