When you’re American and you tell people you’re heading to Beirut on vacation, nobody will believe you. “Sure,” they will crack, “Beirut makes a lot more financial sense than North Korea.” Perhaps after a quick Google Maps search to remind themselves where Lebanon actually is, they will inform you that it shares a border with Syria, and that Beirut is but 70 short miles from Damascus.
Here’s the thing: People in the rest of the world have been partying here for ages. In the Middle East, Lebanon is considered a beacon of peace and progressivism. It’s where rich kids from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Gulf buy their luxury goods and blow off steam.
I spent three nights in Beirut this spring, and the only time I ever felt unsafe was when my Uber driver couldn’t figure out his GPS. Yes, the city was once wracked by civil war, but that war ended 27 years ago. Beirut today is a gorgeous place, a picture of cosmopolitanism, with a promenade along the Mediterranean Sea and maybe the best nightlife I’ve ever witnessed. The weather’s balmy. The food’s incredible. You should go. Here’s how to do it.
By 10 o’clock, you’ve already had dinner at Loris and done your share of shopping at the four-story concept shop Le 66 and the east-west mashup boutique Orient 499. Now you’re ready to drink.
If you tell your cabbie to drop you anywhere in Mar Mikhael, you’re gonna have a good time. It’s a rowdy nightlife neighborhood akin to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, mostly gentrified but with hints of scruff. Bars line Armenia Street, which is the spine of the neighborhood, and they’ll be packed with either locals or tourists from the region. (You won’t run into other Americans, which frankly is part of the pleasure.) Most of these bars require reservations, even if you’re not eating, so call ahead.
Just off Armenia you’ll find Mothershucker, which bills itself as an oyster and gin bar. I’d shown up around 8 and it was dead. When I came back a couple hours later, it had transformed into a club packed with astonishingly beautiful people flirting and smoking and drinking and convulsing to “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life.” I’d read before I came that Beirut’s famed Skybar club had closed, as if that one closure signified some kind of broader decline, but this brand new spot suggested the kind of renewal that’s crucial for any scene to survive.
The subterranean nightclub B018 is to Beirut what Berghain is to Berlin, a venue so famous that it’s almost a cliché. Whatever. The place rules. It’s a former bomb bunker located in the middle of a circular parking lot, and it’s emblematic of Beirut’s civic disposition—which, as one prominent Middle East scholar puts it, is to make something useful out of its war-torn history and keep on dancing till the world ends. Anyway, there’s no building: just a staircase down, down, down.
When you finally reach the dance floor, you may have to pay a cover charge. Mine was $50 and included three drinks, which by the standards of New York City constituted a bargain. From there it was pretty much like being in an American club, in that the music was Drake and Migos and the other usual suspects that get played everywhere around the world that people gather to have a good time. But it was different from an American dance club in that the venue was not populated exclusively with douche nozzles.
Around 1 in the morning, I looked up and was surprised to see the sky. Either the club’s ceiling had retracted while I was dancing or we had literally torn the roof off.
By the time I stumbled out of B-018, all I wanted in life was chicken shawarma. I conveyed as much to one of the taxi drivers waiting outside the club and was promptly spirited away to Barbar, a kebab house of legendary repute—famous locally for having never closed a single day since 1979, including the day when its entrance was blasted by a rocket-propelled grenade.
According a photo on my phone time-stamped 1:57 AM, I ate the marinated shawarma off a metal tray, which had six cafeteria-style compartments for various shredded-poultry accoutrements: hummus, potato salad, pickles, slaw, pita. Apparently there are three Barbar locations around the city. I think the one I visited was just south of downtown, but I can’t be certain. My sense is that it doesn’t matter which one you visit. Expect harsh lights, hard seats, and food that gets better the drunker you are. Mine was very, very delicious.
For a centrally located, affordably priced, stylishly appointed room in Beirut it’s hard to beat O Monot hotel, which opened in 2014. The front desk can book most anything for you—including excursions to the nearby Lebanese wine country—and will happily do your laundry when your clubbing clothes come home reeking of smoke. The rooms themselves are architecturally interesting; voyeurs will appreciate the glass windows looking from the bedroom into the bathroom, so that you may watch your roommate use the bidet. And in the morning, there’s a vast (and free) breakfast buffet on the tenth floor, with views over the city and plenty of za’atar bread to soak up your hangover.
