Although you may read reviews referring to A Baiuca as a restaurant, the homely open-kitchen style, late-night drinking and the music-focused atmosphere make this place definitely worthy of the name pub â indeed the doors themselves present A Baiuca as a âTabernaâ, which is near enough to meet my threshold.
That said, there is an entrance fee which covers the flow of wine and ginjinha and the musical main event, Fado, dramatically mournful Portuguese folk music which translates as ‘destiny or fate’, but symbolising a bohemian, or vagabond lifestyle, signposting what you might expect in the performance.
This may seem off-piste so far considering the beer halls and pubs covered on the blog, but be aware I have offered a degree of latitude to this venue on account of the authenticity and character, and I am seeking to provide a broad range of options.
Lisbonâs traditional working class neighbourhood the Alfama is the perfect setting for a place like this. Wandering up and down the maze of winding streets on the hillside is atmospheric at any time of year.
A Baiuca is not the easiest to spot at night – I remember we ended up locating it by peering through a metal garage door which seemed to correspond to the co-ordinates after wandering around in a circle. The front door itself was shut, but after a couple of knocks the owner met us at the door and arranged our seating, only after payment was made.
At the time of the visit our fee was 10 euros which at the time seemed very reasonable considering the wine and music were both very good.
We gathered on a communal table in a small room, most places taken already, and were made to feel welcome with a couple of glasses of red wine. There is no stage, and the musicians simply perform in the corner of the room. Each song is dramatic and passionate and the performers looked extremely well practiced at the style. An overkill of maudlin music doesnât seem like the basis for a night out, but the songs are short, melodic, often intense and were received enthusiastically by the room.
There are a great many corporate joints in the city centre offering Fado performances in a large restaurant with a full sit-down meal, and while there is always a place for that, this is where to go for the real McCoy, stripped back, homely and raw, following an unbroken folk tradition.
After considering the experience overall, I think aside of the entrance fee, it occupied a very similar social space as going to a pub, both in terms of the homely working class surroundings and manner of drinking.
Our visit extended long into the early hours of the morning leading to a very uncomfortable wake-up call the following morning to the airport!
There are a few other traditional Fado venues in the Alfama, which I am sure warrant exploration, but I can strongly advocate visiting here if you prefer real and rustic above sheen and pretension. Finding this place on our final night in Lisbon more or less made our holiday.
P.S – I would recommend reserving tables if there are more than two of you, or if itâs the off-season with it being such a small space.
The entrance is based down an alleyway rather than on the street-front which I generally quite like as this increases a sense of cosiness and clandestine activity, vital for building the atmosphere in traditional venues like this. Heading inside, the design and layout is an archetypal Czech pub with communal tables, bench-seats installed along the walls, wooden panels, cream (going on yellow) walls and those curved arches so typical of the pivnice style. The stained glass windows (with tiger insignia) allow light in but effectively block out activity from the busy street, creating that cocoon-like feel that most of the best Czech pubs offer.
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Look around and note many framed photographs which present the three key themes of the pub â tigers (of course), famous patrons from sport, art and politics and, as could be predicted: Pilsner Urquell. This lager, while brewed by PlzeĆskĂœ Prazdroj in Pilsen, not in Prague, is nevertheless synonymous with Prague and Czechia due to its ubiquity. The Golden Tiger was only the second pub in the city of Prague to secure a contract to service it so there is a long-standing connection not likely to be severed or altered any time soon.
When you consider the old town mean average price for a half-litre of Pilsner Urquell, the prices here are fair-to-middling given the central location, and the first pint of it arrives without your say so (as does a second and a third unless you make a point of putting the mat over your drink). Beware, if you turn up thirsty you could easily find yourself processing several glasses in short order. This is one of those pubs where it’s virtually impossible to leave without at least two.
A slight quirk is an insistence on using 0.45l glasses meaning they gain 10% on each beer. Annoying and cynical, but not worth fussing over too much.
The place sells very little else to drink (see their menu here), and even has a policy of not serving spirits! Highly unusual as nearly every other pub in the country will offer you at least Slivovitz, Becherovka or Fernet Stock.
U Zlateho Tygra was for decades and up until the war a bit of an all-boy’s club, refusing women service and directing them to find the nearest cinema while the menfolk held forth in the pub. However, this culture was broken in fittingly macho fashion by a woman called Lady Helenka, as the tale goes:
“She came here with her fiance Vaclav Prymek, who was an officer and an army pilot. When Lady Helenka was stopped at the door, she promised to keep track. And when the waiter counted the lines on the bill, there were 44 of them. Lady Helenka managed 22 beers that evening, as did her future husband. The waiter laid a white napkin in front of Helenka on the floor, kneeled down and said: Madam, this seat by the counter will always be yours, even if the Egyptian king Faruk comes in.”
22 pints? Sounds crazy but you wouldn’t rule it out.
Now some bad stuff. A famous pub is, as you’d expect, a popular one, with the problem that it cannot accommodate locals and tourists at the same time without losing its appeal pretty quickly. Therefore they have struck some form of compromise.
In the evenings, as there are reservations it feels almost like a private memberâs club where you need to stay all evening to get full value for the exclusivity.
Here comes the compromise: there is a way in but it relies on your being prepared to begin drinking mid-afternoon, not always everyone’s favourite starting point. Turn up at 2.50pm, 10 minutes before opening time, join the queue (which at this point may be snaking around the front of the building), and if youâre in the front 30 or so you should be assured of a seat unless youâre in a large group. If you see people pushing in at the front then choose whatever retribution you see fit.
Inevitably, the authenticity can be occasionally vandalised by some tourists who believe it to be a fairground ride instead of a pub. Their behaviour is offset in amusingly curt fashion by the servers who adopt an uncompromisingly stony-faced approach to anyone who isn’t their mates and anything they regard as bullshit (quite a long list).
This is – depending on your point of view –Â chauvinistic, deeply cynical in order to maintain their asset, or their absolute right as publicans.
While this can be intimidating, consider it a pushback against the place being overrun with tourists and gentrified, as it surely would be without a little resistance.
While it is easy to have a pop at tourists, in one sense their custom helps keep the philosophy of the place alive –Â people from all walks of life sitting around together and enjoying themselves. The pub website explains further through this anecdote:
Once the crowds are seated, and after their first beers have been extinguished the atmosphere inside quickly gets going. Among them, comfortable and surrounded by the excitable friendly crowd, with dishes of hot food emerging from the kitchen, it really feels like the place to be.
Whilst seated you will note a stout tapster working flat out to replenish glasses, pausing the flow only to greet and converse with the stamgasty whose presence ensures this most Czech of pubs stays that way.
Rue Des Flandres, in St. Catherine quarter is a great road for a bar crawl, host of several venues varying between good and great. In my view Au Daringman belongs to the great category, not only for the street but for Brussels more widely – I know, high praise in a city jam-packed with great bars.
Upon arrival you’ll note an attractive red exterior with old Stella hoarding, partly obscured by the greenery cascading down the front of the entrance, a look which is typical for a street with plenty of side-alleys and greenery.
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In the afternoon the bar is managed by the charismatic Martine (the pub known locally as Martine’s or Chez Martine), the managing in the quiet hours extending no further than being propped up on a stool reading a newspaper or a book, filing her nails, peering over the rim of her specs and drinking coffee.
On first appearances there doesnât appear to be all that much maintenance required of Au Daringman other than a morning clean, watering of the plants and the odd keg change/clean of the lines, but it is clear the enterprise is a labour of love.
There are lots of interesting touches to the decor, from the cubist textured wood paneling, to a board with what appear to be scores from a local table football league. Apparently the bar has been going since 1942 – it looks like most of the bar hasn’t been significantly altered since the 1970s.
The simplicity extends to the beer choices on tap – it’s very standard stuff. Stella, Leffe, or Hoegaarden. In Belgium at least, all three of these are a reasonable standard.
While it may not be apparent – at least not during my visits – they also boast a host of bottled drinks, some of the well-known Trappist, Abbey and lambic Belgian ales along with some lesser-seen ones such as Gageleer.
On my last visit I spent two hours here quietly, with no book and no telephone function (imagine that in this day an age). The beautiful simplicity of sitting among the wood paneling and minimalist jazz memorabilia, enjoying a beer and alone your thoughts sums up what Au Daringman is about during the day. Au Daringman wants to make you feel at home, but also quietly oozes cool.
While the bar becomes a lively place in the evening, almost transformed in doing so, some essence of the place goes missing when it is crowded. However, that goes with my impression, which may not be yours. As with Monk, I recommend visiting in the early evening when it begins calm then slowly starts to bubble up.
Despite Instagram cataloguing the world, you wonât find much online presence for Au Daringman, as presumably its location on Rue De Flandres makes advertising superfluous.
Claiming to originate in 1602, the building itself containing The Seven Stars has survived The Great Fire of London, and â just as impressively in my view â the next 400 years of change unscathed, all the while serving as a public house. It’s a remarkable feat that places it as one of London’s core heritage pubs.
Many pubs trade on their history, (and that of The Seven Stars is an interesting read) , without backing that up by being an enjoyable place to drink in the here and now. Thankfully, The Seven Stars is not one of those places: itâs a little cracker.
Carey Street has a row of townhouses that are overshadowed by the enormous London County Court, Royal Courts of Justice and LSE library, so it is quite easy to wander halfway past The Seven Stars before realising. Itâs a very quiet street and doesnât seem the most likely place for a pub to be situated these days, though that makes it a perfect venue for those in-the-know. The frontage of The Seven Stars is squat and compact with the predictable (but entirely appropriate) gothic signage. It looks like a small place and it is – thereâs no TARDIS effect once you walk inside.
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Although micro-pubs may now be reversing the trend for enormous, open plan pubs, none of them are made quite like this old thing. Youâll walk through the entrance to find a low-beamed venerable establishment with a bar directly opposite the entrance, and a narrow space set over two rooms. There are stools to sit at the bar and drink, and tables decorated with checked tablecloths and candles (a little dressy for my tastes, but it did make me think fondly of Den Turk in Ghent, which is not dissimilar).
For the last decade or so, The Seven Stars has been the domain of a ruff-sporting and locally famous pub cat who sadly passed away not so long back. Nevertheless, I have been informed a new cat has entered the premises! If you venture into conversation at the bar with the owner Roxy, she may expand on the and possibly get into the tale of one punter who mistook the cat bowl for bar snacks. Don’t be shocked – anything can happen in London.
Nevertheless, youâll find a set of well kept cask ales from regional breweries served via hand pump â itâs a decent if unspectacular range which will keep you satisfied for at least a few.
In a similar way to Whitelockâs in Leeds, the toilets are located above the pub itself via a satisfyingly creaky staircase, where you will also pass by the kitchens and a room crammed full of odds and ends. By any standards these days (particularly Londonâs), this is a characterful and individual place that isn’t interesting in the Farrow & Ball school of interior design or repainting itself to remain ‘on-trend’ every ten years.
As mentioned above, the pub is popular with local lawyers and court staff, and due to the small size you may find yourself unable to grab a seat. However, trade is brisk in the evenings so be patient and things will move along – grab your chance when you see it. Thereâs nothing like being seated to enjoy the atmosphere of a tangle at the bar in a traditional pub such as this.
As the lights from the outside dim, and those from the inside take over, there can be no question of whether this is a pub of outstanding merit.
Although The Seven Stars may have lasted 400 years, the obnoxious pace of gentrification in the last 30 years means that pubs like these perpetually under threat from people who simply want to run poor facsimiles of bars theyâve seen elsewhere. This is a pub that demonstrates the importance of being your own thing. Thatâs worth something.
Iâll leave you with this anecdote from their website:
âWhile enjoying a few Friday afternoon wind-down drinks, a group of 15 or so lawyers (young ones) entered the Seven Stars awkwardly and decamped nearby. There then began a cacophonous symphony of table and chair scraping, until they had blocked all passage in or out of the bar. Regaling of a most competitive flavour followed, ever louder, underwritten by a desperate, pleading “notice me” subtext. Its volume only matched by the ethereal transparency of its content. We drank up and moved on – our seats snatched hungrily into their possession before we got to the door. Congratulations, you’ve emptied the pub! Not all lawyers are like this, true, but this was selfish and shameful behaviour. Hopefully, few noticed.â
Have you visited The Seven Stars? Any comments, feedback or suggestions for our write-up? Please get in touch!
Soviet-themed bars have quickly become a staple part of the Eastern European bar scene. It must be due to the tonnes of old communist bric-a-brac that has been purloined from flea markets over the years. Itâs remarkable how quickly this ephemera has been regurgitated, often in an apolitical way. Now, shorn of the memory of state repression, paranoia and hardship much of the era’s junk has been re-purposed and exhibited, capturing people’s nostalgic fondness for the idealism, optimism as well as the iconography of the era. Ideal for adorning a moody Polish bar such as this one in PoznaĆ.
Proletaryat isnât exactly lined with volumes of Das Kapital; instead youâll note a large bust of Lenin staring at you out on the street. Enter to find a display of fairly impressive social realist paintings, disproportionately large portraits of Lenin and Marx, hung in front of rich crimson paint, with emblems and military insignia thrown in. The central bar area also expands further into an interesting looking  terrace-style back room where the cool kids hang out, that seems a little separated from the central premise.
There may be a vague leftist feel to the crowd here (perhaps its just the students) but in the main it does seem to be led by decoration rather than a hotbed of any political grouping.
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That said, the decoration is impressive nonetheless, itâs a very stylish place to go for a drink, without being particularly pretentious. The crimson and lamplight works well for a shady atmospheric slow sup, while at night it gets more raucous and one of those truly buzzing city centre bars where the lack of space and abundance of booze creates its own head of steam. This is a great example of decoration that allows a venue to work well in different ways at different times.
The location down one of the main city centre streets means it feels in the middle of the action – which in Poznan is pretty bloody active. You can expect to witness the type of revelry usually preserved for English city centres on an evening. It was quite an eye-opener, but I had previously been warned about it by some Poznanites (Poznanians?) during a separate trip to Wroclaw (another excellent city). The levity  doesn’t emerge from English stag parties or boys-on-tour either â in Poznan itâs mainly locals doing their homespun thing. Wodka i piwo can be a dangerous combo.
Aside of the tongue-in-cheek atmosphere, Proletaryat offers its âownâ beer as well (from what I can gathered, this is brewed elsewhere at Browar CzarnkĂłw and labelled accordingly), which is cheap even by Polish standards nowadays. The jasne (light) and ciemne (dark) beers are both fresh and well balanced. Not the finest ever brewed but tasty certainly and designed to knock back in volume. Apparently the vodka is served with a pickle here if you are interested in going native.
Any pub crawl around PoznaĆ would be improved by a stop off at Proletaryat, as despite the increasingly familiar concept of the Soviet-themed bar, a good concept doesn’t stop being good just on account of its familiarity. Besides, they do a decent job of and it feels like its own thing rather than a cookie-cutter version or a clone-bar. If you haven’t been to one of these type of places before, then go at least once for the novelty value. If you already have and enjoyed it, then this bar is not to be missed!
As Lviv brought the kerosene fuelled gas lamp to the world in 1853, it is only fitting that this is expressed in the city on some level. Youâd expect a museum to be the best place to exhibit this but slightly surprisingly it takes the form of a bar – Gas Lamp.
Although aspects of the display are museum-like, to all intents and purposes the gas lamps are for decorative purposes, with little information on their design or origin. I have visited some pubs and bars which featured information labels on their antique without making the venue too stuffy-feeling (U Veverky in Prague, for example), but in Gas Lamp, providing you are here for a drink over and above a history lesson, you donât feel like youâre losing out for the lack of information too much. Besides, the venue holds one of the biggest collections of gas lamps in Europe, so there is a lot to look at.
On busy evenings, an old man in a top hat, holding his gas lamp will guide you past the âfathers of the lampâ; two bronze statues, one of Jan Zeh sitting at his table (by the front door) and another, if you look up, of Ignacy Lukasiewicz poking out of a third-storey window. Read about their place in history here.
You are then led downstairs into a cellar. Counter-intuitively you have to crouch under what appears to be blackened rock, only to ascend a spiral staircase into the ‘bottom’ floor, which is on the first storey of the building. When you reach it you will notice a traffic light system, which appears to be there to stop customers bumping into each other halfway down the stairs.
Gas Lamp is set across several small floors, which reminded me of De Garre in Bruges (in layout rather than design), one of which is dominated by a bar, and another which appears to be a penthouse apartment that has been converted into a covered roof terrace. There is a coherent theme but each floor has a slightly different feel so donât leave without being nosy and having a look around.
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On the top floor you emerge level with what appears to be a sea of slanted rooftops which may well be impressive during the day as much as at night, but night time is a great opportunity to look at the Armenian and Russian churches lit up strikingly. There is a naturally rather rarified air to being on the top floor so it may appear a little more towny and flash in comparison to the cosier downstairs rooms. Regardless of this, it is well worth rubber-necking.
Drinks wise, Gas Lamp offers shots in a row of test tubes as a gimmick (make of that what you will), and a well stocked bar for cocktails and the like, but I opted for Pravdaand Lvivskeâs beer offerings which are still reasonably priced for such a central location. Thatâs not difficult however, as from a Western perspective nearly everywhere apart from the airport is reasonably priced.
Gas Lamp serve food, although I found the location to be far too dark to contemplate getting anything there other than emergency snacks to soak up the beer. I donât really see the appeal of arriving here any sooner than sunset to be honest. Night time is the right time.
Staff are well used to tourists and speak decent English, however there were issues getting their attention. Sadly unless you go direct to the bar, youâre stuck with table service, an always retrograde format that slows everything down unnecessarily. That isnât isolated to Gas Lamp however, but pretty much everywhere that also serves food.
The city of Lviv offers a night life replete with themes and gimmicks, and yet another rears its head when you pay the bill. A âbombâ with a short fuse is lit when your bill is presented, and you can enjoy a puff of flame, cracker-type pop, then a mix of smoke and incense fills the room. Unnecessary of course, but characterful. European Bar Guide is after all very keen on places which donât settle for mediocrity. Some places would never get away with this but it felt amusingly dorky.
Exciting, ever that little bit different, popular enough to have atmosphere but also spacious enough to give corners for quieter evenings, Gas Lamp is a very successful execution of its concept, and with one or two tweaks could really push towards being a 10/10 venue.
It comes highly recommended but as much as we bang on about it, weâd love to hear your stories from Gas Lamp and Lviv â please get in touch!
Whatever you think of beer marketed as âcraftâ whether good or bad, you canât deny the popularity.
However, in Germany, the reinheitsgebot or Purity Law limits the brewing ingredients for anything marketed as beer to malted grains, hops, water and yeast alone, with the knock-on effect of limiting the range of flavours and experimental culture now associated with the umbrella term ‘craft’.
Germany has some terrific traditional beer styles along with a parochial and proud attitude, so this has contributed to a slower and more gradual acceptance of auslander beer made from different hops and yeast strains, of a different tradition and with a wholly different character and nation of origin.
Bierwerk, in Nuremberg attempts to straddle both the old and the new, with fresh, almost brand-free Franconian kellerbier on tap, while offering more modern brands, even a few Belgian, Czech, English and US beers. This is refreshingly open-minded for a city which has suffered a few notorious periods of extreme intolerance and superstition.
Bierwerk has an envious situation, looking out over a beautiful city square gently slanting towards the south bank of the Pegnitz river. Unschlittplatz is pretty with timber-framed houses surrounding a small fountain. You may forget this is the centre of a very large city as it genuinely feels as though you could be in a small town.
Bierwerk is thronged in the evenings where the volume is raised, and while youâll find a generally post-uni crowd, some middle-aged folk enjoy visiting too which gives a nicer sense of welcome.
Once things get going itâs a fun venue, with a large tree trunk where you can play the ancient game of hammerschlagen, the objective being to drive a nail fully into the log with a wedge end of a hammer before the other players can. Thereâs also a hook-swing at the far end of the room where you have to try and get the hook over the horns of a bull on the other side. Both of these become fiendishly difficult after a few drinks.
Bierwerk is a smaller venue than you might think from the outside, so be prepared to employ a little patience if you want a set – meanwhile, the bar area is decent enough if its not too crowded, and there is some leaning space around and about.
People are here for the social scene primarily, which goes on until 2AM on Fridays and Saturdays, which is as it should be. Bierwerk brings undeniably some of the freshest Iâve ever tasted. I enjoy the fact that there is an effort to market the original âcraftâ, the local, independent, unbranded, un-Punk variety. While you may prefer a 11% smoked peach sour, or one of their 150 bottles behind the bar, Iâll be ordering a half litre of Franconian kellerbier, which will redefine your notion of freshness. Bierwerk also have a partnership with a local brewery so you will find some of their own branded beer available to try, which should please some tick-box checkers as well.
Prices, as with Franconia generally much fairer in comparison to the North and West, so their regular beers won’t set you back much more than 3 euros 50 as of 2018. There is a small but reasonable offering if you donât like beer (including beer cocktails) so as to ensure no-one is feeling left out.
If you absolutely have to, they will put together some food to wash the beer down. Iâm sure you know whatâs coming â choices are cheese, sausage, or wait for itâŠcheese AND sausage!
Franconia and Nuremberg itself are slowly marketing itself to a wider audience who will give it a try over the big cities and Bavaria and are extremely cheap to get to from the UK via Ryanair. From my experience it is well worth it, with beautiful unspoilt countryside and picturesque traditional towns which survived the war without too much damage. Nuremberg itself has a large old town, not all of which is old, but is a fun and yet laid-back place to be.
Going out for a drink on the Dalmatian coast invariably involves choosing from a selection of Caffe Bars, which may have amusingly goofy names such as âTURBOâ or in one real life instance âKUMâ, but in practise provide a nearly identical offering that defines the term Generic. After a few days anyone interested in good beer and good pubgoing will be tearing their hair out in frustration (Iâm bald, so have to improvise) trying to find somewhere characterful.
As with a lot of places on the Croatian coast, it doesnât really get going until the summer, but even out of season there is a core crowd youâll find lining the bar chatting and messing around, and a side room which is geared up for live music but also has games involved. The eventual end feel is relaxed, open, fun feeling and the sort of space you want to hang out and could make friends in.
Another good thing is Azimut’s opening hours, carrying on until the early hours of the morning, which is long after the rest of the city has gone to bed, meaning there’s no need to feel obliged to shape your evening around arbitrary time constraints.
Thereâs what counts for an interesting selection of beers around this end of Dalmatia, with some imported bottled English ales making an appearance, however it was short on Croatian craft beer at the time of writing â only Tomislav was available, which is tasty but too strong to spend all evening on. Again, this is a fairly low bar to pass given most places in Croatia serve 3 or 4 awful beers at most. Azimutâs prices are a few kuna more than elsewhere, but given itâs a distinct venue and slap-bang in the centre of town, thatâs unsurprising.
Edit (9.7.18)I have recently been advised by the management they now stock Croatian craft beer –  happy days! Until my return the score for drinks provisionally goes up to 7/10.
Given young Croatians enjoy going out in the evening, and Sibenik is starting to attract the attention of Western tourists you would think there would be more than one venue like this, but so far the nightlife remains largely bland obsessed with creating modern aspirational lifestyle bars to create that âsummer vibeâ, but ultimately blend in to one and project mediocrity and cheapness rather than glamour.
Hanging out in Azimut is like breathing fresh air given those otherwise stale options. Itâs clear that quite some imagination and bravery obviously went into creating it, and any stay in Sibenik by anyone desiring a beer and a good time in the evening must involve a visit here. As TimeOutpoint out, every Croatian town should have an Azimut. I’d extend that to every town full stop.
Opinions of Pisa tend to be mixed, which is a shame as the airport provides an excellent conduit for people to explore Tuscany, but often people venture no further than the Piazza Dei Miracoli before moving on. It’s certainly true the Tuscan idyll of cypress trees, rolling hills and gently worn villas is perhaps not best demonstrated in Pisa, but thatâs not to say the town is without charm, far from it.
The city centre is certainly one of those places that feels like it gets taken over by young people at night. Yes, you can sigh at the peeling plaster and graffiti in some of the classical piazzas that have become a bit grungy but there is a certain verve and energy Pisa offers in compensation for that. It’s a good night out.
Beer isnât Italyâs strong suit, however it has belatedly begun a concerted effort to catch up. When you have a little think about why itâs suddenly taking off, it makes sense. The young seek good beer out in Italy for a few different reasons. Wine is seen as the preserve of the middle-aged and middle class, increasingly more of a drink to enjoy with food or a particular occasion or season, whereas beer is more casual.
Of course there are those looking to be a bit hip and different for which beer offers an opportunity to pose and stand out/completely conform among peers. Boiling all that down, the main appeal as I see it, is that quite honestly beer and aperitifs are a better option in a hot country over the course of a long evening. It is still the case that in Italy good beer is a bit of a novelty, but craft beer has been riding the crest of a rising wave for a few years now.
Pisaâs very best exponent of this is Orzo Bruno (a play on words with Orso meaning Bear and Orzo meaning Barley) not just a place with good beer on tap, but a really, really good pub. In order to find Orzo Bruno you naturally find yourself wandering into the epicentre of the cityâs nightlife. Itâs a nice walk in, as you can feel the volume and excitement level gradually rise. Youâll find the pub and its unassuming exterior perched down a side-street, yet in the thick of the action.
Inside, itâs an informal affair with pinewood type seating falling somewhere inbetween modern and ramshackle. In the summer heat the windows and thrown open and there are tables and chairs outside. As with all great pubs, everyone looks like theyâre having a good time. The best of all, it looks and feels predominantly like somewhere Pisans go themselves, with a ring of authenticity you just canât fake.
On tap youâll find local Italian brews for a decent price â their predilections for strong beers and German styles ensures you can purchase some strong, tasty stuff for quite a lot less than youâd expect. Wit beer, red beer, doppio malto, itâs nice to go to the heart of interesting Italian brewing styles and have a genuine isolated and authentic âItalian beer experienceâ in what is a nice pub.
These are brewed at a co-operative brewery Il Birrificio Artigiano, an excellent idea still common in Germany where provincial beer enthusiasts have occasional use of shared premises of a scale capable of delivering decent volume. These beers are usually unpasteurised and unfiltered, which is fine because they arenât designed to last, but to be drunk straight away! You may even find oddities such as attempts at cask conditioned bitter served by Angram hand-pumps.
Thereâs a little something extra on offer too, that a lot of English people wonât be used to. Itâs difficult to find complimentary anything with a drink in England these days, yet in Orzo Bruno dig into a veritable platter of snacks laid out on plates in front of the bar to enjoy with you beer from 7pm onwards.
Spain and Italy are insistent that food must in nearly all cases accompany drink, which is not my view, but offers a change of speed. You may want to consider leaving some room after your evening meal to enjoy the range of snacky bites on offer. Itâs a quick way of adding on further poundage on top of the calories in your beer, so donât go over the top!
Orzo Bruno works well whether at day or night, which is typical of places of its kind that stay low key and informal. You could pop in mid-afternoon and read a book with a pint of head here at 11 in the evening with a group. Itâs just an all-round good place, reinforced by the enthusiastic patronage of locals. They also do discounts between 7-8.30pm, which is much later (and therefore better) than most happy hours in England.
The colour, energy and sheer distinctiveness of ruin bars should be enough to sustain any young visitor to Budapest for several visits. However, this doesnât mean that the fundamentals of good pubs should be ignored. IÂ broadly agree with the maxim ‘a change is as good as a rest’.
Wichmannâs Pub – an antithesis of a ruin bar – stands on the very same district as the original conception. As with a lot of these kind of places, itâs so inconspicuous that you could be halfway inside before you realised where you were. There’s no point building up something too much where the main qualities are simplicity and value.
Itâs worth taking a look online before you go, because many of the pictures of the pub make it look faintly modern, partly due to the shade of the lighting and texture of the wood. When you arrive youâll realise that itâs rather more traditional and worn with age.
From the street it is fairly inconspicuous, you’ll see only a golden glow of light from the exterior, through patterned tinted glass windows. Quite old-fashioned. Wichmann is one of the last original, authentic Budapest bars from before the fall of the Iron Curtain, before tourism, before capitalism, before AirBnb.
What youâll discover inside is one of the most no-bullshit pubs in the city. Cast your eyes around its ever-ageing wooden edifice, nice vaulted beams towards the back of the room and a small bar where a venerable and portly man (presumably Wichmann himself) serves you the beer.
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Everything about the beer ordering, serving and presentation (or lack of it) is so many fathoms short of façade and showyness itâs endearing and actually, downright hilarious. However, dig beneath the service and youâll find many a punter going into raptures about the service and the place in general. According to WeLoveBudapest, if youâre offered a shot of palinka, it is deemed the height of rudeness to decline. There you go â you have been warned!
Wichmannâs pub is owned by a famous Hungarian Olympian TamĂĄs Wichmann, with 3 medals in canoeing, famous enough to supplant the place’s previous name âSt. Jupatâ. Wichmann himself was bequeathed the pub for his achievements instead of a pension, by virtue of how the old system was arranged for retired sportspeople.
As youâd want, demand and expect, a place like this is good value, and one of the few non-generic pubs in the district where the prospect of a good beer for a quid remains feasible. Here you can choose between a bottle of Pilsner Urquell or a German-style, Budapest-brewed Brandecker on tap for that price â not bad at all.
After service itâs really all about the drink and the chat. The more friends the merrier. Itâs one of those places that needs a few groups to drum up a merry atmosphere, that without music and conversation can be absent, but when its are kicking off, it feels like you wouldnât want to be anywhere else. That cosy glow of wood and old lights makes you feel right at home. Itâs also nice to be among a mixed crowd of different generations, rather than the exclusively under-30 crowds of most ruin bars.
You will find a small snack menu, serving only the most basic food so rudimentary as to be impossible to cook badly, all focused towards your desiring of further drinks. Meat sandwiches, schnitzel, along with chilli beans on a Thursday.
The opening hours are pleasingly traditional: 6.15pm onwards, closed all day Sunday, and yet open until 2 in the morning all other nights. A nice illustration of the mass of contradictions going on. It’s a late bar that opens when it wants to.
Youâll find it difficult to wrench yourself away from the ruin pubs but honestly, give this place a go if you fancy a calmer, more authentic Budapest pub experience. Beneath all the glitz and frantic excitement itâs nice to drill down and spend some time among locals grumbling away and propping up the bar. This is a last bastion sticking two fingers up to gentrification, and all the better for it.
Unfortunately – and this is the sad part – it appears time is running out, and the old man is due to retire at the age of 70. Wichmann‘s will remain open this summer 2018Â before closing its doors for good. It seems central Pest has no remaining call for a down to earth cheap hangout pub. It’s your last chance to be part of a wonderful tradition, as the district will never be the same again. 1987-2018Â
