The Best Bars in Tbilisi

Tbilisi is known for its wine, but the bar scene goes well past the wine list: cocktail bars in old Sololaki townhouses, a chacha bar pouring 40+ kinds of grape brandy, Georgian craft beer on tap and courtyard bars in converted Soviet factories. Here's what you need to know about the 12 bars I'd pick, what a beer, a glass of wine and a cocktail cost, and which neighborhood to base your night in.

The best bars in Tbilisi at a glance

Tbilisi drinks cheaply and late, and its best bars are small, personal and mostly within walking distance of each other. My list mixes cocktail bars, a chacha bar, one wine bar, one craft beer bar and a few places that do a bit of everything, because a good night here usually takes in three of those.

The 12 best bars in Tbilisi, ranked

My order runs from the bars I'd send a first-time visitor to, down to the more specific picks. Each entry says where the bar is, what to order and who it suits.

1. Crossroads Bar

Crossroads is the best bar in Tbilisi for making new friends, and the one I'd send anyone to on their first night. It sits at 30 Shalva Dadiani Street in Sololaki, a few minutes' walk from Freedom Square and the Old Town. The cocktails are properly made, but the room is what sets it apart: very open and social, with a real mix of expats and locals, and easy to walk into on your own.

The week runs on events. Wednesday is the expat meetup and the best night for meeting people, karaoke takes over on Tuesdays and Sundays, and Thursday is live music. If you only have one night in town, make it a Wednesday.

Start with the Pinelet, the house bestseller: gin, pinecone liqueur, lime and simple syrup, with a soft pine aroma. The Walnut Ember is the slow sipper, bourbon, red vermouth and walnut bitters finished with oak smoke. The Bloody Mary is built on a sangrita of orange, tomato, lemon and grapefruit juice with sriracha, cilantro, Svan salt, oyster and Worcestershire sauce, and the White Russian arrives with a smoking cinnamon stick.

It's the bar on this list I'd pick for a solo traveler, because the meetups and karaoke nights hand you a reason to talk to strangers and the regulars are used to new faces. Crossroads Bistro at the same address is where I'd go for brunch the next morning, with draniki, syrniki and shakshuka on the menu and coffee until 11 PM.

2. Chacha Time

Chacha Time, at 5 Geronti Kikodze Street, is the place to get to know chacha, the grape brandy Georgians distill from the skins and seeds left after winemaking. The shelves hold 40+ chachas from across the country, including barrel-aged and single-grape bottles, plus fruit tinctures, all poured in 25 ml measures so a flight doesn't flatten you.

If neat spirits aren't your thing, the cocktail list does the work: a Chacha Sour, a Chacha Spritz, a Bloody Mariam and a New York Saperavi. My pick is the Old Georgia, an Old Fashioned made with chacha aged in smoked oak barrels, and there's an off-menu chacha Manhattan if you ask. Go on a weekday, when it's quieter and the bartenders have time to talk, and order the nadughi with matsoni and ajika or the fried garlic bread with cheese sauce.

3. 41° Art of Drinks

41° is the bar I'd pick for a serious cocktail. Find 19 Galaktion Tabidze Street, slide open the metal door and head down into a brick-walled basement that seats about 25. There's no fixed menu: the house list is handwritten in a diary and changes roughly every month with the season, and the bartenders will build you something custom if nothing on the page fits.

Past diaries have carried the Back to Black, made with Monkey Shoulder and Nikka From The Barrel and served with black walnuts, and a Peruvian Flip. With so few seats it fills fast on weekends, so come early. Tbilisi's cocktail bars cluster on this stretch of Sololaki, and 41° is the most bartender-driven of them.

4. Apotheka Bar

Apotheka fills a pharmacy that opened in 1902 on Leonidze Street, near Freedom Square. Chef Tekuna Gachechiladze turned it into a cocktail bar and kept the Art Nouveau interior. The bartenders work in white lab coats and the drinks are named like prescriptions: Penicillin, Valeriana, Aspirin and Floradol.

Come for the room as much as the drinks. I'd bring a date here, or stop in for one elegant drink before dinner. It's quieter than Crossroads and not the place for a loud group, but if you only see one beautiful old interior on a night out, make it this one.

5. Ambavi

Ambavi is the speakeasy I'd show a first-timer, because the way in feels like a secret. At 12 Galaktion Tabidze Street, look for a beige wooden door with AMBAVI written under the house number, climb to the top floor and ring the bell. A doorman lets people in only when there's room, so on a busy night you wait on the stairs.

Inside it's red light, vintage cinema chairs, a DJ and a separate smoking room. The drinks are classics done properly, with a Negroni as the safe order, plus local bottled beer. It works best late, as the second or third stop of the night, and it's a few doors from 41° and Vino Underground.

6. Lado by Valiko Mansion

Lado by Valiko Mansion sits on Gudiashvili Square, a few minutes' walk from Freedom Square, in a vintage, eclectic room. On weekdays it's quiet enough for a long conversation; on Friday and Saturday it fills with a pre-club crowd warming up before the techno starts.

The signature cocktail is the Yellow Mellow, and the kitchen does light food (salads, bruschetta and pasta) if you need something before a late night. I'd use it as the warm-up bar on a weekend, when the room has the most energy, and save the weekday visits for a quiet drink on the square.

7. Fabrika

Fabrika is a former Soviet sewing factory at 8 Egnate Ninoshvili Street, now a hostel, bar, restaurant and co-working space built around a big courtyard. You don't need to stay there to drink there: the courtyard fills with locals as well as hostel guests, and the indoor cocktail lounge is full of plants.

It's the easiest place in Tbilisi for a group to land without a plan. Beer runs 7 to 10 GEL, cocktails 14 to 20 GEL, there's no cover and DJs play from Thursday. The terrace is at ground level, not a rooftop, and the boutiques around the courtyard make it a good first stop before the bars on Aghmashenebeli Avenue.

8. Vino Underground

One wine bar makes my general list, and it's this brick basement on Galaktion Tabidze Street, opened by natural winemakers and one of the first places in Tbilisi to pour organic Georgian wine. The list leans on small producers making amber wine in qvevri, the clay vessels buried in the ground, and the English-speaking staff are good at pouring you something you've never heard of.

A glass costs 10 to 20 GEL and a bottle 35 to 120 GEL, and it opens at 2 PM daily, so it works as an afternoon stop too. Tbilisi has a circuit of natural wine bars, from Ferment on Gudiashvili Square to Wine Point near Freedom Square, but for a single glass between cocktails this is the one.

9. Abragi

Abragi is on Dadiani Street, the same street as Crossroads, and it's where I'd send a beer drinker. Georgian craft beer is a small scene of local brewers, and Abragi pours many drafts you won't find anywhere else in the city, plus bottles from Megobrebi, Underground, Svia, Otia's Ezo, Amphora and NaturAle.

Ask for a mini tasting before you commit to a pint, because the styles swing widely and the staff will steer you. If Abragi is full, Process Craft Beer Bar opposite Stamba on Kostava Street is the other beer bar I rate, a tiny place pouring odd styles like tomato gose, tarragon sour and cherry ale.

10. Black Dog Bar at Wine Factory N1

Black Dog has two locations, and the better one is at Wine Factory N1 on Vasil Petriashvili Street, an 1896 wine factory turned into a courtyard of bars and restaurants. This branch is roomier and opens up outdoors in the warm months, with craft beer, cocktails, burgers and grills, and it's pet friendly.

Black Dog has been going since 2016 and hosts rock, reggae and jazz evenings. It's the bar I'd pick on a summer evening when you want to sit outside with food. The same complex holds Kikodze Bar (coffee by day, cocktails by night), Teko's Tacos for a passion fruit margarita, and Sadzvele Wine Hub, so you can stay put all evening.

11. Dedaena Bar

Dedaena Bar, in Dedaena Park, is the local pre-party spot: live music, Alkhanaidze beer, cocktails, chacha and a house Georgian gin, with veggie burgers and falafel wraps to line your stomach. Rooster Bar and Grill on the ground floor of the same site is leafier and calmer, with cocktails, beer and mains, and better for a summer dinner outdoors.

Dedaena is the right call if you're heading to a club afterwards, because most of the crowd is doing the same. Go for the bands and the energy rather than a quiet drink.

12. Warszawa

Warszawa is a tiny Polish-themed bar at 19 Aleksandr Pushkin Street, right by Freedom Square. The walls are papered in old Polish newspapers, there are only a few seats, and the crowd spills onto the pavement. The drinks are among the cheapest in the center, and the flavored chacha shots, watermelon included, are the thing to order.

It's not a place to sit for an evening. Use it the way everyone else does: one cheap round on the pavement at the start of the night, then on into Sololaki.

Where to drink in Tbilisi by neighborhood

The easiest way to plan a night out in Tbilisi is to pick one neighborhood and walk. Taxis are cheap, but the good bars cluster tightly, and three bars on two streets beat an evening spent in cars.

Sololaki and Freedom Square

Sololaki is where I'd base any night out. On Dadiani Street you have Crossroads and Abragi; on Galaktion Tabidze Street, 41°, Ambavi, Vino Underground and Rum Roof; Apotheka is on Leonidze Street, Warszawa on Pushkin Street, and Lado by Valiko Mansion and Ferment Wine Bistro sit on Gudiashvili Square. The streets are old and easy to walk, and all of it is a few minutes from Freedom Square.

Here's the route I'd walk on a Thursday, start to finish, without needing a taxi until the end.

Vera and Kostava Street

Vera is quieter and more local. Wine Factory N1 on Vasil Petriashvili Street packs Black Dog Bar, Kikodze Bar, Teko's Tacos and Sadzvele Wine Hub into one courtyard.

On Kostava Street, Cafe Stamba in the Stamba Hotel does light, fruity cocktails under pink walls.

Warehouse, the no-menu wine bar, is in the Stamba courtyard.

Process Craft Beer Bar, the taproom I'd pick if Abragi is full, is right opposite Stamba.

Near Rustaveli metro, Akhvlediani Street is a short strip of bars made for walking until something looks good.

Old Town: Shardeni and Erekle II Streets

Shardeni Street, by the sulfur baths, is the tourist strip: cobbled, lined with terraces, easy to find, and the most expensive place in Tbilisi for a drink. Erekle II Street nearby is a prettier pedestrian street with outdoor tables under string lights.

For a cocktail in the Old Town itself, Barbar'a Bar at 33 Kote Afkhazi Street has a white room with Art Deco touches, neon, disco balls and a long spritz list.

I'd eat in Old Tbilisi and then walk up to Sololaki to drink.

Marjanishvili and Aghmashenebeli Avenue

Across the river, Davit Aghmashenebeli Avenue in Marjanishvili has a long pedestrian stretch of bars and restaurants, which makes it easy to hop between places without a plan. Fabrika is close by on Ninoshvili Street, so the two make one easy evening, and this side of the river is where I'd take a group that wants to stay out without dressing up.

Tbilisi bars with live music

A band is one of the best reasons to pick a bar here. Crossroads has live music every Thursday, Dedaena Bar is built around live music, and Black Dog Bar hosts rock, reggae and jazz evenings. Brouge is the moodiest of them: a brick basement lit by candles inside Zeche, a hall in a former tobacco factory canteen, with local acts on stage.

Tbilisi's live music and jazz scene runs well beyond bars, from Georgian polyphonic folk to concert halls, but for a drink with a band in front of you these four are where I'd start. Check each bar's Instagram on the day for the lineup.

What drinks cost in Tbilisi bars

Drinking in Tbilisi is cheap by Western European standards, and the gap is biggest on beer and wine. These are the 2026 ranges I'd budget, in lari (GEL).

A full night of dinner, a few bars and a club comes to 80 to 150 GEL per person. Skip the club and the Shardeni terraces and you'll spend well under that.

Tips for a night out in Tbilisi

Getting home. Taxis in Tbilisi are cheap and easy as long as you order them in an app. Bolt and Yandex Taxi run around the clock and cost 8 to 15 GEL within the center; the unlicensed drivers waiting outside club exits are the ones who overcharge.

Cards and cash. Most bars take cards, but clubs prefer cash, so carry some lari if the night might end on a dance floor.

Where the night goes next. Nights start late and run long. For a sunset drink before the bars, the rooftop bars are the move: Point Terrasse on Anton Catholicos Street looks at Narikala Fortress and Holy Trinity Cathedral at once, and Art Café on Betlemi Street has two rooftop floors and a DJ. At the other end of the night, the techno clubs such as Bassiani, under the Dinamo Arena football stadium, take over once the bars wind down.

Drugs. Georgia's drug laws are very strict. Don't buy anything offered to you in a bar or club, however relaxed the room feels.

Going solo. Solo travelers fit easily into the bar and wine scene, and English is common in bars with a mixed crowd. The Wednesday expat meetup at Crossroads and Chacha Time's bar seats are the easiest places to end up talking to someone.