Wine bars in Budapest: five glasses, and how to order them

Inside Kadarka wine bar, Budapest: light wooden tables along tall windows, high bar tables at the back

Hungary has made wine for well over a thousand years, and Budapest is the easiest place to taste the whole country in one evening. Some of the city's wine bars come and go; a handful have poured the same way, in the same rooms, for years. These are the ones we send friends to, most of them a few steps from one of our walks.

Wine bar, restaurant or kocsma?

Kadarka wine bar on a corner of Király utca, Budapest, with its green sign and a small pavement terrace
Kadarka, Király utca 42 © Wanderyarns

A Hungarian wine bar is not a restaurant: instead of a set menu you get things to pick at while you drink, such as cheese and cured meat boards, hummus and spreads with bread, olives. The Spanish and Italian influence is obvious; several bars call their menu "tapas".

It is not a kocsma either. The kocsma, the village or corner pub, is where Hungarians have drunk for centuries, and for most of that time the wine came from a tank, not a bottle: white from one, red from the other, measured out with a handled cup. Almost nobody drank it neat. It went into a fröccs, wine with soda water, and the classic snack was bread and dripping with raw onion. The wine bars that opened after 2000 changed that: bottled wines from half a dozen regions at least, usually many more, and a list you can read.

Hungarian wine in eight names

  • Furmint. The great white grape of Tokaj: dry, mineral, with high acidity. It is also the backbone of the sweet Tokaji Aszú.
  • Hárslevelű. "Linden leaf", Furmint's partner in Tokaj: softer and more aromatic, with honey and blossom. Good dry, and part of most sweet blends.
  • Olaszrizling. Hungary's everyday white (Welschriesling), at its best around Lake Balaton.
  • Volcanic whites. Much of Hungary grows on old volcanoes: Tokaj, Eger, Mátra, and the hills of Badacsony and Somló by Lake Balaton. Their whites are often salty, smoky or flinty. Look for Somló's Juhfark and Badacsony's Kéknyelű, local grapes you will hardly find anywhere else.
  • Kékfrankos. Hungary's most planted red (Blaufränkisch): fresh, peppery, with sour-cherry fruit.
  • Kadarka. A delicate, spicy old red, often called Hungary's answer to Pinot Noir; at home in Szekszárd and back in fashion.
  • Bikavér. "Bull's Blood", a red blend allowed only in Eger and Szekszárd, with Kékfrankos as its backbone. Ask for Egri or Szekszárdi Bikavér by name.
  • Villányi Franc. Cabernet Franc from Villány in the warm south: riper and fuller than the Loire style, with dark fruit, pepper and chocolate.

Five bars

Dobló wine bar, Budapest: bare-brick room with arched windows, a chandelier, racked bottles and bar stools
Bare brick and chandeliers at Dobló © Wanderyarns
Dobló wine bar, Budapest: brick vault with a chandelier above the bar and arched windows
Dobló: brick arch and chandelier © Wanderyarns
The bar at Dobló wine bar, Dob utca 20, Budapest: brick walls, a red fringed lamp and four bar stools
Dobló, Dob utca 20 © Wanderyarns
Sign on the wall at Dobló wine bar, Budapest: "Save water, drink wine" next to a drawn tap
"Save water, drink wine": the sign at Dobló © Wanderyarns
Giant Rubik's Cube painted on a firewall at Rumbach Sebestyén utca 5, Budapest
On the way: a giant Rubik's Cube, the Hungarian puzzle invented by Ernő Rubik in 1974, painted on a firewall at Rumbach Sebestyén utca 5, a few minutes' walk from Dobló © Wanderyarns
The front of Palack wine bar on Szent Gellért tér, Budapest, with plants and terrace tables
Palack, Szent Gellért tér 3 © Wanderyarns
A glass of red wine on the terrace of Palack wine bar, Szent Gellért tér, Budapest
A glass on the terrace of Palack wine bar, Szent Gellért tér © Wanderyarns
View from Palack's terrace across Szent Gellért tér to the Gellért building and a yellow tram, Budapest
The view from Palack's terrace: the Gellért building across Szent Gellért tér © Wanderyarns
  • Kadarka (Király utca 42). Named after the grape, with as many whites as reds. In 2023 we counted seven different Kadarkas on the list, plus Szekszárd siller, the Hungarian deep rosé. The shaded terrace is made for summer evenings, and the food goes beyond boards: soups, burgers, a few simple mains. In 2023 the pricing rewarded a bigger order: 0.75 dl, 1.5 dl or a bottle to take away. One block from the Nagymező utca stop on our Andrássy Avenue tour.
  • DiVino Bazilika (Szent István tér 3). The most balanced Hungarian list in town: Tokaj, Villány, Szekszárd, Eger and Balaton, plus smaller regions such as Somló, Sopron and Etyek. Take one of the bar stools right of the entrance: the view is the Basilica. On the Budapest Highlights tour.
  • Dobló (Dob utca 20). The name joins the two streets on its corner, Dob (Drum) and Holló (Raven). Bare brick, oversized chandeliers, benches in the windows, and a Hungarian-only list with rarities such as Szagos Sárfehér from Somló. No terrace, but the party district is calm in the afternoon. Read the sign on the wall: "Save water, drink wine." A quieter glass before the Ruin Bar Crawl.
  • Drop Shop (Balassi Bálint utca 27). A small modern bar and shop with a changing list. Near the Jászai Mari tér stop on our Tram 2 tour and a short walk from Parliament.
  • Palack (Szent Gellért tér 3). The Buda pick, at the foot of Liberty Bridge, for a glass after the Gellért Hill climb. Its terrace looks across the square at the Gellért building and the Liberty Bridge trams.

Our order of play: start with a dry Tokaj or Balaton white, move to a light Kadarka, then a Bikavér from Eger, and finish with a heavier red from Villány. If there is room for one more glass, make it a sweet Tokaji (see below).

How to order

  • Glasses come in decilitres. A standard glass is usually 1.5 dl; many bars also pour 0.75 dl or 0.5 dl tasters, so you can try several wines instead of one.
  • Fröccs is a whole system: the name tells the bartender how much wine and how much soda water. Good bars print the names on the list:
  • Kisfröccs (small): 1 dl wine + 1 dl soda
  • Nagyfröccs (big): 2 dl wine + 1 dl soda
  • Hosszúlépés (long step): 1 dl wine + 2 dl soda
  • Házmester (caretaker): 3 dl wine + 2 dl soda
  • Viceházmester (deputy caretaker): 2 dl wine + 3 dl soda
  • Háziúr (landlord): 4 dl wine + 1 dl soda
  • Sportfröccs: 1 dl wine + 4 dl soda
  • Ask to taste. Most places will pour a sip before you choose.

Tokaj: the sweet ones

Tokaj, in the north-east where the Bodrog meets the Tisza, is Hungary's most famous wine region, and its sweet wines are the reason. In autumn the river mists bring noble rot (botrytis), which shrivels the grapes into raisin-like aszú berries, full of sugar and acidity. Tokaj was one of the first wine regions in the world with borders set by law (1737), and the Hungarian national anthem thanks God for the "nectar" dripping from its vines.

  • Aszú. The star. The shrivelled berries are picked one by one, by hand, soaked in fermenting must or wine, and aged for years in small oak barrels. Older labels count "puttonyos", the baskets of berries added; since 2013 every Aszú must have at least 120 grams of sugar per litre. Expect apricot, honey and candied orange peel, held up by fresh acidity.
  • Szamorodni. Polish for "as it was born": whole bunches, botrytised and healthy grapes together. Sweet Szamorodni is Aszú's lighter cousin; dry Szamorodni is a rare, nutty, sherry-like wine for mature cheese.
  • Late harvest (késői szüret). The modern style since the 1990s, from very ripe grapes: fresher and lighter, and the easiest sweet Tokaji to start with.
  • Fordítás. "Turning over": wine poured a second time over the pressed aszú paste. Rare, but worth a sip if a bar has it.
  • Eszencia. The juice that drips from the aszú berries under their own weight: thick as syrup, with 600 to 800 grams of sugar per litre, so slow to ferment that it barely reaches a few per cent alcohol. It is served on a spoon.

How to drink it: sweet Tokaji comes in small pours, so ask for a taste at the end of the evening. Goose liver and poppy-seed or cottage-cheese pastries are the classic partners; our own favourite is milk chocolate, where the acidity cuts the fat and the wine is sweet enough to hold its own. And Tokaj is no longer only sweet: a dry Furmint from a single vineyard is the region's most exciting new wine, a good first glass before the Aszú.

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