Indonesia Nightlife: Best Bars, Clubs, Night Markets and Late Eats

Jakarta is where Indonesians who like to party actually go, and it is far less visited than it deserves. The scene clusters in three areas, all in South Jakarta. The glossiest is SCBD (Sudirman Central Business District), where the clubs and bars sit inside office towers and malls. Pacific Place mall and the Fairgrounds block hold several bars, and the big-name clubs of the Ismaya group (Dragonfly and Blowfish on Jalan Gatot Subroto, and Lucy in the Sky on the Fairgrounds rooftop) pull in international DJs on Fridays and Saturdays. Expect door entry of IDR 150,000-350,000 (about $9-21) that often includes a drink, a smart-casual dress code (no shorts, singlets or flip-flops for men) and a crowd that arrives after 11pm.

Jakarta’s rooftop bars are the capital’s best-value spectacle. SKYE on the 56th floor of the BCA Tower in Thamrin, Henshin on the top three floors of The Westin on Rasuna Said, Cloud Lounge on the 49th floor of The Plaza and Awan Lounge on the Kosenda Hotel all serve cocktails at IDR 150,000-250,000 ($9-15) with the skyline below. Most open from 5pm, so go for sunset; book a table at weekends.

Jalan Senopati, Jalan Suryo and Jalan Gunawarman in Kebayoran Baru are the dining-and-drinking strip for Jakarta’s young professionals: restaurant-bars with long wine lists, craft-beer taps and DJs after dinner. Kemang, a few kilometres south, is older, looser and more expat, with live-band pubs along Jalan Kemang Raya, sports bars and a few small clubs. Blok M, at the MRT terminus, is Little Tokyo: dozens of izakayas and whisky bars along Jalan Melawai fill with office workers from 7pm, and Jakarta’s cheapest beers are here.

Two older spots are worth knowing: Jalan Jaksa in Menteng, the former backpacker street, still has a few cheap bars with IDR 40,000 Bintangs, and Cafe Batavia on Fatahillah Square in Kota Tua does live jazz behind a long colonial bar until late. The Colosseum in Glodok, West Jakarta, is a 4,000-capacity club that runs until dawn: loud, cheap and very local.

Bali has its own nightlife guide; here is the short version. Seminyak is for cocktails, sunset beach clubs (Ku De Ta and Potato Head, where entry is free but daybeds carry a minimum spend of around IDR 1,000,000, about $60) and the gay-friendly bars of Jalan Camplung Tanduk. Canggu is the surfer and digital-nomad scene: Old Man’s for cheap beer and live music, Finns and La Brisa for sunset, and the Batu Bolong bars from 9pm. Kuta is the loud, cheap backpacker strip of Jalan Legian, with all-you-can-drink deals and clubs until 4am. The clifftop clubs of Uluwatu (Savaya, Ulu Cliffhouse) are the dressy end of the island, with entry of IDR 300,000-500,000 ($18-30) on big DJ nights. Beach clubs mostly close by midnight; Kuta and Seminyak clubs run to 3-4am.

The three Gili Islands off Lombok have no cars and no police station, and Gili Trawangan (“Gili T”) became Indonesia’s backpacker party island on the strength of that. One venue hosts the main party on each night of the week, so the whole island drifts to the same place: Tir na Nog (an Irish bar on the east strip) and Blue Marlin are the long-running hosts, Sama Sama does live reggae, and the beach bars to the north run sunset sessions with fire dancers, all a five-minute walk apart. Large Bintangs cost IDR 45,000-60,000 ($3-4) and cocktails IDR 80,000-120,000.

Two cautions: the island has a history of methanol poisonings from bargain cocktails and home-made arak (see below), and the “magic mushrooms” sold openly on menus are as illegal here as anywhere else in Indonesia. Gili Air has a few relaxed beach bars with acoustic music, Gili Meno almost none. Across the water on Lombok, the bars of Senggigi and Mangsit cater to an older resort crowd, Kuta Lombok’s surf bars shut around midnight, and Mataram, the provincial capital, is conservative and nearly dry.

Yogyakarta is Java’s student city, and its nightlife is about eating on the pavement, not drinking. From about 9pm the shops of Jalan Malioboro close and the lesehan stalls open: you sit on mats for gudeg, fried chicken, pecel lele and sweet tea at IDR 25,000-50,000 ($1.50-3) a head, with buskers working the rows. The angkringan carts around Tugu station serve kopi joss (coffee with a lump of glowing charcoal dropped in) and IDR 2,000 rice parcels until 3am, and Alun-Alun Kidul, the southern palace square, becomes a fairground of neon-lit pedal cars after dark.

Bars are few and mostly in two backpacker streets. Sosrowijayan, the lane off the north end of Malioboro, has Lucifer, a sweaty live-music bar with cover bands and cheap beer; Prawirotaman, 3km south, is quieter and better, with ViaVia and a string of guesthouse cafés doing beer and acoustic sets until around midnight. Yogyakarta restricts alcohol sales to licensed bars, hotels and a few supermarkets, so do not expect beer at a corner shop. Nearby Solo is quieter still; its night-time draw is the Galabo food street by Gladag, open from 5pm.

Bandung is Indonesia’s café capital. Jalan Braga, the old Dutch promenade, is car-free at weekends and lined with bars, ice-cream parlours and live-music cafés that run until 1am; Jalan Dago (Ir. H. Juanda) and the hillside cafés above the city in Dago Pakar and Punclut, and up towards Lembang, are where locals go for night views and hot bandrek. Bandung’s bars sell beer, but it is a music-and-coffee city rather than a club city, and the Whoosh high-speed train back to Jakarta stops running around 9pm, so stay the night.

Surabaya, Indonesia’s second city, has a business-traveller nightlife of hotel bars and clubs around Tunjungan Plaza, and two good food streets: Kya-Kya on Jalan Kembang Jepun in Chinatown (Friday to Sunday evenings) and the G-Walk strip in Citraland. The Rawon Setan stall on Jalan Embong Malang, selling black beef soup until the small hours, is an institution. In Medan, Merdeka Walk on the central square is an open-air food court and bar strip open until 2am, and Jalan Semarang is the Chinese seafood street. Makassar does its evenings on the Losari waterfront with grilled bananas (pisang epe) and karaoke. Manado, in Christian North Sulawesi, is one of the easier cities for a drink: the Boulevard along Jalan Piere Tendean has bars and clubs, and the local spirit, Cap Tikus, is sold openly. Labuan Bajo, the Komodo gateway, has a small sunset scene: Paradise Bar on the hill above town with live music, the harbour-front bars, and the Kampung Ujung seafood stalls where you pick your fish from 6pm.

The legal drinking age is 21. Alcohol is legal in most of the country but heavily taxed, so it costs more than in Thailand or Vietnam. A 620ml bottle of Bintang, the national lager, is IDR 40,000-55,000 ($2.50-3.50) in a Bali warung or supermarket, IDR 50,000-90,000 for a 330ml in a Jakarta bar, and IDR 100,000 or more in hotels. Other local beers are Bali Hai, Anker and Prost; Bintang Radler and Bintang Zero are everywhere. Imported spirits carry excise and import duties that push a bottle of gin or whisky to IDR 600,000-1,500,000 ($35-90) in a shop, and a glass of imported wine to IDR 120,000-200,000; Hatten and Two Islands make drinkable Bali wines for about half that. Cocktails at good bars run IDR 120,000-250,000.

Since 2015 minimarkets (Indomaret, Alfamart, Circle K) have been banned from selling alcohol, with Bali’s tourist areas exempted, so outside Bali you buy beer in supermarkets, licensed liquor shops or bars. Cities set their own closing hours: Jakarta’s clubs generally close at 2am on weekdays and 3-4am at weekends, Bali’s at 3-4am, and most ordinary cities have little open after 1am. Aceh province enforces sharia law and bans alcohol completely, with caning as a penalty; do not carry any into the province, including to Banda Aceh or the dive resorts at Sabang and Iboih on Pulau Weh. Papua province also prohibits alcohol sales, and many Javanese and Sumatran regencies restrict it to hotels.

During Ramadan (roughly 8 February to 9 March 2027, with dates shifting about 11 days earlier each year; check before you go), Jakarta’s city regulations close nightclubs, discos and massage parlours for the whole month and restrict bars, live music and karaoke to late hours. Bali, Manado and the Gilis are unaffected, but in Muslim cities expect bars shut or hidden behind curtains until after the evening meal, and avoid drinking in public during the day. The upside is the night markets: from the breaking of the fast at sunset, food streets in every city are at their liveliest of the year, and the week after Ramadan (Lebaran) empties the cities as everyone travels home.

Dress smart-casual for Jakarta’s clubs and rooftops; most enforce no shorts, sandals or singlets for men. Beach clubs in Bali are relaxed by day but expect shoes and a shirt at night. In Yogyakarta, Bandung and the smaller cities, shorts and a T-shirt are fine for a night market, but cover shoulders and knees if the evening involves a mosque or a kraton event. Public drunkenness is viewed badly everywhere, loud affection between couples draws stares outside Bali, and smoking is still permitted in many bars.

Homosexuality is legal in Indonesia outside Aceh, where sharia law criminalises it, but there is no recognition of same-sex couples and attitudes are conservative. The visible gay scene is in Bali: the bars along Jalan Camplung Tanduk in Seminyak (Mixwell and Bali Joe, with drag shows most nights) are open, friendly and mixed. Jakarta’s scene went underground after police raids in 2017 and now runs through private parties and a few mixed clubs in SCBD and Kemang; dating apps work, but meet in public first. Elsewhere, discretion is the rule for everyone: couples do not kiss in public, and a shared hotel room is never questioned.

Gojek and Grab run cars and motorbike taxis (ojek) around the clock in every Indonesian city and are the safest way home: the fare is fixed in the app, and a 15-minute car ride across South Jakarta at 2am costs IDR 30,000-60,000 ($2-4). Where you have to hail a cab, use Bluebird, the blue metered taxis of Jakarta, Bali, Surabaya and Bandung, or the MyBluebird app, and watch for look-alike blue cars with different logos. Jakarta’s MRT runs until about midnight and TransJakarta runs 24-hour buses on its main corridors. In Bali, local taxi cooperatives bar Gojek and Grab drivers from picking up in Canggu, Ubud and a few other villages, so you may have to walk to the main road or pay the cooperative’s fixed fare, typically IDR 100,000-200,000 for Canggu to Seminyak. Do not ride a scooter after drinking: police checkpoints on Bali’s main roads test riders after midnight, and road crashes are the leading cause of tourist deaths in Indonesia.

The scams are the usual ones. Watch your drink; spiking happens in Kuta and on Jalan Jaksa. Hostess bars and karaoke lounges in Jakarta and Surabaya present inflated bills with “lady drinks” at IDR 300,000 each, so agree prices before sitting down. Card skimming at ATMs near nightlife strips is common; use machines inside banks or malls. Keep your passport in the hotel safe and carry a photo of it. Emergency numbers are 110 for police and 118 or 119 for an ambulance.

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