Menaka Lounge Siem Reap Review: A Speakeasy Remembered

Menaka Lounge in Siem Reap gave Ian and me a quieter evening away from the nearby Pub Street party scene, with a painted entrance, low lighting, and cocktails inspired by Cambodian history. The menu came as a cloth roll, and the drinks took us from honey and mango to Kampot pepper and an unexpectedly savory use of jackfruit. Friendly service and US$6 cocktails helped make the evening a good one, even with a few details we would have changed. The venue is now listed as permanently closed, and we have kept this Menaka Lounge review as a record of that experience.

Is Menaka Lounge in Siem Reap Still Open?

As of October 2026, Tripadvisor lists Menaka Lounge as permanently closed, and Uncover Asia also marks the bar as closed. We found no verifiable confirmation of a reopening or an exact closure date. The atmosphere, menu, cocktails, and prices described below belong to our original visit.

Menaka Lounge in Siem Reap: Atmosphere and Hidden Entrance

Menaka’s compact, dimly lit room suited an evening of conversation and cocktails. The painting on the entrance door was our first indication that someone had put thought into the place, and the welcome inside was kind and uncomplicated. Low lighting gave the small space a sense of privacy, while its dark, warm tones carried through the interior. Carved stone, books, and paintings of Khmer music stars gave us plenty to look at between drinks. The speakeasy format suggested an American Prohibition-era bar, with Cambodian history providing the room’s own character.

A Cocktail Menu Inspired by Cambodian History

The cocktail list was organized around three themes: Angkor, Sangkum, and the Great Era. Reading it from a cloth roll made choosing a drink part of the pleasure, and the historical references gave us something more useful than a collection of elaborate cocktail names. The Angkor section drew on the ancient Khmer Empire and Cambodian ingredients. Sangkum drinks took their names from songs associated with an era of joy and love, while the Great Era looked toward Cambodia’s growth and increasing connections with the wider world. These were the menu’s organizing ideas, brought into the glass through the bar’s recipes.

Japanese and Scotch whiskies were also available, and guests could order food from Menaka Café. Our review focuses on the cocktails and the lounge itself; we did not assess a meal here.

Our Menaka Lounge Cocktails

We tried Love Like Honey, Monsoon Perfume, and Peerless Shape, three drinks with quite different personalities. Honey and fruit made the first easy to enjoy, Kampot pepper gave the second a memorable finish, and jackfruit took the third in a direction we had not expected.

Love Like Honey

Honey was easy to identify in Love Like Honey, with mango nectar adding another layer of sweetness and lime freshening the mixture. Behind the fruit, we picked up toasted wood and grain notes that rounded out the vodka-based drink. The name gave a fair indication of its sweeter side, though the lime kept the flavors lively. We enjoyed the combination and the way those less obvious notes developed beyond the honey and mango.

Monsoon Perfume

Monsoon Perfume began with the refreshing combination of gin, tonic, lime, and mint, then left us with the tingle of Kampot pepper. The change from that fresh opening to a spicy finish kept our attention long after a sip was gone, and we found the pepper particularly appealing. There was one practical problem: Ian found a hard fragment of mature lemongrass in his drink. It was an avoidable flaw in a cocktail we otherwise enjoyed, and a reason to take care with the garnish as well as the recipe.

Peerless Shape

Peerless Shape challenged what we expected from jackfruit. We had the sweet, almost tutti-frutti or bubble-gum notes of the fruit in mind, and found something much more savory in the glass. Its flavors reminded us of raw bread dough, cheese, and fresh walnuts. That was interesting to taste, without becoming something we particularly wanted to linger over. The experiment showed how much room jackfruit gives a creative bartender, and brought back another unusual use of the fruit in a cocktail from our Out of Nowhere Penang review. We appreciated the idea more than we enjoyed this particular result.

Final Thoughts on Menaka Lounge

Menaka was well suited to travelers who wanted a relaxed cocktail evening after exploring Siem Reap’s temples. The welcome, the Cambodian references throughout the room, and the changing flavors of Monsoon Perfume gave us good reasons to enjoy our time there. Even the savory jackfruit experiment, which did not quite suit us, made the tasting more interesting. At US$6 a cocktail, the bar also represented very good value on our visit. Its reported closure makes this a memory of Siem Reap’s cocktail scene, with the original assessment preserved.

Plastic straws were the other detail I would have liked Menaka to reconsider. We had appreciated the lemongrass straws described in our Sokkhak River Lounge review, which showed that a local alternative was possible. It was a small criticism alongside an enjoyable evening, and still one worth keeping in an honest account of the bar.

Menaka Lounge Review Card

These are our original scores for the visit reviewed here.

• 9/10
  ATMOSPHERE – 9/10
• 9.0/10
  SERVICE – 9.0/10
• 8.9/10
  DRINK SELECTION – 8.9/10
• 8.4/10
  PRESENTATION – 8.4/10
• 9.5/10
  OUR DRINKS – 9.5/10
• 9.2/10
  VALUE – 9.2/10

Menaka Lounge Practical Details

Frequently Asked Questions About Menaka Lounge

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