A brilliant bar if all you want is to listen to barflies explaining the story behind their latest battle injury. Grizzled alcoholics gather amid a no-budget interior of concrete flooring and 70s leftovers to swallow vodka shots in one and put the finishing touches to their cirrhosis.

[...]

Add your comment

One of the enduring legends of late night Łódź is every much as dangerous as a stint in the capital it’s named after. Weekends in this weird basement are riotous, and frequently extend way beyond the open hours listed. Set in the depths of an industrial age palace the best advice if you’re a little lost finding it is to follow the direction of the dreadlocks. This place is something of an HQ for university age wasters, and boasts a solid gold name for long, messy evenings. Find your night of excess accompanied by anything from reggae to new romantic hits played by Fagot & Senga.
[...]

Add your comment

See Manufaktura. [...]

Add your comment

See Manufaktura. [...]

Add your comment

A vast, dark room with the centre-piece being a wooden, square-shaped bar from which the bar staff are happy to indulge foreigners in question-and-answer sessions about the city. Although the name promises the Irish experience this probably refers more to the warm welcome, as opposed to anything else: salsa nights, cocktails served with glazed cherries, Polish pop music and a menu which features Chinese cabbage and baked bananas make it far removed from the plastic Irish theme pubs you may have visited in mainland Europe. Packs out as the night draws on, with the sozzled crowd eventually moving on next door to finish the night off in the Belfast Club. [...]

Add your comment

Set inside a courtyard deluged with nasty little snack cabins the diminutive Football Pub is the complete antithesis of the sports bar back home – Sky Sports and bikini girls carrying import beer? Forget it. This is a pokey gritty room with a small TV hidden underneath a forest of pennants and scarves snatched from the club shops of Wigan and Minsk. Attracting everyone from curious expats to decommissioned conscripts this place can get seriously boisterous. Making sure the mood stays pleasant is the proprietor, an ex-pro who can’t wait to regale regulars with stories about his time with the local side. The only requirement, so it seems, is for patrons to smoke like sailors - bring spare lungs.
[...]

Add your comment

One can never have enough of a pirate pub, and there’s swashbuckling japes aplenty in this piece of seafaring heaven. Decked out like the galley on the Bounty the Pirate’s Nest comes complete with ships lanterns and skeletons, and you’ll frequently find the lubricated navvies singing along in drunken chorus to the shanty bands that take the stage. Thoroughly unmissable, and a great chance to relive your pirate dreams of yesteryear while cracking jokes about Roger the Cabin Boy.
[...]

Add your comment

Irish Pub should, in fact, be called Naval Pub. There is Guinness, but there the associations with the Emerald Isle end. Leprechauns and shamrocks have been waylaid for a Captain Cook design that numbers netting and compasses. It’s all very ‘land ahoy’ here, with a pleasingly dark interior that brings to mind a seafaring galleon. A decent venue, with the smattering of foreigners meaning it doesn’t take much to be press ganged into a session.
[...]

Add your comment

Climb the metal stairs to reach Jazzga, a tremendous space that features a mural of Lenin on a dog leash, Cyrillic lettering and a wall of back-lit, glowing bottles. Attracting students and non-conformists this generous space is primarily known for its abstract music policy, which ranges from everything to unearthed Kraftwerk tracks, to live music from local bands looking for their big break. Jazz doesn’t really get a mention, but then it’d be lost of the slacker hipsters who gather anyway.
[...]

Add your comment

Rock star heaven. A giant papier mache lizard positioned above the bar keeps a watchful eye over drinkers getting stuck into cocktails with names like Foxy Lady and Janis Joplin. Vinyl discs and musical instruments cover the wall space, and as the huge amps standing on the stage testify, this is often the scene for live music. Looking for the toilet? Step through the giant cello. [...]

Add your comment

If you’ve ever fantasised about drinking cold beer at nine o’clock in the morning whist watching a teenage girl make sandwiches inside a helicopter then get thee to Łódź. The fact that anyone would want to put a helicopter inside a bar is wacky enough, but when the bar in question just so happens to be upstairs, well there simply aren’t enough hats in the world to take off to the fellow who pulled this one off. Failing to rise higher than its own gimmick, Mi-2 is a bit of a one-trick pony, but don’t forget this is Poland, where men are still considered a little risqué if they haven’t got a moustache. [...]

Add your comment

See Manufaktura. [...]

Add your comment

The undoing of many a man. Peron 6 has a cup-winning line-up of lager, with your liquid adventuring including Chinese Tsing Tao and Argentinean Quilmes. Fielding the most representatives are beers from Germany and Belgium, and if you haven’t prior experience of Delirium Tremens then you may wish to give it a swerve – order six and you’ll find the pink elephants on the label assuming a lifelike quality. Accessed down a long, narrow stairwell this scabby looking underground bar is a must-visit if drunkenness features in your plans – dust off the drinking clogs, the beer list is unrivalled in Poland. 
[...]

Add your comment

Also known as the ‘artists pub’, which means it draws people with goatee beards and charity shop clothes. Tricky to find, you’ll need to enter a tenement building before heading down the stairs to get into this brilliant basement space. Once inside this bar unravels into a labyrinth of rooms, all smoky, and all fitted out with scruffy junk sale furniture and wobbly chairs. Grope around in the candlelight and you'll either discover the bar or get slapped by a girl.
[...]

Add your comment

A sprawling basement pub whose link with the Stones is limited to some token pics of Mick and Keef; but you’ll be lucky to spot them, the rest of the decorations consist of an endless galaxy of Brit inspired paintings – Tower Bridge, the Queen, double decker buses and our lads giving the French some at Waterloo. Let ’em have it. It’s actually a little glum looking, though the wood carved bar does boast ales like Bombardier and Spitfire (yep, the very ales you left England to escape).
[...]

Add your comment

A real blokes pub this, what with the scattering of football shirts, scarves and team photos. Fitted around the token sporting memorabilia are a load of tacky fittings provided by the Warka brewery, a few TVs, lots of benches and a load of local men sporting close-cropped hair. [...]

Add your comment