The best bars for locals are the ones that do not advertise. They have no Instagram presence to speak of, no clever concept, and no queue out the door at 9pm on a Friday. What they have is a clientele who come back because the place feels like theirs — and a level of comfort that no amount of interior design budget can manufacture. We have spent years finding these rooms. Here are the ones that stuck.
The Best Local Bars in European Cities
European local bar culture is built on repetition — the same seat, the same drink, the same bartender who pours it without being asked. These bars have regulars who have been coming for decades, and the atmosphere they produce is something a tourist bar can never replicate.
Le Syndicat is the bar that Parisian bartenders go to after their own shift ends. The rule here is French spirits only — no imported whisky, no American bourbon, no Japanese gin. The cocktails use Armagnac, Calvados, Cognac, and French aperitifs that most visitors have never heard of. The crowd is local, loud, and genuinely knowledgeable about what they are drinking. One of the best bars in Paris by any metric.
Order: Ask for the French Negroni variation — it changes with the season
The original Mikkeller bar, on a quiet Vesterbro street, where the rotating tap list reads like a tour of Nordic fermentation culture. The regulars include brewers, chefs, and designers from the neighbourhood. The bar itself is narrow and wood-lined, the staff know the tap list intimately, and the food is better than a bar of this type has any right to be. Go on a weekday afternoon for counter seats and proper conversation.
Order: Whatever experimental sour is on the rotating list
03
The Pelican
Leith, Edinburgh$Natural wine / Arts crowd
A natural wine bar and neighbourhood local in Leith that occupies the space between serious wine shop and casual drinking room. The list is entirely small-producer European — mostly French, some Italian, the occasional Georgian amphora wine that makes regulars argue about whether it counts as orange. The bar has no pretension despite serving bottles that would command significant reverence elsewhere. Arrive before 7pm for seats.
Order: Ask what is open and fresh that week — they always have one spectacular glass pour
Discover hidden gem bars in every city
The bars that take effort to find but reward the effort completely. Our hidden gems category lists them all.
Local Bars Worth Knowing in Dublin, Munich, and Lisbon
These three cities all have a strong drinking culture that tourists often see only the surface of. The bars below are where you will find the city as it actually is — not as it performs for visitors.
04
Mulligan's of Poolbeg Street
City Centre, Dublin$Victorian pub / Journalists
Established in 1782 and still the best pint of Guinness in Dublin according to most people who have been drinking both for long enough to have a meaningful opinion. Mulligan's is where the journalists from the nearby Irish Times offices have been coming since before the paper had a website. The interior is unchanged Victorian — dark wood, tiled floors, no music. The absence of background noise is its own kind of relief.
Order: Guinness, full stop. Ask for it with the two-part pour.
05
Löwenbräukeller
Maxvorstadt, Munich$Beer hall / Year-round
The beer hall that Munich locals go to when they want the Oktoberfest atmosphere without the October prices or the tourist ratio. The Löwenbräukeller is open year-round, the Masskrug of house lager costs half what you will pay at the festival, and the crowd is genuinely mixed — regulars in their sixties sharing tables with students who have been coming since they turned eighteen. Sit in the garden in summer for one of the better evenings in Bavaria.
Order: Löwenbräu original lager, one litre, with a pretzel
06
Tasca do Chico
Madragoa, Lisbon$$Fado / Intimate
Fado bars in Lisbon divide sharply into the ones for tourists and the ones for people who care about fado. Tasca do Chico is firmly in the second category — a tiny room in Madragoa that seats forty, where the singers perform without a stage and the audience is expected to be silent. The wine list is short and Portuguese. The performances happen nightly but the room books weeks in advance. Worth every step of the planning.
Order: House red from the Alentejo region and whatever the kitchen has on
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Local Bars in US Cities Worth Knowing
American local bar culture is neighbourhood-specific in a way that European bar culture is not. The bars that matter in a city are the ones that anchor their block — the place where everyone from the dentist on the corner to the night-shift nurse from the hospital two streets over comes to decompress. These are those bars.
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Jimmy's No. 43
East Village, New York$Beer garden / Underground
A subterranean bar and beer garden on a East Village side street where the taps rotate through fifty American craft beers and the regulars range from off-duty FDNY to food writers doing their third round of the evening. Jimmy's has the feel of a bar that was great before craft beer became a category and has refused to change now that the category is everywhere. The garden in back is one of the most genuinely relaxed outdoor spaces in lower Manhattan.
Order: Whichever local NYC brewery has the freshest IPA on tap
08
The Tap Room at The Slanted Door
East Nashville, Nashville$Dive / Musicians
East Nashville's musician community has a bar for every mood and budget. This one is for the end of the night when the show is done and no one wants to perform anymore. It is a proper dive — pool table, neon beer signs, a jukebox that leans classic country — and it is completely free of the honky-tonk theatrics of Broadway. The regulars are working musicians and recording engineers and the conversation is reliably excellent.
Order: Pabst Blue Ribbon and a shot of Evan Williams — the local's special
09
The Alibi
Northeast Portland$Tiki / Neighbourhood
Portland's oldest continuously operating tiki bar, and one of the most beloved neighbourhood locals in a city that takes its bars seriously. The Alibi has been in its Northeast Portland location since 1947 and the decor has not wavered — bamboo, totems, fibre-optic lighting, and a fish tank behind the bar. The mai tais are strong and served in the proper tiki mugs. The crowd is neighbourhood regulars in their twenties to seventies.
Order: Classic mai tai with Appleton Estate rum
Our complete after-work bar guide
Local bars and after-work spots across every major city — the places you go to decompress, not perform.
The quality these bars share is not location or price — it is that they have accumulated enough regular custom to develop a genuine personality. The bartenders know names. The conversations carry across tables. The specials are driven by what someone wants to drink rather than what the distributor is pushing this quarter.
Our advice for finding local bars in any city: walk away from the main tourist street by three or four blocks, look for the bar with a handwritten sign, and order whatever is on draught. The locals found these places because they were good, and they stayed because they kept being good. That is the only quality filter you need.
Best bars for tourists (when you want the iconic ones too)
Sometimes the famous bar is famous for good reason. Our tourist bars guide separates the genuinely great from the tourist traps.
