Founded as a theater in 1991, this famous Glasgow venue is a cavernous 65,000-square-foot vaulted space underneath Central Station and is an arty enclave among more gritty surroundings. The venue has been modernized but retains its utilitarian "brickwork" look. In addition to the theater, there's a café-bar and restaurant with preclubbing DJs on the weekends, a live music venue, a visual arts space, and club nights that range from chemical pop to electrosleaze.

Restaurant is open daily until midnight. Club is closed Sundays through Tuesdays.

The clientele of this high-end bar in the Merchant City neighborhood are a grown-up, sophisticated lot who enjoy the decadent Roman vibe. It's done up in the style of a statue-strewn Mediterranean town house, complete with a candlelit courtyard. Yes, it sounds weird, but it works. There's a restaurant and two nightclubs too.

Closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

A former bank in the city center with grandiose Victorian architecture (built in 1842), the Corinthian opened in 1999 following a painstaking refurbishment that included applying lots of gold leaf and installing replicas of the original chandeliers. Various rooms house a restaurant and a few bars, but the Lite Bar, with its 30-foot glass dome, is what makes this place worth a visit.

A key player in Glasgow's music scene, the upstairs venue here is where producer Alan McGee stumbled across Oasis. Smaller national and international touring bands as well as local heroes make up the gig list. A wide but smart booking policy means that Tut's is a good place to hang if you want to be able to boast that you saw such and such enormodome band when they were nobody. On the ground floor, pub grub and pool tables are the main attractions. Located in the heart of the business district—five minutes' walk from the city center—you'll often find the venue is jam-packed while the streets outside are deserted.

This friendly pub hosts traditional music sessions most nights and has an excellent selection of malts. The stained-glass windows depict scenes of the Highland Clearances—a bleak time when landowners forced tenant farmers (crofters) off their land in order to raise sheep and make more money—and just in case you weren't sure where the pub owners stand on the matter, the urinals have the names of Highland landlords on them. You'll find this place on the border of a gritty working-class area and the gentrified Byres Road.

A long-established dive bar in student land, Sleazy's ties with the 13th Note (50–60 King St.; 44-141-553-1638; www.13thnote.co.uk) as the place where Glasgow bands learn their stuff. Kitsch prints of Vladimir Tretchikoff's Chinese Girl (pictures that were popular in Scottish households in the 1970s and now have hipster appeal) line the walls and overlook the motley crew of students, drop-outs, and band members sucking on longnecks. There are bands in the basement pretty much every night of the week, and the Wednesday quiz night when MC Quizallica offers a bottle of Jaegermeister as a prize is also popular. The Sleazy's jukebox is one of the marvels of the modern world.

Oran Mór is Gaelic for "great melody of life"—and that's the guiding principle here, whether you're taking in one of the "A Play, A Pie, A Pint" afternoons (exactly how it sounds), howling at a standup comic, or drinking in the whisky bar. As well as numerous eating and drinking options, this converted church in the bohemian West End knows how to host a hoolie (that means party, by the way). The basement venue hosts diverse clubs and gigs by the likes of Sufjan Stevens, The Gossip, and up-and-coming local bands. On the top floor, there are regular ceilidhs (pronounced "kay-lee” it's a big party with Scottish traditional dancing) underneath a magnificent mural by the author and artist Alasdair Gray.

This basement club under Jamaica Street has been happening for two decades (save three nomadic years when a fire on the street forced its closure). These days, it's both a live music venue and a club destination that's undergoing a resurgence of popularity with a young crowd. A Bodysonic dance floor, which pulsates the bass up through your feet, was installed in 2006. Optimo, on Sunday nights, is a particular hit. The neighborhood isn't the city's most attractive, which gives the Sub Club a rough-diamond allure. Best seen at night.

Closed Mondays–Wednesdays.

You'd be hard-pressed to find anywhere more Scottish than this traditional pub: The staff is kilted, stag heads hang on dark wood-paneled walls, and there are stained-glass windows at the front. Uisage Beatha (in case your Gaelic is rusty, it's pronounced "oosh-kay-ba") means "water of life"—as in whisky—and appropriately, it has a selection of around 140 malts. Despite being only five minutes from Glasgow University, the neighborhood is mainly residential.