As the world gears up for New Year's Eve, we asked nightlife figures from nine different countries what people there eat to soothe themselves after a huge celebration.
There’s no denying the special pleasure that comes from a soft landing after a night out—decamping to a cozy bar, a late-night restaurant, or a friend’s apartment.
The most important part of this recovery period is the thing you have perhaps been most deprived of while you were dancing: food. Whether you choose to eat that night or the following day, the food will probably hit in a special way. A greasy kebab scarfed down at daybreak may seem exquisitely sumptuous and refined. A box of Korean fried chicken, eaten standing up by a metal counter or delivered to your door and eaten in front of a bad movie, may seem like the greatest pleasure ever known by anyone.
Every weekend this scene is playing out around the world. And yet, as with so many aspects of club culture, it happens differently everywhere you go—different food, different atmosphere, different approach. Many countries, and even many cities, have post-club refueling rituals that are entirely their own, different from what people do anywhere else. Ahead of New Year’s 2025, we spoke to a gaggle of artists and clubgoers from around the world to hear what they eat when they’re rejoining the living after a long night out.
For Nika Khotcholava, team member at Leftbank club in Tbilisi, the answer is always Georgian food
I never eat right after a party or rave. I always wait for the morning. What I eat depends on how I treat my body during the night. That makes all the difference, because my behavior at the party defines what I will eat the next day. I live in Tbilisi, Georgia. Here, the traditions of dealing with a hangover, headache, or dizziness after heavy drinking go back centuries.
Like every Georgian, I rely on one thing: khinkali. Khinkali is not just a tasty dumpling, it is sacred food, a ritual in itself. No matter how rough I feel after a rave, the morning choice is always clear. The only real question is which restaurant to go to. People endlessly argue about which place serves the best khinkali, and everyone has their own favorite. The broth inside khinkali works like medicine for hangovers.
There are other essentials too. I, like many others, love chikhirtma, a traditional Georgian chicken soup. Then there is khashi, the ultimate old-school hangover cure. It is made from pork feet, served with milk and garlic. Two spoonfuls of it, followed by a shot of chacha, and the hangover is gone.
So, my answer is Georgian cuisine. You would have to be foolish to live in Georgia and eat anything else the next morning. It is almost a science: khinkali, chikhirtma, khashi, Nabeglavi mineral water, and chacha. With these, it feels as if the previous night never happened.
Sooj Heo, a visual artist and clubgoer from Seoul, Korea, reaches for “hangover soup”
If you leave the club in Seoul at 8 AM, the only options are haejang-guk or ramyeon.
“Haejang-guk” means “hangover soup,” but a lot of people are still drinking while they eat it. The main spot for it is Ebadom Gamjatang. You can’t miss it. It’s open 24-hours, and you can see it right on the boulevard when you come out from the clubs in Itaewon. Everyone who parties in Itaewon knows it; one of the food blogs called it “the sacred place where Itaewon zombies gather at dawn.” You go there and order a soup with rice and radish kimchi. It’s a very spicy soup with meat, beef or pork, and bones. Ebadom Gamjatang has bright fluorescent lights, everyone’s drunk, some still drinking soju while they slurp up their haejang-guk.
The other big one is ramyeon, basically the Korean version of Japanese ramen. People have instant packages at home, but also convenience stores are open 24-hours in Korea, and every one of them has a hot boiling water fountain, so you can pick your ramyeon, pay for it, and eat it there. Or you get some instant ones and go home and make it. Either way, at the end of a sesh, someone will always be like, “Does anyone wants ramyeon?” And everyone goes crazy. Ramyeon ends the day.
Wata Igarashi, a DJ/producer based in Tokyo and Amsterdam, doesn’t overlook the humble convenience store
Right after the gig I usually do not eat anything. But there are cases when I am on tour and get back to the hotel after the show and breakfast is already open, then sometimes I take one—with eggs, baked beans,. etc, the typical things of hotel breakfast but without coffee, so I can sleep.
Until moving to Amsterdam, I lived in Tokyo, in Setagaya, like three metro stops from Shibuya. I am biased but Tokyo does have the best food, and it’s not expensive. When you can’t find a proper ramen shop after a show, or going out, I sometimes get cup noodles from 7-Eleven. They always have special seasonal ones that are pretty good! Though I guess not very good for you. I always wonder why Europe doesn’t have those Japanese-style convenience stores like 7-Eleven. If they had one in front of Berghain, they would make a fortune!
Next day, when I am hungover, it’s ramen or pho. I particularly like tan-men, which has a salty, semi-clear soup with a lot of veggies. I have a bunch of favorite ramen shops in Tokyo. In Europe, there is a lot of tonkotsu (pork soup) ramen, but less of the lighter, more sophisticated broth. In Japan, the current trend is going in two opposite directions—one super junky ramen (jiro-style) and another more sophisticated with dried fish or clams (niboshi). Shit, I am getting hungry now!
For Keith Pulitano, AKA Tano, a DJ/producer from New York City, it’s all about the ritual
Coffee, bagels, and Chinese food are the lifeblood of New York City. The day after a party, you do all three. It’s a two-step process. First, an order from the bagel store. So, that consists of an egg sandwich on a bagel, you know, bacon-egg-and-cheese. And then you also get a sweet one. I like to get cinnamon raisin with butter. That’s dessert. You eat that one in the morning. Wake up, order that, chill in bed for a little bit till it comes, then that’s what gets you outta bed. You have a nice iced coffee and something like Gatorade, Powerade, Vitamin Water. Then you’re chillin’ all day.
Maybe you didn’t finish all the bagels. Eat a little more of that. Then you order dinner. Usually it’s Chinese food. Sometimes it’s Thai. But the Chinese food is very important. Get like, some dumplings, a spicy wonton sorta thing, somethin’ with peanut, sesame chicken, some lo mein, rice—the works. It’s important you order way too much. Then from like 5 o’ clock until midnight, you just keep eating all that Chinese food. That’s why the key is to order too much, so you can just keep it goin. Sip your water. Hang out. Feel better.
DJ Marfox, a DJ/producer from Lisbon in Portugal, keeps it traditional
In Lisbon, my hometown, my favorite place to go to eat in the middle of the night, or the end of the night, is A Merendeira, a place in the Santos area, in the center of the city. It’s a very traditional place, people go there to eat caldo verde soup, with bread and chorizo. The other one, for me, is the Fabrica dos Bolos do Chile, the factory of cakes in Chile. They do very good cakes, very traditional cakes. You can eat all different kinds of cakes in the middle of the night. Very small, very traditional. Sometimes you need to wait maybe 10, 20 minutes if there’s a big line. You go down the stairs, you go to the lowest floor, buy your cakes.
Sometimes, at the end of the night, I’m tired, I need to rest. But the next day, I need very good food. I go eat at a place in my area, Camarate, there’s a restaurant called Nozinha, very traditional food from Cape Verde, the island in the middle of the Atlantic. You have cachupa, very strong plate with beans, pork, chorizo with rice. For me, it’s the food you need when you wake up and you need to stop your hangover.
JP López, AKA Verraco, a DJ/producer from Colombia, opts for a revitalizing national soup
Naturally, I have to refer to my own territory, and what we normally eat after the club or afterparty, which goes down really easily and revitalizes your body. It’s a traditional Colombian soup called caldo de costilla.
It’s easy to make or find in neighborhood stores or restaurants, or you can also order it for delivery. The ingredients: beef short ribs, water, potatoes (usually peeled and cut into chunks), garlic (crushed or minced), white onion (chopped or sliced), scallions (also called green onions or spring onions), cilantro (fresh, chopped), salt, black pepper, and if you want you can add corn on the cobb (cut into pieces) and a pinch of cumin. If you want to eat out in Bogotá, best place is called Desayunadero El Cañón del Chicamocha.
For Pietro Ferrari, a festival promoter from Italy, the sandwich shop is the place to be
In Italy there’s usually a paninaro near the clubs—it’s literally a panini place, usually a truck, which makes sandwiches, often with flat salsiccia or porchetta, pork most of the time. It’s banging, because they’re usually mega-salty, they put a ton of caramelized onions and some good sauces on there, the gourmet places even make their own. In my day that was deffo the place to be after the party. Feed yourself, soak up the alcohol, maybe meet that someone who caught your eye in the shadows of the club. Sometimes fights would even break out at the paninaro. It’s like a green room with greasy food. In Milan, there was one truck just outside Dude Club—that was handy. Also, Al Boschetto da Gabry—that one’s legendary.
If the paninari are not available, bakeries are a thing. Early in the morning, you can just rock up to a bakery that hasn’t opened yet, knock on the door and see if they’re in there working already. Sometimes they’ll sling you a pizzetta or something. Worst case scenario, if you gotta make food at home, the pasta aglio olio and peperoncino at home is always a good one.
It’s a sour soup for Szymon Baczyński, a DJ and promoter from Poland
Most typical would be just to go to bed after the party, we don’t have food spots open that late at night in Wrocław anyway, so usually it’s the day after. Best thing is żurek, a very good soup, very traditional. You eat this mostly for Easter, but also any time when it’s cold outside. It’s sour soup, not like lemon sour, it’s from zakwas, this fermented rye thing. If you make it at home you must prepare it a few days before, it smells a little funny but tastes amazing later, trust me.
Inside you have sausage, a white one—biała kiełbasa—and boiled egg, sometimes also potato, a little bacon or ham. You eat it with bread, maybe in a bread bowl if you fancy. After you eat, you feel warm, happy, maybe a little sleepy. Żurek fixes everything, it’s perfect for after you’ve been clubbing. For me the best place to get it is Polskie Smaki, an incredible milkbar with Polish cuisine in my neighborhood.
The DJ/producer Mor Elian has a strategy when she’s on the road…
I have this thing, I don’t know if it’s, like, a resourceful food-hoarding technique from the days when I was struggling as a young adult, but I love hotel breakfasts, and I like the convenience of having things close to me and not having to venture to find food in the morning. So usually, when I’m back from a late set, I would go straight to breakfast, take a plate, ask the waiter, “Can I take this to my room?” 99% of the time they’ll say yes. I take the plate, load it up with everything: bacon, eggs, baked beans, a fruit bowl, maybe a hashbrown if they have it, maybe a mini-croissant if I’m feeling cheeky. I also make myself a cup of coffee. I take all that to my room. I do not touch it, I go straight to sleep because I sleep better on an empty stomach.
Then I’ll wake up and I eat my breakfast in the comfort of my hotel bed. All cold, including the coffee, but I don’t care because when you just woke up it still bangs. If the breakfast is not open when I’m back from my gig this doesn’t work because I’m definitely not waking up at nine or ten. In this case I go to brunch somewhere and probably get a fancy eggs benedict, which is my favorite post-gig brunch food. Hollandaise sauce, bacon, avocado if it’s a hipster spot.
