The Best Bars in Tallinn Right Now

The best bars in Tallinn are a study in contrast: medieval cellar vaults in the Old Town where you drink Estonian craft beer beneath 14th-century stone arches, and post-industrial taprooms in Kalamaja where the city's creative class has set up something genuinely interesting. We have been to all of them and this is the list that matters.

Old Town — Best Bars in Tallinn's Medieval Core

The UNESCO-listed Old Town is where Tallinn's bar scene started and where its most atmospheric venues still live. The medieval architecture does most of the work, but the best places here have also built serious drinks programmes to match their surroundings.

Hell Hunt

Pikk Street $$ Craft Beer / Historic

Estonia's first craft beer pub, open since 1993, and it has not lost the plot. The ground floor is a proper pub with 12 taps of Estonian and international craft beer, a menu of hearty Baltic food, and a clientele that ranges from Tallinn regulars to the occasional bewildered tour group. The real draw is the cellar bar downstairs: stone arches, low ceilings, candlelight, and a quieter crowd that actually wants to talk.

Order: Hell Hunt's own-label amber ale alongside elk sausage with black bread

Levist Väljas

Old Town $$ Dive / Character

The name translates roughly to "off the radar" and for a long time it was. A single cramped room, mismatched furniture, paper signs listing whatever is on draught, and the cheapest beer prices in the Old Town. The crowd is exactly what you want: Estonian students, old men arguing about football, and the occasional foreign visitor who found it by accident and stayed all night.

Order: Whatever is cheapest on draught — the Saku and A. Le Coq options are always solid

Porgu

Rüütli Street $$ Underground / Metal

Porgu means "hell" in Estonian, and the bar leans into it. A cellar space with exposed medieval stonework, heavy metal on the sound system, and a bar staff who take their beer selection far more seriously than the decor suggests. The draught list covers 16 taps of local and European craft beer. It is loud and dark and completely honest about what it is.

Order: The rotating IPA tap — they change it every two weeks

Kalamaja and Telliskivi — Tallinn's Creative Quarter

The former working-class neighbourhood of Kalamaja has transformed over the last decade into Tallinn's most interesting bar area. The Telliskivi Creative City complex — a cluster of converted factory buildings — anchors the scene, but the best places are scattered across the neighbourhood's wooden houses and former industrial yards.

Põhjala Tap Room

Kalamaja $$ Brewery / Industrial

Põhjala is Estonia's best craft brewery and this is their home taproom, in a converted factory building with exposed brick, steel tanks visible through the windows, and 20 taps running everything from their flagship dark lager to small-batch experimental releases that never make it out of the building. The kitchen does smoked meat boards and pickled vegetables that pair well with almost anything on the list.

Order: The Öö Baltic porter alongside the smoked beef board

Frank

Telliskivi $$$ Cocktail Bar / Design

The most considered cocktail programme in Tallinn, run by a bar team that has worked in Helsinki, Copenhagen, and London and brought those influences back. The menu changes quarterly and draws on Estonian botanicals — juniper, birch sap, sea buckthorn — in ways that feel genuinely inventive rather than gimmicky. The room is dark, the music is good, and the service is professional without being cold.

Order: The sea buckthorn Sour — it is the best thing on the menu by a distance

Sikupilli Selts

Kalamaja $$ Local / Neighbourhood

A neighbourhood bar that happens to have one of the better wine lists in Tallinn. The room is small and comfortable, the crowd is local, and the owner has a particular fondness for natural wines from Georgia and Slovenia that you will not find elsewhere in the city. Open Thursday to Sunday only, which keeps it from being overrun.

Order: A glass from the Georgian natural wine selection — ask what they opened that week

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Practical Notes on Drinking in Tallinn

Tallinn's bar scene runs later than most visitors expect. The Old Town bars fill up from about 9pm and stay busy until 2am; Kalamaja tends to be quieter earlier but keeps going until 3am on weekends. Prices are low by western European standards — you will pay €4–6 for a pint of craft beer and €8–12 for a cocktail at the better places.

Koht

Old Town $$$ Wine Bar / Intimate

A 20-seat wine bar on a cobblestone Old Town side street that takes its list far more seriously than most places in the city. The focus is on European natural producers with a strong section for Estonian-adjacent Baltic and Scandinavian wines. The cheese and charcuterie plates are excellent. Book ahead on weekends — it fills up completely and does not take walk-ins after 8pm.

Order: The by-glass selection from the Austrian natural wine section

Vaal Baar

City Centre $$ Art Bar / Eclectic

Attached to the Vaal Gallery on Tartu Road, this is where Tallinn's art crowd drinks. The room doubles as an exhibition space, so the walls change every six weeks. The beer selection is solid, the cocktail list is short but well-made, and the crowd on a Friday night is the most interesting mix you will find outside of Kalamaja. Open until 1am every night.

Order: The house gin and tonic with local botanicals

Noku

Telliskivi $$ Craft Beer / Outdoor

The best outdoor drinking in Tallinn on a warm evening: a large courtyard in the Telliskivi complex with long wooden tables, 10 taps of Estonian craft beer, and food trucks that change week to week. It gets loud and packed from Thursday to Sunday but the atmosphere is easy-going enough that it rarely feels overwhelming. The best warm-weather option in the city.

Order: Whatever Tanker Brewery has on — they rotate through the best list in the country

Our Verdict

Tallinn is a better drinking city than its reputation suggests. The combination of a thriving craft beer scene, a growing natural wine culture, and one of the most dramatic settings in Europe — medieval towers, cobblestone streets, views of the Baltic — makes it a city that rewards a long evening's exploration. Start in the Old Town at Hell Hunt, cross to Kalamaja for Frank's cocktail programme, and end at Põhjala Taproom.