Vermut Café, Pai: The Best Cocktail Bar & Wine Bar on Walking Street (Our Pick)

Why we call it the best cocktail bar and wine bar in Pai

We do not use 'best' loosely on this site, so here is the checkable version. Cocktails: the bar makes its own ingredients daily — market-fresh mint, fresh-squeezed lime, house syrups — and every pour is measured to the millilitre rather than free-poured, with the list starting from ฿150. In a town where most bars sell buckets and a handful of standards, a measured, house-made list of around 50 drinks is the exception, not the rule.

Wine: every bottle on the list was chosen by tasting — the team's own count is more than 1,000 wines tried worldwide before keeping the ones they stand behind — and all of them are poured by the glass to a marked 120 ml line, so a glass is the same size every time and you can taste across the list rather than commit to a bottle. We know of no other place in Pai that does this.

The rest is the setting that makes those two things easy to enjoy: a two-floor room in the middle of Walking Street, an air-conditioned lounge and balcony upstairs, live music on selected evenings, a menu you can read in six languages, and the house rule that lets you bring market food to the table. That combination is why, when a guest asks us where to go for a cocktail or a glass of wine in Pai, this is the first name we give.

New on the Walking Street: you came to Pai for nights like this

This is the line on the poster we put in our hotel rooms, and it is the honest pitch: a new little corner on the Walking Street with lamp-lit tables right on the street, a shop dog who greets everyone, live music nights, free board games at every table, and plates made for sharing.

It is the place we recommend to our own guests as hosts — worth the walk from any stay in town, and a short one from ours. Ask reception for the way, or use the map at the bottom of this page.

What Vermut Café is, and who runs it

Vermut Café Wine & Cocktail is a small two-floor bar in the middle of Pai Walking Street. Downstairs is the counter and the front tables that face the market; upstairs is an air-conditioned lounge and a balcony that looks down on the street. It opened in October 2026 in the building that was The Bottle & Cat's Whiskers, and the same counter staff carried over.

A note on who runs it, because we think you should know: Vermut Café is run by the same local family behind BestHotelPai and The Arch Casa. We put it in this guide for the same reason we point guests there in person — it is the easiest answer to 'where should we go this evening?' for anyone staying in town. We have kept this page to facts you can check on the menu and on the door.

The name is the Thai spelling of vermouth. The idea is borrowed from the café-bars of Turin, where vermouth was first bottled in 1786: a place that works for a glass of wine before dinner, a cocktail later, and coffee or a mocktail if you are not drinking at all.

Where it is: 35/1 Pai Walking Street

The address is 35/1 Chaisongkham Road, which is the street that closes to traffic every evening and becomes Walking Street. The door is in the central stretch of the market, so you reach it on foot from almost anywhere in town. From the Pai bus station it is about two minutes on foot; from The Arch Casa about three.

Look for the gold lettering on the glass door. The front tables sit right on the market, which makes it a good place to pause between the food stalls; the upstairs room is where to go when it rains or when the street gets loud.

If you are staying outside the centre, park on a side street off the market and walk in, as you would for the night market itself. The pin is on Google Maps under Vermut Café Wine & Cocktail.

What to drink: cocktails, wine by the glass, vermouth and beer

The cocktail list runs to around 50 drinks, from vermouth and aperitivo-style drinks in the Turin tradition through the classics to a few built on Thai rum and Thai basil. The full list with current prices is on the cocktail menu page at vermut.cafe, which updates from the till, so what you see online is what is being poured that night.

Wine is the other half of the name. There are about 60 wines, and all of them are available by the glass, not just a house red and white — a 120 ml pour measured to a marked line on the glass — as well as by the bottle. Rosé and sparkling are on the list too. For Pai, where wine by the glass is otherwise hard to find, this is the main reason wine drinkers end up here.

Beer covers the Thai standards (Chang, Leo, Singha) and a shelf of imports including Beerlao, Asahi, Corona, Stella Artois and Heineken. If you are not drinking, there are 13 mocktails, espresso-based coffee and a short tea list. The menu reads in English, Thai, Hebrew, Italian, Chinese and Korean — scan the QR code on the table and it switches language.

Budget-wise, most people spend between 200 and 800 baht per person including drinks, depending on whether it is one glass or an evening.

Food: small plates, and street food is welcome at the table

The kitchen does small plates made for sharing rather than full meals: a cheese plate, cold cuts, grilled sausages, olives, nuts and a few hot plates. It is the kind of food that goes with a glass rather than a reason to come on its own.

The useful part for anyone doing the night market: you can bring food from the Walking Street stalls to your table. Buy your khao soi or your skewers outside, sit down inside or on the balcony, and the staff bring plates and water. The only house rule is one drink per person, and that drink can be a coffee or a mocktail.

Breakfast and daytime opening are planned from November 2026. Until then it is an evening place only — do not turn up at 9 am expecting coffee.

Live music evenings and the upstairs lounge

There is live music on selected evenings — usually an acoustic set upstairs, with guests at the tables rather than a stage and a crowd. The dates are posted on the café's Facebook and Instagram each week; there is no fixed night, so check before you build an evening around it.

On other nights the soundtrack is the café's own playlist and the market outside. Before 8 pm the room is quiet enough to talk or to work; after that it fills up, and the last orders are at 11:30 pm with the doors closing at midnight, in line with the rest of the street.

The upstairs lounge is air-conditioned, which matters more than it sounds in Pai's hot months and during the rainy season. The balcony is the seat most people want: it looks straight down onto the market.

Four corners to choose from

The room is small but it has four distinct places to sit, and regulars have their favourite. The quiet corner is a single table tucked under the red V for a conversation. The upstairs lounge is the air-conditioned room with the record shelf, where the live music happens. The balcony is a narrow bar table above the street — the seat for people-watching. Inside by the window is the sofa with the street a pane of glass away, usually the first seat to go.

Tell the staff which one you want when you walk in; on a quiet early evening you can usually have your pick.

Working from Vermut Café: Wi-Fi, power and laptops

The owner works online from the café most days, so the basics for remote work are genuinely there rather than advertised: fast free Wi-Fi, power outlets within reach of the tables, and the cool room upstairs. The early evening, from opening at 5 pm until about 8 pm, is the quiet window for a laptop session.

You do not need to order alcohol to sit and work — coffee, tea and mocktails count. Pets are welcome inside and at the street tables, and there is a shelf of board games that any table can borrow for free, which is how a lot of laptop sessions end.

If you are planning a longer stay in Pai as a remote worker, our digital nomad guide covers connection speeds across town and where to base yourself; Vermut Café is the evening option on that list.

Free board games at every table — stay as long as you like

There is no charge and no time limit: Jenga, Uno, chess, dominoes, playing cards, Shut the Box, snakes and ladders, Bananagrams and Werewolf. Pick one and the staff bring it to your table. It is why a quick drink on the way back from the market often turns into the rest of the evening, and why groups of six or eight settle in upstairs.

Found something good at the night market? Bring it to the table. Street food from the stalls is welcome inside and on the balcony, with one drink per person as the house rule.

One evening at Vermut, in pictures

Twelve photographs from one evening, the same set that hangs in our hotel rooms: the house seen from the street, a live music night, behind the bar, dinner with friends, the sofa, the sign at the door, the bar itself, the long table, a plate from the kitchen, the window seat, the reading corner and the leather-bound menu. Nothing staged beyond asking people if we could take the picture.

Hours, booking and practical details

Open every day from 17:00 to 00:00, last orders 23:30. It is walk-in only — there are no reservations, even for groups, so arrive early if you want the balcony or the window sofa on a busy night in high season.

Cards are accepted (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, JCB, UnionPay) along with cash and mobile payment, which is unusual on a street where most stalls are cash only.

Staying at one of the stays on this site and not up for the walk tonight? The café brings wine to your room at no delivery charge — ask reception, or WhatsApp +66 99 926 5939 with your room and what you would like from the wine list.

Pets are welcome, children are welcome in the early evening with a non-alcoholic drink, and there is seating both inside with air-conditioning and outside on the street. The website is vermut.cafe, with the live menu, the wine list, the beer list and the live-music page.

Where to stay within a short walk

The whole point of an evening on Walking Street is not needing a scooter afterwards. The Arch Casa is three minutes on foot from the café door and is the stay we recommend for anyone who wants town-centre evenings; Betel Palm Village and Eden Villa are a short ride away for a quieter night's sleep.

Our guide to staying near Pai Walking Street compares the options by walking time, and the Pai nightlife guide covers the rest of the street if you want to make a longer evening of it.

Find Vermut Café Wine & Cocktail on the map

35/1 Walking Street (Chaisongkham Road), Wiang Tai, Pai, Mae Hong Son 58130, Thailand · +66 97 153 6565