Cocktails in Wroclaw: Our 10 Favorite Cocktail Bars

If we had to send you to just one cocktail bar in Wroclaw, it would probably be this one. Rusty Rat sits under the old railway arches on Wojciecha Bogusławskiego 23, and the menu changes with the seasons, so we never quite know what we will get, which is exactly why we love it. The bartenders really know their spirits and are happy to build something around whatever mood you are in.

One of our favourite menus was the Wroclaw guidebook themed menu, where you could for example order the “Japanese Garden”. But also if you just come up with some direction that you like, the team is really great and helpful with selecting (or creating) the drink of your desire.

A little hint from us: it gets properly busy on weekends, so book a table if you can. And they also have an excellent snacks menu that goes beyond just something to nibble, like a good tatar or burger.

T57 is a little off the usual tourist trail (you could easily walk past it), and that is part of the fun. This is one of the most creative bars on the list. The last time we visited, the whole menu was built like a full meal, split into starters, main courses and desserts, and we ended up with a tom yum cocktail that literally glowed in the dark.

We are not making that up. The team here treats a cocktail like a dish, playing with savoury flavours, unexpected spices and a good bit of theatre. The menu is changing from time to time, so what you find may be different, but the ambition stays the same.

You will find it at Tęczowa 57. Just note it is closed on Mondays and Sundays.

Proof is the hardest one to find, and it is meant to be. It is a speakeasy hidden below the Fiore café (which we also do recommend!) on Plac Solny, behind an unmarked door, and in the evening you actually ring a bell to get in. It is run by the same team behind Rusty Rat (our number one above), so you already know the drinks are going to be good.

The signature cocktails are named after places, we still think about the one simply called Wroclaw, and every drink arrives looking like a small piece of art.

We wrote more about tracking it down in our Wroclaw nightlife guide, which is the best place to start if you want to plan a whole night out around here. Closed Mondays, and they take table reservations until 10 pm.

Szkocka calls itself a cocktail and whisky bar, and the whisky part is definitely not a footnote: there are more than 200 single malts on the shelves, all inside the old Dworzec Świebodzki station building. If one person in your group is deep into whisky and another just wants a great cocktail, this is the perfect compromise.

The cocktail menu is clever in its own right, one recent menu was built around the different grains used to make whisky, with a drink for each. If you like a cigar with your dram, there is a room for that too. It is the kind of place you settle into for the whole evening.

They also offer Whisky Tastings if you are into that kind of thing, you can check the availabilities below.

Dziady i Koktajle has the coziest, most laid-back vibe on this list, a little studenty in the best possible way. It hides on Jatki, the old butchers’ lane that is now full of tiny art galleries, and it works as a cultural club as much as a bar: specialty coffee by day, cocktails by night, with concerts and exhibitions in between.

The drinks are genuinely fun. Each one comes with a little backstory (some of them based on conspiracy theories, which tells you everything about the mood in here), and the menu descriptions are honestly half the entertainment. Ask the guys behind the bar what to try, they clearly enjoy this. If you want somewhere unpretentious to actually talk to people, this is it.

When the weather is good, this is where we take friends and family. Wdech/Wydech sits on the roof of Concordia Design on Wyspa Słodowa 7, one of the biggest rooftop terraces in Poland, with a wall of over 30,000 plants and a view straight over the Odra and the old town.

The cocktail menu leans right into all that greenery, with plenty of herbs and flowers. And this is worth knowing: they make some of the best alcohol-free cocktails in the city, so nobody in your group has to sit there nursing a sad glass of water. It is a summer spot, so do check it is open before you head over.

We put it in our rooftop bars guide too, if you want the full drink-with-a-view list.

Craft is the most grown-up option here. It is the bar of the five-star The Bridge hotel on Ostrów Tumski (Cathedral Island), right beside the Gothic cathedral. What we love is that the cocktails follow the kitchen’s seasonal menu, so the drinks shift with whatever is fresh, built from real ingredients rather than a wall of bottled syrups.

We have always loved their beetroot cocktail when it is on (and plenty of others), and their signature Secret Garden, a nod to the nearby Botanical Garden, is a lovely one to open with. We also recommend the food here and wrote more about it in our Wroclaw fine dining blog post.

In summer there is also a rooftop Sky Bar upstairs with a view over the river. Come here when you want to feel a little fancy, it is that kind of night.

Papa Bar is the larger option for you. It fills a restored tenement just off the market square on Rzeźnicza 32, a huge space built around an enormous oak bar with something like a thousand bottles behind it. It looks impressive the second you walk in, and the drinks live up to the room: fresh juices, seasonal creations, and bartenders who clearly know exactly what they are doing.

What really sets Papa apart, though, is the kitchen. This is the one we send you to when you want proper food with your cocktails, not just a bowl of nuts. The menu is genuinely good (the tartare and the seafood get ordered a lot at our table), so you can settle in for a full evening of drinks and dinner in the same place. Quick heads-up: it opens at 5 pm daily, gets lively later on weekends with live music, and it is strictly 21+.

Sitting outside is lovely in summer, with one catch: on weekend nights Rzeźnicza turns into a bit of a racetrack, and we are still only half-joking about keeping a carton of eggs handy for the boy racers 😉

If T57 and Proof are the mad scientists of this list, Szklarnia is the opposite, and we mean that as a compliment. No glowing potions or wild experiments here. What you get instead is a bar that knows the classics inside out and makes them properly, every single time. Sometimes that is exactly what you are after.

It is also the most effortlessly hipster spot on the list (plywood, plants, a glass roof, the name literally means “greenhouse”), and its best trick is the courtyard. On a warm evening, that inner patio is one of the nicest places in town for a drink.

You will find it at Ofiar Oświęcimskich 19, on one of the coolest little streets in Wroclaw. A little hint from us: the entrance is genuinely hard to spot, so head into the main courtyard and look for the door with the logo over in the corner.

Dom Whisky is the outlier on this list, and that is exactly why it earns its place. For years, as part of the old Coctail Bar Max, it was one of the biggest names in town for a proper drink, a huge round bar with a tower of bottles in the middle. It has since re-opened in a smaller, more focused form, and these days it is first and foremost a specialty shop for fine spirits, open through the day at Rzeźnicza 28/31.

Walk in and a little Wroclaw dwarf greets you at the door with a whisky glass in his hand (of course he does 🙂). Inside is one of the largest selections of premium bottles in the city, whisky above all, but also rum, cognac, gin and more, with staff who genuinely know what they are talking about. This is where we go when a cocktail somewhere on this list has done its job and we want to take the good stuff home. Open daytime into the evening, and closed on Sundays.

Quote from one of their staff: “If we do not have this bottle available here for sale, you will not find it anywhere else in Wroclaw either”.