Bars We Like
Bars in Newcastle that are worth a visit.
If you enjoy the Club, you may enjoy them. None of them are what you would call a mainstream bar & are quite probably not what you would expect from the media image portrayed of bars in Newcastle.
So many of the bars in Newcastle are all the same, that these individual little drinking holes are well worthy of your support. It’s not like you could buy a spot on this page, if you are a bar & you are on here, it’s ‘cos you are really good.
They’re a little series of gems to seek out if you please…
The Cluny is a little bar/live music venue/food place which you will find down in the Ouseburn Valley near to Byker & Heaton. They have more live acts on than any other venue in the City during the course of a year. They also have a range of beers so comprehensive as to border on the ridiculous.
The food is great, the staff are friendly and it has a cool clientele of all ages, depending on what band is on. They do the Sunday dinner thing & they have a nice outdoor bit where you can sit in the Summer. Always big on Bank Holidays, the Cluny adds a lot to both the musical & drinking cultures of the City. The firm that owns them, ‘The Head of Steam’ have other bars in town, but this is the best of the bunch. Newcastle wouldn’t be the same without it.
The Forth Hotel.
The Forth Hotel is down near the Central Station on Pink Lane. It has been a bar as long as anyone can remember & in recent years has cultivated a little semi Amsterdam type vibe. It’s really well located & is one of the few bars in town that is always busy.
They recently stuck a little roof terrace on top which works well & they also have a good range of beers & food. A broad cross section of people go from after workers to would be bohemians & general cool, arty type cats. It’s easy to get to & is treated as a second home by friendly people, probably more so than any other bar in the City Centre. It’s a bit of a meeting place, as it is so central & very popular & busy when there are big shows at the O2 Academy, which is a 3 minute walk away.
If there can be such a thing, this is a true City Centre ‘local’.
The Cumberland Arms.
The Cumberland Arms is weird… It’s a great bar, the type of which simply don’t exist anymore. It does the real ale thing & has a top take on toasties. It has a live thing going on upstairs, with bands & ‘Whose line is it anyway’ type comedy capers. All sorts of weird stuff happens here & very often it can be like having gone back in time.
There is an outside, sitty down bit & you can hire hot water bottles & blankets (weird), attend one of their audience participation busker nights inside (weird), which are far less pompous than they sound. They have a sporadic, ongoing thing with Morris type, sword wielding dancers (weird) & evenings devoted to ukelele playing punters, who look as if they all just walked in unexpectedly & started strumming together by coincidence (weird).
There are 2 rooms downstairs, so you can escape the folkiness if you wish & they have recently added a cosy B&B upstairs to rave reviews. Alongside all the weirdness there is a proper intimate cosiness to this place & in the winter when the fire is on, it feels like a completely different country. In addition to this, the staff generate an endearing family type vibe (so endearing as to almost be weird…), if it wasn’t so genuine.
Popped in with the puppy the other night & they have now finished extending the bar, to make a little more room & have even more crazy beers on the go. They have also now totally locked the food side of things - just when we thought it couldn’t get any better!
Representative of a genuine subculture, The Cumberland is a fantastic place. A regional, possiblly national treasure & at times, a parallel reality.
Without question, it’s the finest place to drink in Newcastle.
The Free Trade.
The Free Trade is on St Lawrence Road at the far end of the Quayside. It’s a totally unique place. You could call it quaint… or you could say they haven’t decorated since the 60s. It has a free jukebox and the best views of the bridges, river Tyne that you could wish for.
It’s a summer pub with a big grassy outside bit & it’s also a winter pub once they get the fires going. Even though it’s little, you get a massive connection with the seasons any time of year, through its big windows. It’s one of those places that seems to be crying out to be done up on the one hand, yet almost magical in its unchanging, delapidated charm on the other.
A great dating bar as it provides a total counterpoint to any other bar you may visit on a night out. The clientele are varied and you never know who you might bump into. It’s sort of a mark of how well you know the City as it is such a long standing and unchanged institution. If you’ve never been to the Free Trade, you aren’t really living in Newcastle. The last of a dying breed…
Popolo.
Popolo is the City’s top cocktail bar. It’s super handy as it’s just up the road from World HQ. They do mojitos & all that ‘Sex in the City’ cosmopolitan type palaver.
It doesn’t however, suffer from the ‘general public’ type feel of bars that do the same sort of drinks, on the City’s established posh drinking circuits. They don’t let knackers in, the food is good & there are lots of places to sit.
It was established by an Italian family who have bars & eating places elsewhere in town & the dudes who bought it from them & run it now, have stayed true to its slick European feel.
Possibly the City’s top dating bar & very popular with the classy ladies.
The Telegraph.
The Telegraph is behind the Central Station on Orchard Street. It at one time employed some of the City’s more exuberant characters & has recently added an upstairs outdoor terracey bit.
Years ago we used to run it, when it was full of alcoholic posties from the Royal Mail sorting office next door. These days the current owners have upped the game & with the large office developments nearby the clientele are much nicer now.
Very popular with indie kids & people heading to the Arena. In our opinion it’s nowhere near as good as the other bars on this page, but still worth a look.