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Hard to find (underneath a train station) but great looking bar.
www.sublounge.ie
Tara Street Station
Dublin 2
t: 01 671 6769
A fantastic tapas bar on (surprise-surprise) Alfalfa. Great Italian-style tapas, great wine, great service, laid-back and good music. Amazingly good value for money.
Also appears to have a slightly unusual resident transvestite.
Don't go for pudding at Tuereg over the road - it's dreadful!
Calle Alfalfa, 6
This is Berlin in Athens.
Run by a creative team, this multi-purpose place is the point of reference for alternatively trendy-cool young Athenians. A large bar with minimal decor and experimental DJ sets, a live stage that hosts international progressive artists, a basement club, and a small cinema, all under the same industrial roof.
84 Pireos St
+30 210 3425335
www.bios.gr
You'll listen to good music, enjoy free tapas with your drinks and mingle with interesting young crowds in a place that is packed every single night (avoid Saturdays).
The food in the small restaurant room is also lovely.
44 Triptolemou St.
Gazi
+30 210 3471844
The hip crowd, and everybody else loves it. Just refurbished, it's still excellent value and the food by wunderchef Bjorn Malmsten is Scandinavian with a twist.
Booking has become essential if you want to eat or simply have a beer in the bar.
Sodra Skolgatan 30A
214 22 Malmo
+4640126021
The food is ok but the wines! A truly impressive and not very expensive collection of interesting Italian wines. They have two places, curiously enough separated by another cafe. Choose the right one where all the wines are! By the way, the brioche (croissant) and cappuccino are great.
www.dunneandcrescenzi.com
14-16 South Frederick St
Dublin 2
6773815 /6759892
"Wine bar, karaoke box, sake bar" the restaurant describes itself. I would say great Japanese and Korean food and nice selection of wines and drinks!
Not what you would expect from a sidestreet in Dublin, but a really pleasant surprise with its contemporary decor and nice staff.
I did not check out the karaoke though!
7-9 Exchequer Street
Dublin 2
+353 1 6334071
www.ukiyobar.com/
Seafood and steak restaurant in a simply stunning location, right on the waters edge at the eastern end of the Solent. We visited for lunch in midsummer and moored up just off the beach on one of their mooring buoys (free of charge!) Had moules mariniere followed by local lobster, crab and seabass - all washed down with an extremely agreeable bottle of wine. Wow! such fabulous food and impeccable service in a perfect location! Indeed so nice was it that we stayed overnight and went back for full English breakfast. Highly recommended - insanely popular.
The Waterfront, St Helens, Isle of Wight 01983 873259
If you want a lazy lunch in beautiful surroundings then this is the place for you. Eat in the tented covered gardens whilst enjoying wonderful caipirinhas then if you like, buy the table and chairs you have been sitting at and on. Every piece of furniture and artwork at the restaurant is for sale. Inside there is a well stocked wine cellar. The staff are very friendly and know their food and drink.
Rua Minas Gerais, 112
Higienopolis
T: 3258.6093
W: restauranteviralata.com.br
Everyone should try the Zurek soup... they serve it IN a loaf of bread and it is to die for. I think I might be obsessed with it having just had it every day for the last four days.
Underneath the Ratusz on the Rynek (main square) ... Apparently it's the oldest restaurant in Europe! Ooooooh!
A great bar/restruarant in a what looks like a white hut on the banks of the Tejo between the Tower da Belem and the Monument, next to the museum. Wonderful food, not at all expensive (€30 for two) lots of veggy options and a terrace outside. Sit and watch the boats go by with a wonderful view of the bridge and Christ on the other side of the river. Save room for pudding and go to the Pasteleria in Belem afterwards for coffee and egg custard tart.
On the river bank at Belem between the tower and the Monument.
It's an Irish pub showing sport. Not very exciting but friendly and convenient. A mix of ex-pats and locals.
Friedrichstrasse 112a
Berlin-Mitte
Telephone: 030 2828260
www.oscar-wilde-irish-pub.de
Stylish hotel, excellently located in Mitte, within walking distance of many of the key sights; alternatively, seconds from tram, U and S-bahn. Room design is trendy, with huge floor-ceiling windows. Amazing price-quality correlation. Hotel's cocktail lounge has extensive range of drinks. Breakfast not cheap (15EUR per person) but great selection, including delicious crispy bacon.
Oranienburger Strasse 52
U-bahn: Oranienburger Tor
www.arcotel.at/velvet.htm
Described to us as 'Harry Potter Bar', but when you peel back the curtain you are greeted with part camp lounge bar, part bordello. The cocktails are well worth the HK$75 and are large enough to give you time to enjoy the decor, which must have been bought and fitted by Liberace's interior designer.
38 Staunton Street, SoHo.
Turn right off the Mid Level Escalator when you get to a bar called Stauntons. It's on the left, but you must look very closely to find it.
Hot location with hot girls!!
With this being Hong Kong which type of bar would you most expect to find?
That's right… Balalaika is a Russian theme bar complete with huge bust of Lenin, lots of Soviet propaganda posters, red flags and a -20 degree celcius Siberian Vodka Room complete with fur coats (on loan, not to keep. And it's fake fur by the way).
There are over 60 types and flavours of vodka to try as well as a restaurant serving up typical Russian fayre and live Russian music.
Simply walk up Theatre Lane from Central MTR Station and be greeted by D'Aguilar Street. Walk up the steep slope, follow it round to the left and it's upstairs on the right.
Brasserie Pakhuis is a fantastic restaurant just off the main shopping street (Veldstraat).
It is housed in a fantastic, converted warehouse which makes an amazing setting for a meal.
Food is a wonderful mixture of French and Italian. They also do great fish platters with whole lobsters etc. There is an extensive wine list, and also (of course) an extensive list of beers. As well as the restaurant there is also a bar which you can visit for a drink.
Pakhuis is popular with locals, which I always think is a good sign.
Have a look at their website for a menu and an idea of what it looks like.
Schuurkenstraat 4
9000 Gent
32 (0)92235555
www.pakhuis.be/
Google map: tinyurl.com/kjh2d8
What is it? A bar that serves food and fantastic cocktails and also has an internet cafe and a shop selling all the booze you've just drank in the bar. But that doesn't do it justice.
It's simply the best bar I think I have been in for a very long time (besides one in Prague and I'm not telling you where that is because it's mine. ALL MINE. OK?).
Spread over 3 floors, the ground floor is home to the shop, internet lounge and the bar itself. To describe it as 'a bar' is an understatement on a parallel with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon being merely a garden. This place is a mecca to booze. I counted 17 seperate types of Absinthe on the wall. 17!
The first floor is home to another room, decked out with comfy seating where you can spread out and lounge around, also a couple of raised bed/seats with curtains and a shedload of fabric in general, along a Thai type theme.
The third floor has yet another room with large sofas and chairs, and as an added bonus it's non-smoking. You do feel a bit detached from the rest of the bar but get enough of your crowd in there and it's more or less all yours.
Food, although I haven't tried it, looked tasty (spying on the plates as they came out) and entirely Thai.
It's worth taking a stool at the bar and watching the lads behind it create cocktails from the mammoth list.
In a word: quality.
42 Stonegate, York, YO1 8AS 01904 640 002
A really rather lovely bar, just out of town, but definitely worth the little walk. A relaxed atmosphere with massive battered sofas to fall into, and a mix n' match attitude to the rest of the furniture. Usually has a bit of an exhibition on the walls too. Definitely worth eating there too. Small but perfectly formed menu which never fails to taste absolutely gorgeous (lamb shank being my particular favourite at the moment), which can be eaten in the informal restaurant bit in the back of the bar whilst watching the chefs do their thing in the open kitchen.
Reasonably priced too. Separate daytime and evening menus.
Another excellent place to either start a night or just to have a few quiet bevvies in.
76-78 North St, Leeds, LS2 7PN 0113 295 6060
Cafe bar by day, thronging bar by night. Another excellent bar with an excellent music policy (bearing in mind my bias towards indie/rock).
Does do food but I haven't indulged yet as it's always been rammed to the gills when I've been, usually late in the night.
20 New Briggate, Leeds, LS1 1AJ 0113 305 0372
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