An honest tour of Delhi’s low-key drinking culture, moving past the glitzy cocktail lounges to celebrate the local institutions, hidden haunts, and word-of-mouth favourites where great food, easy drinks, and unexpected nights take centre stage.
Bombay will never shut up about its drinking culture. There are guides dedicated to the city’s bars, photographs of dimly lit rooms and battered tables, and enough collective nostalgia around cheap beer and good food to make going for a drink sound like a cultural pilgrimage. Bombay has found a way to turn knowing where to get a cheap drink into a personality trait, and honestly, I can respect that.
Delhi, in this case, has taken a slightly different approach. The city loves its craft cocktails, and its cocktail bars have become their own universe of expensive drinks, Instagram-able interiors and menus that often require a small amount of financial planning before you decide what to order. There is plenty to love about that world, but sometimes you don't want an evening that requires a reservation or a dress code and the emotional strength to spend two grand on something that arrives in a glass the size of a candle, topped with ice the dimensions of a Rubik’s cube.
There is another side to drinking in Delhi that I don’t think gets talked about enough: the places that exist almost completely through word of mouth, where the food is excellent, the drinks are affordable and the atmosphere has developed a character of its own. They never seem too interested in being discovered, which may be part of what makes them so whimsical. Most of the time, you hear about them through a friend of a friend.
I’ve come to love this corner of Delhi nightlife, partly for the love of the game but also because I have a soft spot for bars where you can order a few plates for the table, get your drink, settle in with your friends and let the night unfold without having to make a production of it.
After enough trial and error, I’ve ended up with a fairly strong set of opinions and a lineup that holds up under pressure. So here is my guide to the bars I would actually send a friend to, along with a couple of recommendations that have come from people whose taste I trust enough to take their word for it. The list is assembled through several beers, a frankly enthusiastic approach to chakna and a handful of nights that turned out considerably better than I expected. Consider this a guide to drinking well in Delhi without requiring a second round of financial counselling the next morning.
My first proper introduction to this genre of Delhi bars came through the most employable circumstances possible. During my time at The Leela Palace, Only Bar was the unofficial after-work headquarters for pretty much everyone who worked there. It was five minutes away, the drinks were cheap, the food was good, and more importantly, Leela employees got a discount.
The bar sits on the first floor of a building right outside Bhikaji Cama Place metro station, behind a wooden door with a martini glass for their logo. You walk into a dim room with brown, wooden interiors that genuinely could not care less about trying to impress anyone.
I made some embarrassingly good use of the Leela discount during my internship, usually over a few beers and a plate of chakna after work. The peri peri fries are easy, the chilli chicken is reliable, and the dal tadka is an admittedly strange choice for bar food that I will defend with my life. There is something about eating dal with a beer that sounds so wrong until you try it and realise how I’m actually onto something.
The music is another major part of the appeal. You can be three Kingfishers in, hear something you haven't listened to since you were fourteen and find yourself considerably closer to dancing your way to Summer House because you physically cannot sit still with the kind of music they play in the background.
Only Bar is where I learned that the best nights out can require very little ceremony and I still find myself going back long after my Leela ID stopped getting me a discount.
Consider this part an open love letter to Big Banana, because I genuinely cannot emphasise enough how much I adore this place. Calling it the ultimate Delhi drinking experience is truly an understatement.
For most of my life, I’ve actually disliked drinking. The taste and the smell used to make me uncomfortable and unfortunately I just couldn't find a way to enjoy it. Big Banana single-handedly fixed my relationship with alcohol by just existing.
You walk up to the area and see a huge, lit-up, glowing sign that says Big Banana; you walk past the guard, head up the stairs, and the very first thing that greets you at the entrance is a fish tank. I have this belief, a personal theory if I may, that all the best restaurants or bars in the world feature a fish tank; there is an inherent promise of good fortune and positive omen the second you see fish (shoutout Maa Tara Restaurant in CR Park for backing this).
The space is tight, it’s compact, and packed to the brim after 9pm. If you don't get there early, you’re not getting a table, though I’ve somehow been blessed with unbelievable luck every single time I've gone. The crowd is young, constantly singing along to 2000s Bollywood tracks, talking over each other, and honestly just showing up to have a good time. The last time I was there, the entire room was singing to Khuda Jaane at the top of their lungs and it was the loveliest sight one could’ve hoped for.
My go-to order there is an unhealthy amount of ice topped with whiskey and Coke. We pair it with a very amorphous choice of spread — stuffed kulchas, masala peanuts, chilli chicken, and chilli paneer — a combination that effortlessly satiates everyone's cravings at the table.
I love this place a concerning amount but it’s true; you walk into Big Banana on an ordinary, unassuming night and walk out having witnessed just unadulterated, unfiltered magic.
Samavar was a reward from the universe when our evening was slipping away.
A friend and I had both had a rough day and desperately needed a win. We headed to Big Banana expecting our usual spot, only to find it unexpectedly closed. Standing outside on the pavement feeling defeated, we noticed a few other people in the exact same situation.
We struck up a conversation with them, made light of the situation, and within five minutes, two women in the group said, "Listen, we know a place, but it's super gatekept. Since y’all seem fun, we'll drop the pin."
That brief exchange led to a shared cab ride to this supposedly "hidden gem", as they say, at the Kashmir Education Culture Science Society in GK.
Samavar is relatively quieter, spacious, and full of soul (It also looks a little like that one set from Om Shanti Om that was burned down). It allowed us to sit at a big table yapping for hours. We ordered affordable drinks, ate incredible kung pao chicken, and completely lost track of time. The funny thing is, my friend and I still joke about how nobody would ever believe us or how we ended up having one of our absolute favourite nights out with people we met on a curb five minutes earlier.
While I haven't set foot inside yet, 4S sits on this list strictly through word-of-mouth. It was vouched for by the exact same women who introduced us to Samavar, and after that night, I trust their recommendations with my life. Positioned in Defence Colony, it’s a super packed Chinese/Punjabi institution known for rapid service, affordable drinks, and legendary salt-and-pepper prawns.
Club India Cafe, Paharganj
The ancient patriarch of low-budget drinking in Central Delhi — and famously where Abhay Deol’s drinking scenes in Dev D were actually shot. It’s loud, cramped, and requires a little persistent pestering to get a cold beer, making it a rite of passage for generations of budget travellers and college students passing through Paharganj.
If you ever find yourself staring at an overpriced cocktail menu wondering when going for a drink became so exhausting, just know that Delhi has options. The city’s best nights are almost always the ones that start on a whim in a packed room full of people who just want a good time, leaving you with a great story to tell the next morning and hopefully no hangover.
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