🍸 After dark
Bars & nightlife in Vienna
Vienna's night starts in a jewel-box bar Adolf Loos designed in 1908 and ends, if you let it, on the Danube Canal at dawn. In between: hotel bars in velvet, a new generation of serious cocktail rooms, rooftops over the cathedral, two proper jazz clubs and an electronic scene that takes itself seriously. With the U-Bahn running all night at weekends.
150 places
Flex
Innere Stadt4.0(2,009)out of 5 on Google€€€€
The Golden Harp Irish Pub Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus
Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus4.5(1,966)out of 5 on Google€€€€
Open · until 02:00
The classic bars
Loos American Bar is the one to see: a tiny room off Kärntner Straße, designed by Adolf Loos in 1908, with mirrors that make a few square metres look like a hall. It fills quickly and seats almost no one, so go early. The Blaue Bar in the Hotel Sacher is the plush, hushed hotel-bar opposite. Kruger's American Bar and Bar Campari are both in the heart of the 1st.
Views and rooftops
Das Loft, on the top floor of SO/ Vienna across the Danube Canal, looks straight back at the cathedral. SKY Bar sits above Kärntner Straße. Book a window table or accept the second row.
Music
Porgy & Bess is the city's serious jazz club, with a programme that draws international names; Jazzland, in a cellar below the Ruprechtskirche, is the old-school one. For electronic music, Flex on the Danube Canal is the institution, known for its sound system; Grelle Forelle and Das WERK are the other names on the techno side.
Summer on the canal
From spring to autumn, the Danube Canal becomes the city's terrace: Strandbar Herrmann with deckchairs and sand, Motto am Fluss in its glass pavilion at Schwedenplatz. On a warm evening, expect them busy by seven.
The honest word
Ratings for the big clubs swing wildly, and Volksgarten and Pratersauna are the polarising ones: glamorous settings — a pavilion in a park, a former sauna with a pool — with door policies and crowds that decide whether the night works. The Bermuda Triangle bar district around Ruprechtsplatz is loud, young and cheap, and exactly as good as that sounds.
Getting home
The U-Bahn runs all night on Friday and Saturday nights and on nights before public holidays, roughly every 15 minutes; on other nights the NightLine buses take over from around half past midnight. Smoking is banned inside bars and clubs across Austria.
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Tickets & tours
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Where to stay in Vienna
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Before you go
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Frequently asked
Does the Vienna U-Bahn run all night?
On Friday and Saturday nights and on nights before public holidays, yes — roughly every 15 minutes. On other nights it stops around midnight and the NightLine buses (lines starting with N) run instead.
Do Vienna's cocktail bars need reservations?
The small, well-known ones fill up from Thursday to Saturday, so book or arrive early; the Loos American Bar takes very few people at a time. Midweek you can usually walk in.
