Balderdash is a speakeasy in Indre By, Copenhagen.
Editorially verified May 20, 2026 by Lewis Vaughan, TableJourney editor. Source.
Tip: Wednesday through Saturday only; the secret room behind the bookcase seats six and takes reservations. Strawberry-foie gras old fashioned in season.
Address: Valkendorfsgade 11, 1151 København K, Copenhagen
Centralhjørnet on Kattesundet has run as a gay bar since 1950 in a tavern that itself dates to 1917, and the room claims the title of the world's oldest continuously operating gay bar with rotating drag shows.
Tip: Open from noon every day; the late drag sets land Friday and Saturday. Cheap beer at the counter; tip the queens.
Oscar on Regnbuepladsen, the Rainbow Square next to City Hall, runs as a non-smoking LGBTQ+ daytime cafe and evening bar with a Friday DJ programme, kitchen running lunch through dinner and a daily happy hour.
Tip: Happy hour daily 16:00-21:00; Friday DJs pull the room from 21:00. Pavement seats across the rainbow plaza in summer.
Curfew sits behind an antiquary-bookstore facade on Vesterbrogade, with a buzzer entry, a 30-seat counter and a list led by Humberto Saraiva Marques, the bartender behind World's 50 Best wins at previous rooms.
Tip: Ring the bell at the bookshop facade; walk-ins welcome but Friday and Saturday seat by capacity. Closed all of July.
Lidkoeb opened in 2012 in a former pharmacy in a Vesterbrogade courtyard, run by Adeline and Rasmus Shepherd-Lomborg of Ruby; three floors stack a ground-floor pub, a cocktail bar and a whisky lounge under the eaves.
Tip: Walk through the courtyard gate; the whisky lounge upstairs runs Friday and Saturday only and takes the brown-spirit drinkers off the cocktail floor.
Centralhjørnet on Kattesundet has run as a gay bar since 1950 in a tavern that itself dates to 1917, and the room claims the title of the world's oldest continuously operating gay bar with rotating drag shows.
Tip: Open from noon every day; the late drag sets land Friday and Saturday. Cheap beer at the counter; tip the queens.
Oscar on Regnbuepladsen, the Rainbow Square next to City Hall, runs as a non-smoking LGBTQ+ daytime cafe and evening bar with a Friday DJ programme, kitchen running lunch through dinner and a daily happy hour.
Tip: Happy hour daily 16:00-21:00; Friday DJs pull the room from 21:00. Pavement seats across the rainbow plaza in summer.
Café Intime on Allégade in Frederiksberg is a Montmartre-inspired piano bar from the early 1920s, with nightly live piano, jazz sets and drag shows.
Tip: Open daily 16:00 to 02:00; arrive before the evening pianist starts to get a seat near the piano.
Bird on Gammel Kongevej runs as Frederiksberg's reference vinyl bar, a small Nordic-wood room where jazz from the turntable sets the volume, with cocktails poured to match the record on the deck.
Tip: Records are loaded one side at a time at low volume; conversation drops with the needle. Walk-in only, small room.
