Cidade Baixa is Porto Alegre's main bar district and one of the liveliest nightlife neighbourhoods in southern Brazil. The streets around Rua da República, Rua João Alfredo, and Avenida Osvaldo Aranha fill up from Thursday onward with a young, mixed crowd; small bars spill their tables onto the pavement, and music ranges from forró and samba to rock and electronic depending on the venue. The neighbourhood is genuinely diverse — students, artists, LGBTQ+ crowds, and gaúcho intellectuals all claim it — and the atmosphere is informal and unpretentious. Opinião is the city's most storied music venue, right in the heart of Cidade Baixa, with live MPB and rock most weekends.
Bom Fim, just uphill from Cidade Baixa, is a slightly calmer but still lively bar scene, centred on Rua Guilherme Alves and Avenida Oswaldo Aranha. The Café Cultura chain started here and the neighbourhood still sets the tone for Porto Alegre's café culture. Moinhos de Vento is where you go for better coffee: sophisticated espresso bars and all-day brunch cafés line the streets around the park, catering to a well-heeled crowd. Confeitaria Rocco, in the Centro Histórico, is the historic place for coffee and pastries — a proper old-fashioned Portuguese-style confeitaria that has been operating since 1948. For craft beer, the city has embraced the scene enthusiastically; look for Dado Bier, a Porto Alegre craft brewery with a brewpub in Moinhos de Vento that is a good stop any evening.