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A Ginginha
Near Largo de São Domingos there are several tiny bars serving up medicinal sized shots of Ginginha , a potent, punch-packing cherry brandy. The most popular such joint is A Ginginha, which has been inebriating locals and visitors since around 1840. You can take your medicine com (with) or sem (without) cherries... most folk prefer cough syrup! Try it once.
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Adega Machado
Filipe de Arajo Machado runs this fado house, started by his fadista mother and father. Clientele is largely groups, but there is a good and lively atmosphere.
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Bar Água No Bico
A cheerful, gay-friendly place with rotating art exhibitions.
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Bar Americano
Across the road from the British Bar, this place is similarly classic. It dates back to the 1920s.
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Bar Marroquino
The Arabian Nights-inspired 'Moroccan Bar' provides a cosy setting for smoking banana- or cherry-flavoured tobacco out of large waterpipes. Look for the blue lantern out the front.
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Bar Snob
This one is a favourite watering hole (serving meals until about ) for shift workers, night owls, journalists and the advertising crowd. A good mixture of red-eyed desperados and storytellers, biding time before the sun comes up and it's time to clock on once more.
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Bicaense
Out of the main action, this place has so-hip-it-hurts clientele. It's dimly lit and decked with old radios and projectors; the back room is used for occasional live music.
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Blues Café
This long-standing, popular bar/restaurant/club offers up deep south ambience, Cajun food and 30-something mating rituals. Weeknights the bar serves up decent drinks and on weekends the disco serves up a mix of Latin, dancefloor hits and cringe-worthy '80s throwbacks.
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British Bar
Resembling an early-20th-century railway bar, this bottle-lined bar has old-fashioned clientele and a backwards clock. There's even a resident shoe shiner.
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Buddha Bar
This big multilevel club is the best of the bunch out in Docas. Buddha statues and other Near Eastern props (red lanterns, gauzy curtains, fountains) decorate the space. Good DJs, a fun dance-happy crowd and that breezy outdoor terrace with bridge views makes it rather worthwhile.
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Café In
About 1km west of Doca de Santo Amaro, Café In offers good views of the bridge from either the riverside terrace of the all-glass bar inside. DJs spin ambient tunes for a fairly well-dressed crowd.
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Café Suave
This unpretentious place attracts a hip, laid-back crowd more interested in conversation than getting blitzed. Minimalist artwork and friendly staff.
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Chapitô
Offers original physical theatre performances, with a theatre school attached. There's a jazz café downstairs with dentist-chair décor, with live music Thursday to Saturday. Like Teatro Taborda, come here for spectacular views and an excellent restaurant.
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Crew Hassan
Manifesting the more creative side of the Lisboêta spirit, this place hosts a wide range of events - readings, film screenings, art openings. It's a comfy place of armchairs, high ceilings and balconies if you want to stop in for a beer or bica (espresso).
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Doca de Santo
This is clatteringly large, but with style and lots of open-air, leafy seating - a glamorous yet relaxed place to settle with a cocktail. Serves good salads (among other things).
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Dock's Club
This is another people-packed place, with mirrors and glitterballs, pop hits and dudes looking to score.
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Finalmente
Just a short walk from Praça do Príncipe Real, Finalmente this fun, absurdly popular place is quite a find. The tiny dance floor is crowded with folk real keen to have a good time. Plus there's the added bonus of some good old nightly drag shows.
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Foxtrot
By the same designer as Pavilhão Chines, this splendidly stately place feels like it has been here since the 1940s (actually only since the '80s), with low lighting, staid sofas, oriental silks and rambling rooms.
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Frágil
While clubbing attention has drifted down to the water, the godfather of Lisbon's nightclubbing scene still gets punters in, although mainly on weekends. A small club by today's standards, it gets pretty sweaty as a mixed crowd dances to the predominantly house music.
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Heróis
A Chiado bar, Heróis is packed with white Panton chairs (plastic retro classics). It hosts a cool, largely gay crowd listening to laid-back house.
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Kapital
For young, wealthy Lisboêtas (blazers, V-necks, big hair on the men; oh-so-casual glam on the women), this is nightclub nirvana. Expect a door policy, chrome, people so cool they're almost frozen and matching music. If it feels too much like a 1980s teen movie, there's an adjoining tunnel to next-door Kremlin.
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Kremlin
Lisbon's home of house doesn't really heat up until a madrugada (the pre-dawn early hours), and these days it's generally only packed on weekends with upwardly mobile Lisboetas keen to dance at this legendary club. While it's a far cry from its heady days during 1988's Summer of Love, Kremlin can still transcend.
