First port of call was Spelunke! Bar, just outside of the centre and involving another suburban train, which was subject to a very rare (for Switzerland) delay. Anyway even though it’s out a bit, it’s probably one of the highlights of the trip.

Entrance to Spelunke! Bar, where I had a pretty good time.

The interior.

Enjoying some Swiss beer and a sample of mead.

The bar had a friendly atmosphere, and as you can see it mainly had a Viking theme with drinking horns adorning the roof. The people inside were wearing mainly smart casual clothes, but it was highly likely that they were visiting after finishing work, and the music was mainstream rock with a bit of Iron Maiden and Rammstein played later on. During my stay a guy in a Tool t-shirt had a conversation with me, it turns out he was the main mead supplier for the bar (of which I was given a sample which I enjoyed) and we discussed the rock and metal scene in other parts of the world, as well as the privilege that comes with being brought up in an English-speaking country since most people will understand a certain level of English wherever you go. I then told him about my planned travel across Europe to Kilkim and MetalDays via as many rock bars as possible, lamenting how they become more of an rarity as land values encourage landlords to tear them down to make way for sterile offices and yuppie flats. It was great to actually talk to someone on my travel and have them come into my world, and the bar definitely gets 5 out of 5 stars from me.

Unfortunately the next bar I went to has since closed, but I will record my experience of there for posterity. I headed back into town to visit what a review on Google Maps informed me was the “best metal bar in Zürich”, Kater. Note that this place is now It may have been true of the weekend but on a Wednesday evening they played a mix of pop and indie, however the vibe was still good and the inside looked pretty metal to me, and if I was meeting a friend in town I would have considered getting a drink there regardless, because even though this blog is about bars which play mainly heavy metal, I am not exclusively into metal – shocking, I know:

Final port of call was Ebrietas Bar, which was everything you would want from a rock bar, and actually had live bands playing that evening, a mixture of black and death metal bands. All this sound good but I regrettably had an early start tomorrow. But I had a drink in the upstairs part and was still impressed:

Overall, I would recommend Zürich to metalheads, it’s got several great places there, just make sure you have plenty of money to spend since the typical cost of beer at the bars I visited was 6 francs, which was about £5.15 when I was there. But I want to return to revisit these places and also get to properly explore the city, since this time round I wasn’t even here for 24 hours.

INFORMATION

• Spelunke! BAR: Austrasse 19, 8045 Zürich, Switzerland. Open 17-12 Wed & Thu, 17-02 Fri & Sat, 17-12 Sun. Closed Mon & Tues. Tel: +41 76 513 96 66. Website Facebook Instagram E-mail
• Ebrietas:  Zähringerstrasse 39, 8001 Zürich, Switzerland. Open 17-12 Mon-Thurs, 17-02 Fri & Sat, 18-12 Sun. Tel: +41 44 262 64 60. Website Facebook E-mail