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.
Courtesy of Mothershucker
10 PM: Beats and Bivalves
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.
Midnight: Going Underground
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.
2 AM: Drunk Chicken
Courtesy of Barbar
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.
Christos Drazos
3 AM: Pass Out
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.
