The 6 Best Bars in Dresden

Updated October 2026

Dresden is a city of opposites, Altstadt and Neustadt, old and new, and its bars play in the first league of German cocktails. The best bars in Dresden sit in the baroque Altstadt around the Frauenkirche, across the Elbe in the Neustadt, and in Plauen to the south. Bar 1705 in the Kempinski's Taschenbergpalais, named for the year the palace was founded and modeled on New York's Oak Room, grew out of the old Karl May Bar and runs from classics to milk punch. Dresden Gin House, the red bar of Hotel Suitess beside the Frauenkirche, seats about 30 for gin twists on the classics, and Twist Bar, open since 2010 on the sixth floor of the INNSiDE by Meliá, looks out at the Frauenkirche dome. In the Neustadt, Stephan Herz opened HERZ american bar in 2017 after nearly 20 years at Schumann's in Munich, and PiNTA on Louisenstraße, a veteran of the scene, takes no reservations except for tastings. SonderBar, in Plauen since 1994, fills a wood-paneled room. These are the six we would start with.