Bars We Like
Bars in Newcastle that are well 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. If you are a bar & you are on here, it’s ‘cos we think you are really worth mentioning & add positively to Newcastle nightlife.
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.
Barkollo.
This is a lovely little spot that hasn’t been open that long & is just down the road from Leazes Park, in the building that used to be Toscana’s Eaterie. They do beer, food, music & a load of differing exhibitions & stuff. They have several rooms & you can also drink & sit outside. Barkollo is very ‘Amsterdam’ indeed & a lot like having a drink around a pal’s house.
It has a really nice laid back & informal atmosphere & loads of lovely arty eclectic little touches, in both it’s decor & overall groove. Like all the best bars, you can instantly tell it is run by people who actually care, putting it miles away from anything mainstream & positioning it smack in the City’s underground.
Everything other places seem to be abandoning (see Forth Hotel below) they embrace. If you haven’t been here before you absolutely must go, as it will put a smile on your face to see that bars like this one are now open in Newcastle & if this is the way things are finally starting to go, count us in.
Simple & cute though it may seem, this bar a major leap forward for central Newcastle & we honestly can’t recommend it highly enough.
The Dog & Parrot. This bar has been removed from our listing as it has recently been done up & lost what we felt made it great… which is a shame.
The Broad Chare. Our opinions on this bar have been moved to our ’Cool places to eat’ section, as the food there is such a big part of it’s overall vibe.
The Forth Hotel.
This 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 usually busy.
A while ago they 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 has always been a true City Centre ‘local’.
Seemingly, a recent change in strategy, has meant that for some reason they seem to have decided to try to go a bit ‘up market’ & now set wine glasses on the tables & have a large area set aside for dining. This is to the detriment of the venue and hopefully is something they’ll knock on the head (once they get over this apparent knee jerk reaction to the recent opening of the Town Wall, next door).
I would be a crime if they were to go all yuppie wine bar & mess up the established groove that people love them for.
The Town Wall.
This is one of the newest drinking places on the scene & is directly opposite the Forth Hotel (mentioned above). It was formerly called ‘Coco V’, which has got to have been one of the worst bar names ever..? The decor appeared to be a stab at bringing a Morrocan type chic to Newcastle & it understandably died on it’s arse…. Bars which give themselves daft poncie names deserve to rot.
Now as the Town Wall it’s been reborn, rejigged design wise & is a rare example of a bar that is brand new, yet feels to have been part of the town for years. It’s got a really warm feel, loads of great beers including draught Red Stripe & top notch food. There are loads of tables & the lighting is nice & subdued. It gonna wear in over time which it will benefit from as it’s a little ‘new’ round the edges, making it appear a tiny bit like that bar the Bacchus on High Bridge Street, to the untrained eye.
You can tell though that it’s just because it is new & it’s direction thankfully, seems nothing like that.
It feels very roomy & European (in a good way) & the walls are painted the most divine shade of deep green. Big on detail, all the sinage is hand painted on the walls as well, which is a lovely touch. All this plus the similar location, feel & clientle to it’s established neighbour, make it an absolute winner & without question, this is one of the best new bars to open in town for a good long while. Put it on your ‘ must visit’ list.
In terms of it’s overall groove, it reminds us a lot of Cafe Luxembourg in Amsterdam.
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, a live upstairs venue for bands & 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.
If it has a downside, it’s that as it has a stone floor & big glass windows, these make the acoustics too harsh, so the music sometimes, especially on a weekend can be over bearing in it’s volume. Catch it on a not so busy day & it’s a really on drinking spot to hang out in.
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 maybe not quite as as on as the other bars featured in this page, but still worth a look.