The Best Places to Drink in Hamburg

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The front door is locked, buzzer required, reservation recommended, which is either thrilling or annoying depending on your mood. Le Lion is a serious cocktail bar in Hamburg with two rooms: a plush downstairs lounge where the bartenders work with quiet focus, and the Pine Room above, where the bar cuts through the center and guests literally walk through it to reach their seats. The performers are the point here, and they know it.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

The highball glasses here are 220ml, which is basically a tall person's thimble, and that's the whole philosophy in miniature. The Boilerman is a dive bar in Eppendorf run by the same person behind the very formal Le Lion, and the contrast seems deliberate. Bottled beers, American whiskey, and those precise little highballs fill the menu. Neighborhood regulars and cocktail nerds occupy the same barstools without anyone making it weird.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The orange-braided flex of the Edison bulbs is strung with a precision that borders on obsessive, which tells you something about the people running this concrete-and-glass cocktail bar in Feldstraße. The industrial look softens in summer when the full glass front folds open and drinkers drift onto the terrace. There's also a cozy backyard for when the street gets loud.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The hook at Boilerman is the highball, executed with the kind of seriousness that makes you reconsider whether you've ever had one before. This cocktail bar inside the 25 Hours Hotel in HafenCity is the larger, second outpost of a Hamburg original, and it carries the same philosophy: one format, done obsessively well. The waterfront crowd tends toward the effortlessly cool, which is either inspiring or mildly exhausting depending on the night.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide