Tag Archives: bars

April 1st-6th – Austria & Slovenia – Trip #5 of 2023 🇦🇹🇸🇮

You are reading Part 1 of our Big Trip of 2023! 24 days, 7 countries. In just over 3 weeks we visited 80+ bars and discovered 50+ new venues worthy of The European Bar Guide!

The plan for the first 6 days was as follows:

Fly to Bratislava, Slovakia 🇸🇰 travel to Austria 🇦🇹: Vienna for 3 nights, Graz for 2, then cross the border by rail to explore Maribor and Ptuj in Slovenia 🇸🇮.

Day 1 – Bratislava 🇸🇰 to Vienna 🇦🇹

With only 50km between them, flying into Bratislava can be a cheap and convenient way to get to Vienna, with a simple direct train to Wien HBF (central station). Before that we had only a small time in Bratislava, getting a cheap lunch at U Sedliaka 🇸🇰, a historic venue that churns out retro charms like Zlatý Bažant ’73 on tap and hearty home cooking such as the national dishes Strapačky and Bryndzové halušky. They even offer a couple of vegan dishes, quite a surprise. While the venue does have heritage, they haven’t really made the best design choices and it lacks a layout that produces a pubby enough social atmosphere.

That was soon due to change as we visited Bernard pri lýceu 🇸🇰, somewhat of a pilgrimage site for us in Bratislava. Tiny, cheap and completely shorn of pretence, this is a holdout boozer that has perhaps a minor cult reputation around the city. We found an article recently where it features on a list of ‘Pubs in Bratislava you need a lot of courage to enter‘. Part of that is to do with the service which, it would seem, is equally unfriendly to locals as it is to the very few tourists who wander in. This is self-service, not table service though, so if you come armed with basic phrases, you’ll be fine. Select the beer of your choice from a generous selection (including seasonal specials, this time a strong red/amber lager, the Easter Velikonoční Speciál on tap, and find a seat. The locals are not hostile and the atmosphere feels tolerant. After a short while of being sussed as English, we had a friendly chat about football with a few of them.

The train then beckoned and this concentrated hit of Slovakia had to suffice. Off we went to the station and to Vienna.

Vienna 🇦🇹

Travelling with my partner, Vienna was a first time visit for her, something like 6th or 7th for myself. I had found the city a tough nut to crack for bars, most of the best venues spread out geographically, some hidden behind opaque terminology and formats. Plenty are too foody, some leaning overly towards café culture to qualify. This is not like Prague where in some districts you have a genuine chance of finding a nice pub on any street corner. Gradually though, Vienna’s top quality options reveal themselves.

After visiting the excellent Third Man Film museum, checking in and a bit of a rest, we ventured out for the evening and to our first pub, the best in the city – Känguruh 🇦🇹. One of those pubs that maintains low lighting throughout the day, once inside time appears to stand still. It could be 7pm, it could be 3am. A true refuge. It was also very busy, slightly taking us by surprise (though it was Saturday night, it tends to get going after 10pm) meaning the first 30 minutes were propped at the bar until a table became free. A compact space with muted lamp lighting, there’s a special atmosphere in the main and back rooms. A duo of servers go back and forth, the elder of which I remember from my first visit in 2015. There have been some changes though, with the Belgian beer bible cut back (although still extensive) allowing for a much bigger range of Austrian beers than previously. Tap options remain simple and straightforward, but the bottle range is among the best in the city. Accompanying this is topped toasties they cook themselves, and an Italian food connection which they ring in. After 20 minutes or so a delivery guy from the next door restaurant appears with your meal. It is a quietly quirky venue with bags of personality.

The plan was to work our way East towards the city centre and back to the apartment. A linear plan sometimes means you end up at bars at the wrong time. I thought our 1st visit to Tanzcafé Jenseits 🇦🇹 may have come too early in the evening, but it was reasonably busy when we appeared. This former brothel has deliberately maintained a tacky boudoir type operation – most successfully in its decor and atmosphere, but the drinks choices and prices could do with an adjustment. Still, as a cult Vienna late bar and one-off experience it was well worth a visit, and no doubt we’ll be back.

3rd venue of the evening, Stehbeisl 🇦🇹 was already busy when we arrived. Our 2nd visit, and we weren’t surprised as it is a small and intimate bar. The Viennese Beisl is a curious term and can mean anything from the most down-at-heel venue, to a family run pokey eatery to a silver-service restaurant. This bar is a long, narrow but social space designed for evening meetups and socialising at a reasonable tempo. The drinks offering is decent with plenty more draft beers than you’d expect for a small space, and a backbar that ably covers cocktails, mixers, and shots. It’s up there as one of the best in the city.

The final stop, Café Bendl 🇦🇹 was the big find of our trip to Vienna last September 2022. Merely yards from Vienna’s finest buildings, this bar has long since given up maintaining any sort of pretense of belonging to such high society, instead luxuriating and diving deep into becoming something else, a venue rich in nostalgia, characterful and peeling, the customers enamoured with the place not because of its sophistication but because of its survival, maintaining its operation in a welcoming, affordable way, weathering every challenge and hardship it faces. Perhaps people can see the truth of this reflected in their own lives. The kind of venue that some people will never understand but is immediately appealing to us. And that was that – away to bed!

Day 2 – All Day In Vienna 🇦🇹

“We shall strike a balance between culture and fun”

Ken, In Bruges

On top of the endless bar going, there is of course the sightseeing, the museums, churches and palaces, the parks, the wacky one-offs, the ice-creams and the meals that lay you low. In Vienna, this means the Hofburg, the Imperial Crypt, Stephan’s Cathedral, Schönbrunn Palace, the Museum Quarter – to mention just a few.

After the trawl around the remnants of the dead empire, a 2nd ever trip to Café Hawelka 🇦🇹 felt appropriate. This almost deliberately dingy café remains largely unaltered since opening in 1939, attracting a literary and artistic scene in the 60s and 70s due to the bohemian atmosphere. These days it is firmly on the tourist circuit but its shape and rhythms are such that the Viennese still know when to pay a visit too. Service is jocular with some very well-dressed comedians popping back and forth. While it is clearly a Café, the atmosphere overall feels pub-like and social enough to qualify.

Combining bar and lunch at Kaffee Alt Wien 🇦🇹 came next, also our 2nd visit. Another historic Viennese café, this is hewn into a bar with appealing features such as the many cultural event posters plastered on the wall, the pool table, the racy oil painting (you’ll see it) and the rows of bench seating that make it feel casual enough to drop by for socialising. While they could go further, particularly in respect of drinks, it’s still pretty good.

The weather was pretty changeable to say the least, so after looking at some dead Hapsburgs for an hour, we dived into one of Vienna’s most famous – perhaps notorious too – venues, Loos American Bar. 🇦🇹 Unprepared for just how small it is, the design of this bar provides a false impression of space online. In fact, most of the space is above you with its high ceilings. The notoriety comes in two very different guises – the architect Herr Loos was later outed as a pederast, while the second is its dress code. Quite reasonably, they don’t allow customers wearing shorts/sandals and there is clear signage outside saying so. This doesn’t stop the hordes of entitled tourists moaning online that they were turned away. Their online score takes a hit as a result. A true one-off as a venue though, its modernist design decades ahead of time, well-preserved and never anything less than eye-catching and distinctive. Backlit tables contrast their cocktails in a quietly understated way, while a deliberately stripped back menu focusing on core components (for good reason, the bar literally does not have any space for more bottles) is creative in its sleight of hand. Expensive of course, possibly among the more expensive in the centre, but entirely worth it for what isn’t just a bar but a museum and experience.

The next stop was Trześniewski 🇦🇹 a famous Vienna institution dating back to 1902. Our first visit here, interest was piqued when hearing about the Pfiff, a tiny beer pour (even smaller than Cologne’s 0.2l Stange glass. As you’ll gather from the name, the founder was Polish, and the format feels somewhat similar, a tastefully retro snack bar with casual tables, the premise is simple. Choose a few finger sandwiches and a Pfiff (In this case Ottakringer Gold Fassl), enjoy a quick chat with your friends and head back. I enjoyed how, similar to a tapas bar, you can be here for a good time not a long time. A truly satisfactory experience here can last no longer than 10 minutes! Something about it is peculiarly addictive. It’s also directly opposite Café Hawelka, so you can stumble out of one and into another (and back again – those sandwiches are good).

Somewhat of a tradition, a trip to Gösser Bierklinik 🇦🇹 followed. A historic restaurant with a Schänke to the right as you enter. The best time to visit here is in the heart of winter, enjoying cosy surroundings in a natural atmosphere, with the occasional sound of horse clops hitting the cobbles outside. A rainy Spring day would have to do. Stiftsbräu Dunkel is the best beer on offer, a delicious rich dark lager.

It was time for a break after all that, and we took it easy in the evening, with food at Gürtelbräu 🇦🇹. This pleasant multitap pub is based in railway arches and a nice modern venue, dimly lit and using the natural ambience of the space, but it was disappointingly not boasting any of its own beers. A reminder to never assume in Austria or Germany a place brews its own beer just because ‘brau’ features in the title. That said, Vienna’s best mainstream beer, Ottakringer Rotes-Zwickl is permanently on tap, so we got over that news pretty quickly. They narrowly missed an inclusion to the guide as it was ridiculously short staffed and the food was pretty mediocre for the price.

The penultimate stop for the evening was a 2nd visit to Mel’s Craft Bar and Diner 🇦🇹. A central beer specialists in a modern, diner style room, we still found the environment oddly sterile despite the warm colours. Stuffy, overly lit, lacking charm and lacking an identity – something a large beer list can never compensate for. The fact we even returned was due to the unexpected closure on the day of Philosopher Bier Bar, an unpretentious little pub that adroitly drums up a comfortable, non-bland social atmosphere which we’d far preferred to have been in.

I thought it best to end the evening somewhere new. Perhaps not the most original choice, but we paid a visit to Delirium Café 🇦🇹 a sort of franchise that has spread across Europe. A curved bar with plenty of space, but lacking atmosphere and perhaps importantly for a Belgian café, short on satisfactory drinks options. The glass of Tremens ordered was also comfortably the worst I’ve had on the continent. Online reviews seem to confirm our suspicions that it was all a bit mediocre. This is an ongoing problem with the very centre of Vienna where a couple of beer bars like the above can prove popular simply due to the absence of competition. Perhaps we learnt something that evening – to not settle for mediocrity on account of convenience.

Day 3 – Final Day in Vienna 🇦🇹

After a dollop of morning culture followed by a dollop of mustard on some Vegan Würst, a 1st visit to Café Sperl 🇦🇹 kicked things off. A city institution, this was always likely to be more of a café than bar, and so it proved. We had hoped there may be a bar like atmosphere with the preserved 1880s interior, and its position as a social fixture, but the ceilings are too high, service is too formal, and the crowd too café like for it to be eligible. That is not to say I disliked it – an Einspänner (espresso with whipped cream) and slice of Sachertorte were delicious and the sense of institution was tangible. But it is a Café, not a bar, somewhere that feels rather like a treat to oneself, a private rather than a socially minded decision.

As we walked back into the city centre a quick search for potential bars uncovered a venue I had missed during cumulative hours of online trawling over the last 8 years. Amazed this slipped the net, Gutruf 🇦🇹 was a wonderful experience! Family-run, a cult Beisl, small informal and preserved venue with a 1970s era appearance. Homely, personalised and distinctive, with a hybrid menu of Chinese and Viennese cooking. The place even hides in plain sight, the street frontage suggesting a barbers or clothes shop that shuttered decades ago. A place you can go for a drink and a chat just as easily, there is an easy informality that belies all preconceptions and lived experience of Vienna’s stuffier pub-restaurants. We recommend.

There must have been 20 minutes to spare in the centre – ah yes, a wait to visit the Cathedral and climb the tower – because our notes confirm we were back in Trześniewski 🇦🇹 munching on sandwiches and sipping on the little Pfiff!

After a very active day out we went back for a rest to recover for the evening.

That evening we paid a 2nd visit of our trip to Känguruh 🇦🇹 . When one of the Top 100 Bars in Europe is on your doorstep, you can’t waste the opportunity!

There was time to try one more venue for the first time – and it was a big one – Jazzland 🇦🇹. A long-standing cult Jazz & Blues venue set in the basement of a 500 year old building, everything jumps out at you immediately to suggest this is going to work. And it does. Tucked around a side courtyard, descend stairs to a ticket counter and clothes room, paying the nominal fee (5 euros in our case) to enter a busy little theatre and basement bar in a warren of rooms. Brick vaults decorated with black & white photos of famous (and not so famous) performers that have appeared over the decades. Drinks are decent, all things considered, with Zwicklbier and Dunkel on tap – not the worst outcome for such a venue. The bar room does not allow for much viewing access, so try your luck in one of the niches or wait until a seat in the main room becomes free. An excitable crowd that sense they are part of the best thing going on in Vienna at that moment – a sensation that leaves a lasting impression. Mark this place on your map – we have.

Day 4 – Graz 🇦🇹

Graz in the southern Styria region is a pleasant 2 hour-something train journey from Vienna, passing by some steadily more scenic and hilly areas (still nothing like out West). With the highest peaks still snowcapped, there was plenty to look at on a pleasant sunny day.

Graz 🇦🇹

On arrival, the best way into the centre is via tram. Somewhat similar to Ghent 🇧🇪 in layout, the very centre is just distant enough from the station to warrant a ticket. The central Hauptplatz stop drops you off in the dead centre of town, with its beautiful pastel coloured buildings and the looming Schlossberg and clock tower overlooking the Altstadt.

Unlike Vienna and Linz, Graz’s old town is happy to wear its cracks and peeling plaster, adding to its sense of historic character, and is UNESCO-inscripted. A small centre, once there pretty much everything is walkable providing you’re relatively mobile.

Before our 3pm hotel check-in we started at Bierboutique 🇦🇹, a bottle shop with some space for drinking in. Service was friendly and helpful, the selection offering a decent range of regional beers and plenty of pricier specialist mixed fermentation stuff. A Witbier dedicated to the Bosniaks was an unexpected and rather random find, but also a good one! As for the venue, it isn’t somewhere you’d go for an evening drink really, with it feeling more like a spot for a quick tasting than a social venue.

Up through the old town and through the city park to one of Graz’s Bauzatslokale. Let’s address what that is first. These ‘kit bars’ are owned by the same company and dotted throughout the city. The concept is that your food – be that pizza, salad, burgers, etc is completely customisable, and you fill out your bingo card according to your needs. Reasonably priced and therefore popular with the University population in the city, these breathe life – pub life – into Graz’s cultural scene. Of those concerned, some are better than others, and in our opinion Grammophon 🇦🇹 qualifies as one of the most pubby, with a genuine ‘local’ feel, somewhere you could pop into to say Hi and relax with friends. A wooden interior natural communal seating around a central bar, and ‘worn-in’ feel that tells of many happy nights spent here. As with almost all pubs in Graz, the not-very-nice Puntigamer lager is available on tap, along with a host of other mid-brow options.

With good weather on our side, a walk up through the Schlossberg (yes, direct through the rock) to the clock tower with beautiful cities views followed, before dropping down back to the city centre.

Occasionally we will drop into businesses on a whim if they look good and today was one of them. Maggie’s Leberkas Stadl 🇦🇹 a venue we were hitherto entirely unaware of, was full of locals mid-afternoon and it looked as though they were having a great time. With a meatloaf counter and stools opposite a bar you may begin to wonder if this is some arch hipster venue – far from it. Decorated in a slightly camp – but very Germanic – way, full of friendly – rather drunk – middle aged folk, here is where pretense – and perhaps decorum – goes to die. We both enjoyed the refreshingly no f’s given environment and the fact a pub was actually busy during the typically dead hours of the day, but can’t really justify its inclusion.

The next stop before a break for a rest + dinner was the inverse to the previous place. Thirsty Heart 🇦🇹. Better beers, plenty of artifice and pretense, but no soul, and fewer people – sullen staff weren’t exactly filling the void either. A slate grey room, you look around for something to hold on to other than the glass of beer – and it isn’t there.

After a stomach-lining dinner we took a walk out to Graz’s University district, a pocket of nightlife around Zinzendorfgasse. Here, the best Bausatzlokale, Posaune 🇦🇹 can be found. Another bar with a natural social shape that invites mixing and encounters, producing a dynamic atmosphere. The place is also a worn-in, homely sort of pub that you can hang out in at quieter times. Our 2nd visit here and definitely not our last.

Our next selection, back in the centre was a bar I had mulled over going to in September 2022 until I walked into the middle of a Pub Quiz and a crowded room. This time however, there was ample room in Hops Craft Beer Pub 🇦🇹 which was a pleasant surprise – less of an ex-pat/tourist crowd than expected, and much less ‘crafty’. Instead a healthy mix of people that injected a good sense of social character in historic vaults that are tastefully decorated. It doesn’t hurt that there are several nice beers here – something that should never be taken for granted when you look around Europe.

Tiring but with enough in the tank for a nightcap, a 2nd stop at Brot & Spiele 🇦🇹 an unusual venue. Large, with a pub room and games area, on my first visit I found the environment fell well short, but this was because I was hanging around the games area, having walked past where I should have sat. Walk left into the pub itself which is a pleasant enough place decorated with some classic breweriana and furnished with communal booths. The beer selection is atypically excellent for a games pub. While perhaps not cutting edge, plenty of better traditional options are on offer on draft and tap. Would it feature on our guide – no, that would be a bit of a stretch, but it is good enough to have in your pocket as an option while in Graz.

Day 5 – Graz and Arnold Schwarzenegger 🇦🇹

Arnie’s childhood home is in Thal, a picturesque village that’s a short bus ride and pleasant country ramble from Graz. After morning coffee we took a literally last minute decision to attempt to visit. This was a little reckless given the buses out there are very infrequent. But, as normally happens, everything turned out fine. The museum is small and the entrance fee a little steep, but when were we next going there? (never) And when are we ever going back? (Also never). Underplaying Arnie’s Dad’s far-right leanings with some expert deployment of euphemism, overall it felt more appropriate that the experience emphasises the general cheese and gurning, simple-minded good vibes Schwarzenegger delivers.

Our first visit of the day was an adventurous and novel one. Before now we had only read about Heuriger culture in Austria. These taverns are often family affairs, wine producers with a hospitality focus, often putting on spreads and buffets to accompany their wines. Normally these are based in the hills but occasionally some pop up on the fringes of cities. We were fortunate it wasn’t too difficult to visit Lucky’s Heuriger 🇦🇹, a venue out in the suburbs but just about reachable via tram and bus after a walk. Completely local with a homely, pubby environment inside, full of personal touches that feels like being in someone’s lounge. Wines and the buffet were both simple but distractingly good quality and came in at good value. The cuts of meat were close to par with a meal I had paid over triple for the previous evening. Hospitality was as good as advertised, and the slight adrenalin rush of going somewhere largely untouched by tourists did the rest. An experience we will revisit as soon as we can.

Spring was finally arriving and we enjoyed spectacularly good ice cream from Die Eisperle in Jakobinplatz in the nearby Blumengarten, a little tulip-laden fountain square that begins the run from Herrengasse towards the Hauptplatz. The sugar rush sustained a trip around the Landeszeughaus, the biggest collection of Medieval European armor in the world. Afterwards, we took a walk up to Kaiser Ferdinand II’s mausoleum, a typically extravagant and hubristic affair, but at least such things are entertaining centuries on, better that than some dour alternative!

After a break from these cultural exertions it was time to venture out for the evening beginning with Bier Baron 🇦🇹, our 2nd visit and the 3rd of these Bauzatslokale. This visit really showed off the pub’s charms versus a quieter afternoon last September. While it may be too mainstream for some, a simple versatile format shows why it’s a hit. A DIY pizza and Zwicklbier later, and we were fuelled for the evening ahead.

Our next stop was an intriguing cocktail bar named The Churchill 🇦🇹, which fell somewhere in between student hangout and gentleman’s club (Oi – not that kind). Despite pretensions to exclusivity, the atmosphere was pretty informal and cordial with a mix of people, while the cocktail menu offered classics on top of their house specials. While there is some amusingly dodgy framed art, taking a balanced appraisal of the bar’s appeal overall, it deserves an inclusion to our guide.

Further down the hill in Graz’s attractive moneyed suburbs of Geidorf is Humboldtkeller 🇦🇹, a surviving old family-run Beisl. Longstanding but with very little presence and recent reviews to suggest it was still open. We are glad to confirm it is going strong. Friendly service, Yugoslav pub grub (which is very much not the focus), candlelit tables and attractive curved ceiling is a flavour of what to expect at this quaint, atmospheric little hideaway that has deservedly become a cult hit in Graz over the decades for Jazz & Rock, and cosy atmosphere. We liked it.

Our last stop was back in town, a basement cocktail bar that was locked up on a previous attempt. Caffe Hallo Josephine, 🇦🇹 was a little short on online presence but with plenty of glowing reviews. In the end our experience fell below that hype. Kindly service in a tiny little basement, it was not without charm but lacking a few flourishes in the décor, while the cocktails appeared to be constructed without much assurance.

So there is Graz. Our 2nd visit to the city, this is not a place lacking in decent options for both beers, cocktails, music or community events. It lacks that one killer venue I suppose, though that is no great crime. After a night’s sleep it was time to move on and visit Slovenia for the 1st time since 2014!

Day 6 – Slovenia 🇸🇮 – Maribor & Ptuj

The journey to Slovenia from Graz is about as straightforward an international crossing as you can find, without much delay or bureaucracy, you will land in Maribor train straight around an hour after departure.

Maribor 🇸🇮

Maribor is a nice little town – particularly its unheralded central square and riverside – and will make an acceptable half day/evening for tourists interested. After a look at its modest, vaguely unwelcoming cathedral, we were quickly en route to Pub Gambrinus 🇸🇮, a little place that specialises in Czech 🇨🇿 ales and lagers. Noticing our conversation in English, the owner introduced himself and explained his connection to a roster of beers that are frankly extraordinary to find outside Czechia – and would be pretty damn good to find in Czechia too. Aside of that aspect, it’s a characterful little knajpa, clearly inherited from a previous operation, worn wood, raised seating area and street terrace. While some of the signage veers towards those inane beer sayings and even worse, ‘Live Laugh Love’ type stuff, that is ignorable.

Before moving onto Ptuj there was time to visit Kavarnica Rokaj 🇸🇮, a very down to earth Caffe Bar by the river, currently engulfed in building work. With a surprisingly good beer selection – including local craft, I couldn’t fault the produce, or the soundtrack, but unfortunately the venue is the typical awful Balkans café bar mess.

Following a minor train delay, we even had time in a 3rd Maribor venue, Shakespeare Pub 🇸🇮. A battered old theme pub with wood fittings, it at least vaguely resembled a pub. Staff who appeared to be about 16 years old churned out the typical rubbish lagers, so it was time to get a bottle of Laško, as vile as I remembered.

The journey to Ptuj takes a frustrating L-shape, and a delay backing our of Praguersko ended any prospect of reaching Ptuj castle before closing time. This just left us with a wander around, and it is a very pretty little town.

Ptuj 🇸🇮

A wine producing region, we had hoped to go somewhere to try local wines, but unfortunately none of the cellars were open. We were invited to have some wine at the bar at Hotel Mitra, 🇸🇮 one of the potential wine tasting venues in lieu of their cellar tastings, but it was a drab experience and one of the real wastes of time of the trip.

Ptuj is home to the Kurent, a mystical character who chases away winter to beckon in spring, and it certainly felt like they had paid Slovenia their annual visit on this warm sunny April day. One of Ptuj’s cultural centres is Muzikafe 🇸🇮, a historic building and one that enjoys minor national fame. The interior is a warren of rooms in a café lounge style, warm 1990s type hues with sofas you can sink into and large books to lose yourself in. So far so normal – but the venue is brought into interest with its courtyard area with creative metal art installations and seating niches, which comes alive in the summer months – it is worth mentioning a few superior beer options in the fridge too. Certainly in a small town like Ptuj it shouldn’t be overlooked.

After a meal and a rest we ventured out to a pub we were confident would deliver – we had researched it in advance but it was also mentioned by the bar guy at Gambrinus in Maribor. In the commercial centre of Ptuj you’ll find Kavarna Bodi 🇸🇮 occupying a tall Austrian-era building. This cultural centre, bar and café similarly lays on the amenities for the public, but has more of an edge and relevance. On arrival we were nearly turned away after the limited seating at the main bar was taken. Staff explained a live performance was ongoing in the main room with a 15 euro entry fee, however after some negotiation we were allowed to enter, and enjoyed the last half hour or so. The main room with its tall ceilings and eclectic furniture and installations is cosy, instantly likeable and obviously one of the region’s best social spaces. The experience was accentuated with a very decent beer selection that will keep most tastes satisfied. After the gig and a little exploring of the premises we returned to the bar room to find an available table, and had a 2nd drink in the fairylit surroundings of the bar – a nice place indeed.

A drunken walk home allowed just enough time to visit local’s bar Orfej. While the other venues have their particular charms and audience, this was clearly the pub where the Ptuj residents, those with a stake in proceedings perhaps, hang out. We got the predictable few looks on our entry and were almost caught out by their closing time. Busy and bustling, it had plenty of atmosphere but overall was lacking a little in a distinctive appearance, and perhaps a little in terms of hospitality. We were ushered out pretty promptly at last orders.

Conclusions – and the road ahead!

Visiting Graz and Vienna relatively soon after our last visits in September 2022 was a good opportunity to reaffirm some initial impressions and build on our exploration of their bar scene. Vienna ended up being a success with some excellent bars added to the guide, whereas with Graz we mainly built on breadth rather than depth.

Slovenia is, as always, strikingly beautiful and it is nice to see most venues we visited going beyond the Union and Laško beer options. It feels like we missed out on some of Ptuj’s best bits, which is a source of regret when you may not return for 10 years, but at its bar scene was certainly not neglected.

In the next 6 days we would cross over to Croatia 🇭🇷, visiting Varaždin for a night and the capital Zagreb for 5 nights, both places we had not visited for 10 years. Would they yield the next great inscription on The European Bar Guide? Watch this space!

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A Weekend In Romania – Trip #3 of 2023

Trip #3 of 2023 - A Weekend In Romania

Hastily arranged, a last-minute opportunity arose to spend a weekend away in Cluj-Napoca, a city in Romania 🇷🇴 (<- this link is a plug to our Romania section of the guide) we last visited in 2018. As well as a chance to check in on some old favourites, we decided to include a day and night in Oradea, a city in the North West of the country close to the Hungarian border which we had never previously visited.

Day #1 – The Long Night

Arriving at Cluj-Napoca 2:45am local time from Leeds Bradford Airport, we made the brave, possibly unwise choice to eschew a hotel for the night and instead simply find a bar, stay out and take an early train to Oradea at 5:50am. On arrival at Cluj airport it was quickly apparent Romania had received heavy snowfall the previous week. The snow had stopped but not cleared away. Icy temperatures had set in, a bone-trembling -10 Celsius as we stepped out of Arrivals into the airport car park.

A taxi ride to the centre later, we reviewed our brief list of venues claiming to stay open after 3am on a Friday and made an attempt to visit Submarine, a bar/club hybrid with an interesting theme and decor. Just off the main square, we were relieved to see the city still lively with clutches of groups emerging from bars and nightclubs. However, when we approached the building Submarine was in we found wooden scaffolding and a sign on the door that despite translation remained unhelpfully vague. After a few attempts to pursue the matter we were forced to abandon the idea and headed for a place we knew would be open – La Țevi 🇷🇴.

On our last visit, La Tevi was the epitome of a scuzzy down-n-dirty dive bar popular with all manner of goths and misfits generally consuming large green bottles of cheap lager. It certainly won’t be everybody’s choice of venue, but it does what it does well. If you get in with this crowd they’re as friendly and loyal as you’ll get anywhere else.

This time, on our 2nd visit we found space at the bar next to the fireplace, roaring away. We looked at the options of beer which had expanded considerably to include a wider range of regional lagers with some craft beers. The tap options are still dreadful but if you’re after something that’s not a gassy Euro lager, they have several options in bottles, the best being from Capra Noastră.

We spent a couple of decent hours here knocking around with a selection of people who were far further on than us until it made sense to take the 40 minute walk to the station in the deep cold.

The 5:50AM train to Oradea takes around 2 hours 30 minutes on a grubby hand-me-down from Deutsche Bahn that hasn’t been well looked after. Broken toilet, broken windows, broken heating, and small. Two carriages was barely enough to squeeze in the passengers and it was a truly godawful journey, punctuated two dozen stops at villages in the middle of nowhere, each time releasing all the residual heat we had built up, resetting the carriage temperature to Baltic. Due to the state of the train, even when daylight arrived it wasn’t possible to raise spirits by taking in any of the lovely countryside vistas. But eventually the mind-numbing, sleep-deprived shivering ended – we had arrived!

Day #2 – All Day in Oradea

After all that, the warmth of the station hall in Oradea felt like a big swaddling hug from one’s granny. The cold had set in deeper than surface level though, and it was time to get some liquid central heating. Unfortunately the woman at the kiosk misinterpreted my request for a hot chocolate and I was served some ersatz hybrid of Ovaltine and cheap coffee which lasted about 3 sips before being binned. Not a great start. Christ, was it all going to be worth it?

Oradea enjoys a – let’s be polite – obscure reputation outside this region and enquiries with other well-travelled friends didn’t yield much either. However, cursory research actually piqued my interest. The city to Oradea’s south, Timișoara has a vast inheritance of crumbling Art Nouveau architecture too vast, too intricate and too beyond repair for a city with their budget to begin restoring, making the city centre an atmospheric place, haunted houses and faded glamour. Oradea was similar, except that for one reason or another, some money had come rolling in from the EU and many of its own marvels have been spruced up and fitted in their Sunday best!

Oradea has lots of side streets with low-key diverting and unusual constructions but reaching the main thoroughfare through to its main square and shopping streets suddenly unfurls startling, dramatic, colourful mansions and palaces. To a Westerner this feels all so hidden, and, to be cynical for a minute, so under-exploited as a destination.

We realised pretty quickly on our last visit to Cluj-Napoca that due to a lack of pub culture, bar-going in Romania doesn’t really happen until late afternoon at the very earliest. After breakfast, a trip to Oradea fortress, the apartment check-in and a much needed nap, we visited Columbus Café 🇷🇴 at opening time. This pub is located in the Palace of the Black Vulture, arguably Oradea’s emblem – an awesome name too.

Columbus Café had a nautical theme with a mast, sail, and ‘deck’ type wood-fittings. Some people may already be shuddering at the prospect of such a theme but it was actually fairly muted and well-executed, easily ignorable. All the wood at least produced a cosy appearance and some natural atmosphere inside, while there was also terrace seating covered with the beautiful arcades in the Palace. The pub served a bottle of beer – Märzen – as it happened which was in effect a house beer, named after the palace. This was passable – in these regions you adjust your expectations accordingly.

After dinner and a strategic time-out, it was time to get involved in the nightlife properly, beginning at Lokal 🇷🇴. This venue is very typical of the alternative scene in Romania, based in a network of rooms in what appears to be an old apartment complex, with covered outdoor seating and a bohemian atmosphere among the faded grandeur. Their drinks offering was pretty decent, far beyond the incredibly limited distribution we found last year in Sibiu. Craft beer has punctured through the macro offerings meaning most bars will have at least one or two atypical choices alongside those plugged by Heineken, SABMiller et al. Lokal was the standout venue in Oradea with a friendly feel, a core audience of post-grads and a firm sense that in late spring and summer it blossoms into its full potential.

Moving on, our next venue was Gekko Pub 🇷🇴, another house/complex turned into a bar and club, with a series of rooms and a courtyard. This is not central, but easily reached about 15 minutes walk from the centre. On entrance we were confronted by some bouncers. After explaining we are English they appear to abandon the normal spot checks and questions and let us in anyway with no frisking or payment (top tip for any locals). The pub itself is on the extreme end of unpretentious, simply a bruised and battered hangout spot for youngsters that resembles a sixth form common room. Loungey sofas, table football, big screen, etc. The drinks options weren’t so great here, but it’s cheap and cheerful and when the warmer months approach, the courtyard will be one of the better spots in the city to go to.

The final venue on our list, Café Moszkva 🇷🇴 followed a similar format, a large building repurposed into a bar, live music venue, courtyard, hangout spot and basement club. Resources are also stretched thin so a lot of space receives only the minimal TLC and decoration, giving it an alternative feel. There was no bouncer this time, but we arrives to a throng of people smoking/vaping in the courtyard. On entry you are effectively in a townhouse with a stairwell and corridor leading off to what were previously grand old rooms, but are now fixtures of the bar itself. Moszkva’s audience was somewhere in between Lokal and Gekko’s – young, down-to-earth, one of the first times I have felt conspicuously old, albeit not to feel unwelcome in any way. Pumping music, live gig going on upstairs and a very decent selection of drinks including several craft beers makes this a well-equipped choice for a late hangout in Oradea and finished up as our second favourite in the city.

Day #3 – Return to Cluj-Napoca for an evening of Hungarian folk culture!

We were dreading a repeat of the train that took us to Oradea, so made a personal decision to book first class for the return – for a price that was still not very expensive given the length of journey. Thankfully the train on this occasion was a spacious, length, typically central/Eastern Europe affair, with compartments (which I prefer) giving a private and relaxed journey back to Cluj-Napoca, enjoying lots of sweeping sights of snow-capped hills and meadows in what is still a sparsely populated corner of Europe.

Apartment check-in times are an obstacle any seasoned traveller needs to navigate, making pub choices around agreed check-in times, so on arrival with time to kill we decided to visit Klausen Pubhouse 🇷🇴 for the first time. This pub bears no relation to the rooftop brewpub Klausen Burger 🇷🇴 (which we somehow failed to find this time after having previously visited), as Klausen is the old German name for Cluj, so as commercial property, its use is fair game. Klausen Pubhouse is stodgy in a reassuringly familiar way, its design a portmanteau of pub styles from Irish to Czech: curved ceilings, chunky seats, hues of creams and greens. It was no surprise that the first foreign voices we heard aside ours was in this place. Not wishing to be sneery about that, this sort of pub has a solid reliable appeal and also offered a Romanian brewed IPA on draft that didn’t suck. It also got busier during our visit.

After some food there we made a repeat visit to Insomnia 🇷🇴, a 1st floor apartment bar and cultural centre that made probably the biggest impression on us during our 2018 visit. In between then and now the venue has been given a facelift, moving closer to a kind of aspirational chic that hasn’t done it any major favours, with a redesign of the bar area also spoiling the pub-like feel it used to have where you would sit in a bar room itself. During this visit there was a photoshoot so the sight of preening individuals posing didn’t help either. However, the choice of drinks has improved, the courtyard area has been better exploited and they continue to host off-beat events. As Cluj’s oldest bar (still not that old) there will remain a degree of nostalgic appeal.

After check-in and a rest, we decided to check out two of Cluj-Napoca’s craft beer venues, The Brewhouse 🇷🇴 and Beer Wall Café 🇷🇴. The former was only around the corner from our apartment, and is a corner bar on a beautiful little street, the sort that you have to pinch yourself is in a major city centre. The Brewhouse offers a large range of Romanian craft beer supplemented by a connected brewing operation, Blackout Brewing whose wares occupy around half of the taps. The interior is tasteful and well designed, and there is altogether an absence of anything to complain about (aside the prices which are pushing UK levels). The main issue is that there is so little to really grasp on to that’s distinctive, that provides a sense of identity.

Beer Wall Café is a 10 minute walk away, through the central square towards the riverside. There is a nice cobbled lane by a stream and a painted barrel by the door guides you to the entrance. Inside you’ll find a more generic craft beer bar appearance – blackboards, raised seating, industrial chic, but it isn’t overly obnoxious or starkly lit, and the drinks selection is, once again, excellent. The ‘beer wall’ does what it says without ever being impressive enough to justify the dramatic sounding name for the place. While it didn’t quite make our guide, we also found there wasn’t much to criticise and really enjoyed the Zimand wheat beer we had (brewed near Arad) that was impressively authentic.

A few doors down is Old School Coffee House 🇷🇴 where we paid our 2nd ever visit. This place defines low key with a bookish café bar vibe, lived-in decor and fitting, friendly service and a couple of craft beer options in addition to the norm. They attract a corresponding audience which stays the right side of pseudy.

After an evening meal we noticed one of our guide entries, Zorki 🇷🇴 wasn’t open, so took a gamble on an interesting venue out of the old town. Heltai FolkCenter 🇷🇴 is not well-reviewed online, however there are some mitigations. Based on its format (probably love or hate) and the inevitable ethnic contrasts, some people have taken a dislike to the place. We are not among those people.

The evening almost didn’t happen. On arrival we entered through a driveway to what appeared to be a venue fully closed for the evening. Lights off, no-one sat in the courtyard, no music or sound of conversations. We tried different rooms – conference centre, offices, and made a last effort to try the door in the far corner – now we were in business.

Heltai Folkcenter is a Hungarian cultural centre whose dealings go well beyond operating its pub – which is a simple traditional kocsma, its bar room a timeless rickety affair with a bookshelf and simple seating. The drinks selection is Hungarian focused – mainstream selections of beers like Csíki Sör and hard liquor like Unicum, but there is a perfunctory selection covering most bases. The prices are cheap and fair in accordance with those offerings.

Initially the place felt like it was winding down, with 4 or 5 groups chatting among themselves, but after half an hour a slow influx of people changed the momentum and suddenly there was the sense we were instead building up to something. This was surprising given their official hours close at 11pm!

As suspected, the music began to play, first with a fiddle, then an accompaniment of double bass, before an impromptu band had developed, with traditional dancing, a room full to bursting and at this point we were sharing a table with some of the locals.

A few beers – then whiskies – later, the blurry, fulfilled merriment and excitement of being at the right place in the right time may have led to some excitable tweets from our account. We stick by the general vibe though – one more occasion where we walked through a scary dark door to find a great pub and have a wonderful time.

Day #4 – More Cluj, then home!

After a day without sleep on arrival and a late night, we caught up on sleep ahead of the final day in Cluj. We walked up to the old citadel hill late morning in bright sunshine, then through to the long city park where skaters were still using the frozen pond to the large modern football stadium at the end, where melting icicles were causing a hazard! Lunch was at Fabrica de Bere 🇷🇴 which has had a change of operation since 2018. Rather than being focused on Cluj’s ubiquitous beer Ursus, local craft beer operation Bârlog run this flash pub restaurant. Unusually they offer 6 of their beers on tap, so we of course ordered a tasting tray of them to accompany our lunch. As a venue the vibe is too restaurant and the decor and atmosphere too embedded in aspirational lounge bar culture to consider including on our guide, but it was a good opportunity to try more local beer.

The walk back to the centre from there is grim, a busy, noisy polluted road with pavements that apparently still haven’t been relaid even after 4 years. At least there wasn’t 10 centimetres of snow to trudge through this time.

One of Cluj’s peculiar themes is steampunk, a design style that many local artists appear to have coalesced around. There’s a fun little museum you can visit in the centre that sets the tone, which can then be augmented by visiting bars like Enigma 🇷🇴, Submarine 🇷🇴 and Joben 🇷🇴 who share this design style. We visited the latter and found it predictably low key and café-like in the early afternoon. The frustrating thing about Joben is that it does have many interesting items to look at, but they are bogged down in otherwise generic furnishings that tilt the place towards being a modern mainstream lounge bar rather than an alternative one. It’s still worth having a nosy visit if you’re at a loose end.

With time running out before our flight, we fit in two 1st times visits, first to Blériot 🇷🇴 which was a studenty, fairly alternative hangout spot that mid-afternoon on a Monday was virtually deserted. It looked to have a bit of potential however and one to bear in mind.

And finally….. Shadow Café 🇷🇴 a well-reviewed 1st floor apartment bar (haven’t we heard that a few times already) with classic rock n’ roll stars on the wall, and a decent drinks selection. Again, the setup is designed to segue from sedate café to lively bar seamlessly. While a little more could be done with the decor, it must be said that the place is a strong all-rounder and we’re happy to recommend it.

Final thoughts!

The main development since our previous visit to Cluj-Napoca is the emergence of craft beer bars which widens the diversity and provides a challenge to the existing venues, one which they have adjusted to by nearly all including in their offering, which is a big positive. Finding the FolkCentre and being there at exactly the right moment is a stroke of good fortune – be careful to ensure your visit there coincides otherwise you might find your experience significantly differs.

Oradea was a welcome highlight with a beautiful, quirky and distinctive centre and just enough going on from its tower climb, citadel + museum, Orthodox church and funky architecture to fully justify a day and night there. Although the trains are rickety, reaching Oradea in terms of time is perfectly possible from Cluj, but we’d recommend not trying to cram in a visit and return to Cluj on the same day.

Romania’s bar scene is still far too geared around a small section of society – you won’t see almost anyone aged over 40 in most of these bars, while the action itself gets underway reasonably late. Prior to then, sleeping cafés and stodgy pubs don’t exactly inspire. However, focusing on the positives, the nightlife is lively, very unpretentious, good value and increasingly satisfying in terms of its drink offering.

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Le Pot Au Lait, Liège

9.5/10

Le Pot Au Lait: A surrealist masterpiece and rite of passage.

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Address: Rue Soeurs-de-Hasque 9, 4000 Liège, Belgium
Nearest Station: Liège-Carré , 10 mins walk
Opening Hours: 11am-4am Monday-Saturday, 2pm-2am Sunday (Due to Coronavirus restrictions this may change, so check with the bar directly for any latest info)

History
Le Pot au Lait is located on Soeurs de Hasque in the heart of Liege. Number 9 is a magnificent house from the 19th century built over an ancient convent which held, from the end of the 15th century, sisters from another convent from Hasselt, a Flemish city, being often called “Haske” in Liege, “The Sisters from Haske” gave their name to the street. Here is how the bar was founded:

“In 1973 a group of students created a place that until then had never existed in Liège where they could organise films, concerts, debates, theme days, free of any official politics. They found what they were looking for at No 9 Soeurs de Hasque Street and it opened as “Trou Perrette”.

In 1979, it became obvious that a second bar was needed next to the “Trou Perrette”. So we needed a name and after a brain storming session came up with “Pot au Lait” in reference to a fable from a french poet, Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) called “The Dairywoman and the Pot of milk”.

In 1981, the Trou Perrette closed its doors for the last time. But now you know why the Pot-au-Lait became the Pot-au-Lait“

The Pub

These days, Le Pot Au Lait continues its historic function, being the beating heart of nightlife and social affairs in the city. It would be untrue to say that this is a student venue either, more a youthful rite of passage that stays with you afterwards, one of those rare things, a pub you keep returning to over and over long after the early years.

Set off the main street, you will enter through a narrow courtyard, already spying the decorations festooned left and right. Some people will be hanging out on the terrace. The place gives off good vibes straight away.

Then, enter through to what at first appears to be a greenhouse, with uneven flooring. The ethos is akin to Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna, with a commitment to uneven surfaces, and heterodox approach. To call it distinctive is underselling it. Cartoon gorillas, carnival scenes, macabre taxidermy, graffiti, tall plants and more that would take too long to describe. Le Pot Au Lait is the funfair that got lost one day and decided to lay down roots.

Like some of the best bars in Europe: Szimpla Kert, ‘t Brugse Beertje, Zlatna Ribica, to name but a few, the place has an immediate draw that comes from sensing that everyone is having a great time, the excitement of being in the place to be.

It’s pretty cool too that Le Pot Au Lait is located somewhere like Liége. No, not somewhere fashionable for the nightlife like Brussels or Hamberg or Copenhagen, but this down-at-heel working class city in Wallonia.

Anyway, it’s time for a drink, don’t you think? You’re very well served here with several tap options and a suite of bottles covering a reasonably broad range of Belgium’s better beers. Perhaps they could serve a few more specialist options for the sniffier customers, but there is something here for most beer drinkers. Being popular with a younger crowd, there is also a reasonable selection of alternatives. You’d think this might be one of the more expensive venues too, but some choices appear genuinely cheap, and will certainly come across that way after a few days in the much more expensive end of Belgium.

Once served, plonk yourself among the communal niches surrounding the bar, the atrium (good for people watching), the mezzanine level or any little hidey-hole that suits your needs. Go for a wander around, because this is an art gallery as well as a bar.

Le Pot Au Lait has maintained a commitment to culture and the arts, so while we’d be perfectly happy if they just served drinks, it deserves extra commendation for hosting live events and being a communal meeting spot. Long opening hours mean this is a versatile venue that suits a quiet afternoon hangout or raucous late night drinks, each enjoyable in their own right.

We give bars a 10/10 rating when they are reasons in and of themselves to visit a place, and Le Pot Au Lait certainly justifies that.

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Scârț, Timișoara

Scârț
Timișoara
9.2/10

In Timișoara, a venue has appeared in the last 5 years which is entirely unlike anything you would expect to find in the West.

Strada Arhitect Laszlo Szekely 1
Timișoara
Romania

In Timișoara, a venue has appeared in the last 5 years which is entirely unlike anything you would expect to find in the West.

While Western Romania is hardly a hotbed of distinctive individual bars setting Europe alight, in a strange way, the cheaper rents, creative freedom and lack of corporate control make it much more likely that such a place may come into existence versus an expensive, tightly corporate trend-following city centre (eg. Leeds).

There is a twisted irony that Timișoara, birthplace of the Romanian revolution against communism would now host as one of its most popular attractions, Scârț, a bar and museum nostalgically smothered in its relics and ephemera and making money from them.

The name itself, “Scârț” translates to ‘Squeak’. Apparently there are extra layers of meaning to that (I haven’t managed to find out just what. Other suggestions seem to think it means Creaky door). Loc Lejer is more direct: ‘A chill place’. It was opened by a group of actors who were looking for a way to sustain themselves and their work.

The bar itself is located in a large old house in a quiet neighbourhood south of the city centre. It is not all that far away on foot, perhaps 15 minutes, also only a hundred metres away from a locally famous restaurant Casa Bunicii.

While the walk to Scârț may feel unsettling, entering the bar, even for the first time, feels almost like going to see an old friend.

Despite a Museum attraction on the premises, you won’t find too many huge signs nearby advertising its location.  However, as long as you stick to the address and follow your nose, you’ll be OK.

Like a lot of cities in the region, backstreet Timișoara during the evenings is dark. I mean really, really dark. With little signage or street lights to guide you, the strongest indicator of the bar is the rumbling of conversation around the back of the building. Enter through the front gate and you will see a number of large artworks fixed to the fence in the driveway. Carry on through and you’ll find a small garden terrace, and a set of steps leading up to the bar itself.

On entering, you will find the bar directly to your right. You will have quickly noticed the place is very nicely decorated, with an array of communist-era nostalgia among one or two new artworks, with a few tables directly opposite the bar top to sit around.

There is a wide choice of drinks – alcohol certainly does not dominate, although there is plenty of that should you wish. The cheapest (though certainly not nicest) beer, Ciuc, will set you back 7 lei, reasonably good value in a city which generally fluctuates between 8-13 lei for a basic half litre bottle. If you are simply looking for tea, that can be served in pints and I read that they make their own elderberry drinks. We also read that you can buy certain old time snacks like Pufuleti, Eugenia and Danut, which is thoughtful.

Once served, you can explore two backrooms, where the décor hits you from all angles, with any number of interesting and varied pieces of communist kitsch to cast your eyes on. The furnishing is eclectic, but thoughtful, with some chunky tables to sit around, some bench seats and some soft furnishings to laze around on.

They have also provided board games, books and musical instruments, great touches from a bar which has dedicated itself to becoming a social hub.

We visited Scârț several times during our visit, at different times of day too, and there always seemed to be people milling about and treating the place as a second home (in a positive way). The garden in particular seems to be an area for convalescence, almost.