Bars & Nightlife

Budapest nightlife runs from ruin bars in crumbling apartment blocks to cocktails on rooftops above the Danube, and we drink in all of it.

This section covers the whole spread: ruin bars, rooftop and sky bars, cocktail dens, craft beer pubs, cheap local kocsmas, live music spots and the odd speakeasy hiding behind an unmarked door.

We live here, which means we know which ruin bars are still good and which ones now exist mostly to sell overpriced spritzes to stag parties. Our rooftop reviews come from sitting there and paying the bill ourselves, not from a press invite.

New to the city? Start with the ruin bar rundown, then pick a rooftop for sunset. If you would rather drink where Hungarians drink, the cheap pubs guide is the one with no gloss on it.