5 Best Bars in Phuket Old Town

I strongly believe that Phuket Old Town doesn't get enough credit. Everyone I know flies in for the Patong and Karon beaches, some basic Full Moon party, and the same stretch of the Nai Harn beach they’ve probably been returning to since 2009. Many forget that tucked inside the Sino-Portugese grid of Thalang Road is a whole bar scene that’s really putting Phuket on the map.

The Old Town runs on a different clock. The buildings are crumbling and beautiful, the streets are narrow, the signs are in three scripts. In the day, the yellow, pink, blue buildings bask in the sun as hawkers lure you in for local Thai meals. Here, doors are covered in keys and restored shophouses house the best cocktail programs on the island.

Best Bars in Phuket

I spent a few nights working through it and these are the five that stayed with me.

The Fool Speakeasy

This place is pretty easy to walk past, which I guess is the whole point considering I almost missed the entrance twice. Set inside a restored three-storey building in Phuket Old Town, The Fool is a tarot-themed bar. Inside, you’ll find low light, copper-lined black glassware, and drinks named after archetypes. The cocktail menu is genuinely story-driven and every drink maps to a card's actual narrative. Can't choose? The bartender pulls a card for you. The staff here are probably the most knowledgeable in Old Town and know the drinking scene in the city like the back of their hand. They’ll finish your drink recommendation and then tell you where to go next. Now, I guess that’s a real tell?

Bebop Live Music Bar

This bar is quite simple. It offers a great classic cocktail menu and the best live music in Old Town — everything from contemporary jazz, soul, Latin to blues. Here, it’s nothing too clever, but the cocktails have been done right. On the walls, you’ll find posters of legends like Louis Armstrong adorned on the walls. If you love live music and some jazz, this is definitely the place to be.

Shhh. Phuket

The door is covered in keys. That's your only hint. Once you find it — second floor, disguised as a booth — you pass through a silver curtain into a darkened lounge lined with AI-animated replicas of famous landmarks. Yeah, it sounds a little maximalist but I promise it’s anything but. The room is intimate, and the cocktails are amazing. It’s a great hidden local gem if you want to take your group here next time.

The Library

This place looks like a quiet, unassuming little bar; unremarkable from the outside, low-key at the front. Then you walk through the door behind the bar and it opens into a full club — the kind of thing that makes you reconsider every low-key-looking door in Old Town. With this place, you just have to know.

Dibuk House

This is the one everyone mentions when you ask about Phuket's cocktail scene, and they're right to. Head bartender Wynn Chaokitiwut — second runner-up at Diageo World Class Thailand 2018 — runs the show out of the Talat Yai district, and the drinks hold up against anything Bangkok is doing right now. Start with the Last Living to Survive: Beefeater, crème de cacao blanc, Thai tea. This is the cocktail that put Wynn on the map, and it shows.  No matter how famous it gets, it’s still worth the visit.