Top 10... Drinking and Dancing

The Bongo Club
37 Holyrood Road

Respected Fringe venue by day, Bongo is best known to Edinburgh residents as the city’s foremost alternative nightclub, specialising in everything from reggae nights—complete with crusty, flailing, ageing hippies—to the most cutting-edge Drum n Bass and Electro DJs on the circuit. Interiors are pretty functional and the drinks menu is restricted, but in truth the Bongo doesn’t try and cultivate a trendy or pretentious ambience. At it’s core its a music venue, and a great one at that, a thriving dance hall showcasing the most eclectic local and international dance acts in the city. [SF]

Cabaret Voltaire
36 Blair Street

While it doesn't always live up to the "breaking boundaries in music" strapline, Cabaret Voltaire has long offered a strong mix of electro, indie, drum'n'bass, catering largely to a student crowd. With two downstairs dancefloors, insulated from one another by the huge cellar walls, there is likely to be a choice of DJ's. The quieter upstairs bar—a welcome recent addition—is great for a laid-back drink if you don't fancy braving the sweaty dancefloor. [EB]

City Cafe
19 Blair Street

Forget the numerous thespy Festival drinking hubs, the real Edinburgh can be found in bars like City Café, the Capital’s original pre-club venue. Half art-deco chic, half shabby 50's diner, City Cafe has been an Edinburgh staple for over 25 years. Mainly utilised as an upbeat late-night primer for nearby Cabaret Voltaire, the bar actually has a decent vibe at all hours, attracting a genuinely mixed and unpretentious clientele. 'Trendier' bars come and go but City Cafe has a timeless, enduring appeal. A genuine Edinburgh institution. [SF]

Electric Circus
36 Market Street

Karaoke, which takes its name from the Japanese for "murdered classic", provides the perfect gimmick for this slick and relatively new club. Taking a leaf from Tokyo’s book, Electric Circus features handy booths to insulate the innocents on the dance floor from your strangled wails. They’ll be flailing about to something retro and noisy, or something trendy and electronic; you’ll be working your way through a massive library of backing tracks both old and new, your screeches drenched in satisfyingly excessive reverb. You’ll be godawful, but with echoes like these you’ll be godawful – in a cave! [LB]

GHQ
4 Picardy Place

To Edinburgh’s rather sad and meagre gay s  cene, GHQ brings a welcome dose of style – well, relatively speaking. The jewel in the shabby crown that is the so-called Pink Triangle, it may resemble a WAG’s boudoir (White leather! Pink lights! Shiny things!) but it’s a sight classier than some of the other gay haunts on offer. Though the usual crowd-pleasing cheese is ladled out in dollops, look out for slightly more credible dance music in the back room. A word of warning, though: the club’s high profile means the mainstream has caught wind, so it’s often crawling with heteros. Perverse, yes. [LB]

The Jazz Bar 
1a Chambers Street

The Jazz Bar is everything a jazz bar should be (which is lucky considering the bold choice of name). It's a dark, crowded cellar, moodily-lit, with black-and-white pictures of the legends adorning the brickwork. There are never enough tables, but this is the kind of place where it seems quite appropriate for everyone to rub shoulders clutching gin-and-tonics. There's live music five nights a week pretty much all year round, and the Fringe always attracts some big names to complement the truly excellent house band. All in all, a classy joint that deserves a classier name. [EB]

The Liquid Room 
9c Victoria Street

This summer sees the long-awaited re-opening of one of Edinburgh's best-loved clubs, which burned down in the Old Town fire which also gutted Khushi's restaurant in 2008. The management are keen to make a splash for the club's rebirth, hoping to begin recouping a refurbishment bill that topped £3 million. Regulars will rejoice most of all at the return of the weekly Indie disco (every Wednesday night) but the venue will also host several of the biggest acts from the Edge festival, including the Divine Comedy, Feeder, and a solo show from Steve Mason of the Beta Band. [EB]

Penny Black 
17 West Register Street

For those still going post 5am, fear not – Edinburgh doesn't disappoint. Opening at 6am is the infamous watering hole, Penny Black, usually reserved for Edinburgh's most hardened drinkers. Mixing goggle-eyed clubbers with 24-hour alcoholics and posties with weirdos, the Penny Black certainly attracts a "diverse" clientele. Described by Fringe comic Michael Fabbri as "the roughest pub he's ever been to", Penny Black doesn't tend to win awards for ambience or fashionable accoutrements. However, if you’ve come to The Fringe looking for spectacle, this cultural experience will surely outstrip anything the Ladyboys can throw at you. Not for the faint hearted. [SF]

Pivo Caffe
2-6 Carlton Road

Czech it out. Czech, please. Czichity-Czech yourself before you wreck yourself. If you find yourself drinking at Czech-themed Pivo with one of the Fringe’s lesser comedians, this list is almost certain to continue. Not to worry – drown out your desperately unfunny companion with a two-pint pitcher of some of the best beer Eastern Europe has to offer. Souvenirs from the bloc decorate the cushy surroundings – commie chic, apparently. A laidback drinking den with just the right level of buzz, this could well be your best option for a spot of late-night drinking. [LB]

Underbelly
56 Cowgate

Nowhere better encapsulates Edinburgh's annual shift from gentility to feverish cultural hub than the Underbelly. The vaults of Edinburgh's central library are vacant all year round (and frankly nobody's quite sure how the crumbling building remains standing) but they become a seemingly endless booze-warren in August. It's dark. The walls sweat beneath the posters of festivals past. It's technically open till 3, but inside you encounter strange, pale folk who clearly haven't been outside for days. After thirty seconds of looking for a particular bar (there's several, all named after different kinds of belly) you find you have climbed an improbable number of staircases and don't know where you are in relation to street-level. It's a joy, in other words. Just don't wonder what would happen in a fire. [EB]