The cultural spotlight is about to shine on Liverpool, with Europe’s biggest free music event, LIMF (21-24 July), and the Biennal festival of contemporary art (9 July – 16 October) just around the corner.
In a city where it feels like any pub you happen to stumble upon has a gig happening that night, and £2 pints actually exist, you’re somewhat spoilt for choice when it comes to going out. But here’s how to avoid ending up in a student bar hell-hole where the floors are slick with WKD (at least you hope that’s what it is) or trapped in The Cavern Club, where ageing rockers perform "Love Me Do" for the 50th time.
From secret speakeasies to 19th-century smugglers’ inns, here’s our guide to the best bars in Liverpool…
Covering a whole block of the Baltic Triangle, Camp and Furnace was once an industrial blade-making factory (insert jokes about looking sharp here). The cavernous space has now been decked out with fairy lights, VW camper vans and picnic tables, and every Saturday they host a Food Slam of local street food stalls. Make sure you sample their own brand of bottled beer – Brown Bear - made from malted wheat and Wirral honey.
67 Greenland Street, Liverpool.
+44 151 708 2890
Photo: @charnixonn
Housed in a former recycling yard, this Baltic Triangle venue takes beer garden to the next level. As well as ping pong tables, regular BBQs and vast greenery, all year round they host events and workshops as diverse as morning raves, martial arts and a Mardi Gras. Like being at a festival – without all the camping and crap toilets and stuff.
37-39 Greenland Street, Liverpool.
+44 151 345 6302
Photo: Constellations
The Baltic Triangle may now be Liverpool’s answer to Hackney Wick – with hipster coffee shops, warehouse clubs and co-working spaces – but it was once the centre of the city’s shipping trade. Traditional boozer The Baltic Fleet dates back to the 1850s, and you can just imagine sailors rolling off the docks to prop up the mahogany bar, tell tales by the open fire and then hit up the microbrewery housed in the old smugglers’ tunnels in the cellar. Well, the first two at least.
33, Wapping, Liverpool.
+44 151 709 3116
Photo: @francescamuller
Inspired by famous New York bar Please Don’t Tell, this secret bar “somewhere” in the city centre can only be accessed through a red phone-box. Booking in advance is essential, and once ensconced in the booths inside you’re treated to experimental cocktails that even Heston might be baffled by. Two Little Ducks contains gin, violet and lavender bath bubbles, all served in a tiny bath tub (complete with miniature rubber ducks).
“Somewhere in Liverpool”.
0151 233 2008
Photo: @ex_directory
The walls are pasted with graphic novels, neon signs hang above the bar, a TV screen is showing True Romance and the jukebox is full of punk, rock and hip hop. Motel might look like an American dive bar but they make surprisingly serious cocktails. And they serve fried chicken to soak up all that booze.
5-7 Fleet Street, Liverpool.
No phone
Photo: Motel Bar / Facebook
No list of Liverpool’s best boozers would be complete without this 19th-century gem. Taking its name from the concert hall opposite, and known locally as “The Phil”, it features the only Grade I-listed toilets in the country. Only the gents mind, the ladies are bog standard (literally), so just sneak in if you’re feeling brave.
36 Hope Street, Liverpool.
0151 707 2837
Photo: @ellieharris04
Some Place
Banned for a century for inspiring madness, murder and permanent blindness, absinthe gets a bad rep. But follow the green light on this Seel Street staircase and you’ll reach the speakeasy-style absinthe bar Some Place, where even Green Fairy virgins will find that absinthe makes the heart grow fonder. Have a few Absinthe Sours and that joke might actually be funny.
43, Seel Street, Liverpool.
Photo: @someplace_absinthe
Entering a bar through a fish restaurant doesn’t seem like an auspicious start to the night. But Jenny’s is a dirty disco den serving Pina Coladas and other retro cocktails that involve a paper umbrella or four. The music is loud, the décor is pure Abigail’s Party, and they even have a “bottle keep” on the wall so you can buy your own spirits and ask the bartender to mix them up for you. You don’t get that at J.Sheekey’s.
The Old Ropery, Fenwick Street, Liverpool.
0151 236 0332
Photo: @jennys_bar
Something of a Liverpool institution, the mosaic floors, stained-glass windows and mural-painted walls of this pub in the Georgian Quarter have remained unchanged since 1929. Peter Kavanagh was the landlord who gave the place its eclectic refit and he was also an inventor, city councillor and painter, as well as something of a hoarder – random bric-a-brac covers every inch of wall space, including urns containing the ashes of regulars. Eccentric in all the best ways.
Egerton Street Liverpool.
0151 709 3443
Photo: @dominicdutton
Order a Sazerac in this underground blues cave, lit by candles and vintage railway lamps, and you could be in New Orleans not Liverpool. Staff who know their stuff, attentive table service and a staggering whiskey collection mean one could easily lose a couple of days of their life down here. In a good way.
48, Berry Street, Liverpool.
No phone.
Photo: @liamomalley13Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
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