Cocktails, wine bars and dives: drinking in Warsaw for grown-ups.
Cocktail bars, wine bars, dive bars and gastropubs: drinking in Warsaw for grown-ups.
El Koktel in Warsaw is the basement cocktail bar with emerald walls and filament bulbs, established 2014. Buzz-to-enter door, a 50-Best Discovery listing and a rotating menu of bartender-made spirits and bitters.
Signature drink: House-made Gin Dobry tonic
Food: Bar bites
Cosmo Bar in Warsaw lives in the Cosmopolitan tower on Twarda, a sustainable cocktail room from the Bar Wieczorny team. Local-foraged ingredients, low-waste serves, and a tower view over Plac Grzybowski.
Signature drink: Sustainable seasonal cocktails
Food: Small plates
Pijalnia Wodki i Piwa on Nowy Swiat in Warsaw recreates the People's Republic vodka bar with communist-era posters, 4 zl shots and 24-hour service. Loud, cheap, and the standard tourist-and-local crossover.
Signature drink: Polish vodka shot with sledz (herring)
Food: Herring, kanapki, pickled snacks
Tygmont on Mazowiecka in Warsaw is one of the oldest jazz clubs in the city, opening at 20:00 and running into the small hours. Live music programme, Polish bar food, an old-Warsaw room that still hosts both jazz and dance nights.
Signature drink: Cocktails with the late-set jazz programme
Food: Polish bar plates
PiwPaw on Foksal in Warsaw runs roughly 80 taps of Polish, Czech, Belgian and German craft. Bottle-cap walls, the peacock mascot in the window, and 1-zl tasting pours for every beer on the wall.
Signature drink: Polish craft IPA
Food: Bar snacks, pizza
Cuda na Kiju on Nowy Swiat in Warsaw was the city's first multi-tap craft bar, inside the former communist party HQ next to the De Gaulle statue. Three floors, 15 taps, a glass-walled main room and a courtyard terrace.
Signature drink: Polish regional craft, rotating taps
Food: Pizza
Same Krafty on Nowomiejska in Warsaw is the Old Town craft tap, eight rotating beers a day in a whitewashed arched room a block from Rynek Starego Miasta. A second outlet, vis-a-vis, sits across the street.
Signature drink: Polish craft IPA
Food: Pizza, burgers
Peak food season in Warsaw is year-round.
Local dining hours: lunch around 12:30, dinner from 19:30.
service is typically included; small extra is welcome but not expected.
Ask the next local you meet what they would order. Warsaw rewards trust.