Bar Mate is a loft-style bar in Helsinki's Design District focused on highballs and classic cocktails paired with contemporary bar food, billed as 'Highballs & Small Plates', with warm skewers and dips served with house-made potato flatbread. It was founded by bartender Mika Ammunét of Mate Hospitality, who says the name reflects 'a sense of shared experience, mutual respect and unconditional assistance'. The entrance is shared with Mothership of Work, marked by joint black-and-yellow signs. It won Best Cocktail Bar for Finland at the 2026 Bartenders' Choice Awards.
Trillby & Chadwick is a speakeasy cocktail bar in central Helsinki, operated by Son of a Punch, built around the fictional premise of occupying the old Helsinki office of a detective agency founded in London in 1898 by Hildebrand Trillby and Ashcroft Chadwick, with the Helsinki office established in 1924. In keeping with the hidden-bar concept, the operator publishes opening hours and contact details but no street address. It won Best Cocktail Menu for Finland at the 2026 Bartenders' Choice Awards.
A cocktail bar in the centre of Helsinki with a moody, unhurried room that is built for staying rather than passing through. Classics alongside the house list, and it works as well for one drink after work as for a whole evening.
Chihuahua Julep is Helsinki's agave-friendly cocktail bar, pouring mezcal and tequila drinks behind a doorbell entrance on Erottajankatu. The house rules are part of the charm: the room is a phone-free zone with sealed Yondr pouches at the door, so the drinks and conversation get full attention.
A Helsinki bar that builds its drinks around northern nature and the turn of the seasons, each one told as its own story rather than listed by spirit. Open Wednesday to Saturday.
A Kallio bar, now under one roof with its sister restaurant The Bull. House cocktails are named for what is in them, Hazelnut and Honey or Cola and Port, and sit beside a long list of classics. A late room with dim light and no ceremony.
These are the cocktail bars specifically. The full Helsinki guide ranks the best bars of every style, and the directory lists all 6 with a map and filters.
Best bars in Helsinki