Surface Enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) technique was developed to provide a high enhancement of Raman scattering from molecules adsorbed on nanostructured noble metal surfaces. This technique has gained tremendous interest in the past few years for the detection, identification and quantification of bacteria. Indeed, compared to the standard methods based on bacteria culture, SERS has many advantages in particular in terms of analysis time, sensitivity and sample preparation. The aim of this review is to provide an overview and a discussion of the SERS methods developed for bacteria analysis over the last 20 years. To well assess the technical issues of such developments, this literature review is presented after having described the physical and chemical phenomena involved in the Raman scattering enhancement as well as the different types of noble metal substrates that can be used.