A Guide To Budapest’s Best Warehouse Ruin Bars

Szimpla Kert

Recently hailed the third best bar in the world, Szimpla Kert on Kazinczy Street – the very heart of Budapest’s nightlife, is simply a must-visit. It is a labyrinth of stairways, balconies, and back rooms brimming with an assortment of weird and wonderful items from bikes to vintage toys, television screens to towering house plants and miles of intertwining fairy-lights. You can simply get lost wandering through Szimpla’s intriguing rooms before choosing where to enjoy your cocktail – perhaps inside a disused Trabant car.

Szimpla Kert, Kazinczy Utca 14, Budapest, Hungary +36 20 261 8669

AnKert

Beautiful in its simplicity – in striking contrast to many of the city’s brimming, junk-filled bars – AnKert is a series of interconnecting terraces within the arched, cream-hued walls of a former factory. It is open-air, thus steeped in natural light, with a minimalist design concept. AnKert has a relaxed and rather sophisticated atmosphere. You can, of course, stay on after nightfall when one of the spacious courtyards becomes a lantern-lit dance floor.

AnKert, Paulay Ede Utca 33, Budapest, Hungary +36 30 360 3389

As one of the pioneers of Budapest’s ruin bar scene, Fogas Ház (or ‘House of Teeth,’ named after a century-old dental repair advertisement found on the site during its initial renovation) has a well-considered concept and design, which was relaunched a few years ago. Since its reopening in 2010, the bar’s popularity has soared. It is now a go-to venue, enticing tourists and locals with a more stripped-back interior, a breezy, open-air dance floor, and very reasonable prices.