8 Excellent Wine Bars in Budapest

By Tas TóbiásLast updated: Apr. 22, 2024

Unlike beer, wine has been essential all throughout Hungary's history with almost all parts of the country producing its own. Best-known is Tokaj, once a favorite of emperors and presidents, but there are a total of 22 wine regions across Hungary today. You can try a wide range of local options at the wine bars below, both whites and reds, traditional and natural wines. Keep a special eye out for those made from native Hungarian grapes such as furmint, hárslevelű, and juhfark (white), and kékfrankos and kadarka (red).

#1 Kadarka Wine Bar

Named after a red grape variety native to Hungary, Kadarka is a lively wine bar inside Budapest's Jewish Quarter. Kadarka isn't the type of super-hip place with the latest natural wine or pet-nat sensations; instead, it serves more than a hundred kinds of well-known and reliable Hungarian labels from across the country's 22 wine regions. Despite being within a tourist-heavy area, Kadarka has remained a mainly local haunt, especially for 30-plus Hungarians, likely because prices haven’t shot through the roof.

If unsure, try Kolonics's juhfark, a minerally white varietal wine from the Somló region in northwestern Hungary. There's a full-service kitchen, but you're best off sticking to the nibbles. Kadarka usually gets mobbed by people in the evenings, so try booking ahead.

#2 Marlou

It took a while for Hungary to hop on the natural wine train, but this global trend is now charging full steam ahead, especially among younger winemakers and consumers. The definition is hazy, but natural wines refer to those made with little intervention, for example without selected yeasts and with only a minimal amount of sulfites. Marlou, a pioneer of the genre in Budapest, has an excellent selection of Hungarian labels, some from the famous Tokaj region, others from France given that the owner, Jean-Julien Ricard, is French.

The hip, high-ceilinged space hides behind the Budapest Opera – more than a century ago, this side street was known for its high-traffic brothels – and features bare bricks, neon lights, and a wall blanketed in wines. The daily selections often include orange and sparkling wines and there’s a slim food menu with nibbles. My only issue with Marlou is its price points, which at €7-11 per glass render these wines inaccessible to most locals in Budapest.

#3 Drop Shop

Hiding in an elite part of downtown Budapest, near the Parliament building, Drop Shop is a pricey wine bar doubling as a boutique wine store. Unlike most wine bars in the city that stack local bottles, Drop Shop also carries international labels anywhere from Austria to Australia, from a traditionally made Brunello to natural wines from the New World.

I only wish Drop Shop's interior were a little bit more inviting – softer lighting, some background music, and more comfortable chairs would extract more charm from the space and be more fitting for the premium wines on offer. As often is the case with wine bars, most customers here are 35-plus professionals. The cheese and charcuterie plates are decent, but best of all is the ham and cheese panini!

#4 Cintányéros

Cintányéros isn’t so much a posh wine bar as an updated neighborhood wine tavern – the type of place where local residents gather for banter and wallet-friendly house wine. The place is situated in the once-seedy outer District 8, an area currently undergoing large-scale real estate development perfectly symbolized by Nokia’s gleaming headquarters towering over the neighborhood.

Upstairs, there are small tables and snug corners; no wonder that lovebirds occupy many of them. The house wines are perfectly satisfying and there are also well-known Hungarian labels. Don't sleep on the food: toasted sandwiches, grilled sausage with pickled cabbage, filled molnárka roll!

#5 Palack Wine Bar

Palack is a laid-back wine bar on the Buda side of the city, where the increasingly fashionable Bartók Béla Boulevard sets off. Sure, there are other places in Budapest with a more discerning wine list and better-trained servers, but those often end up being playgrounds of wine snobs.

Instead, Palack’s unabashedly middle-brow approach brings together a cross-section of local residents: Price sensitive customers can try easydrinking whites, while those with more advanced palates and deeper pockets sip away on layered wines by Hungary's leading producers, including Szeleshát, Vylyan, and Kreinbacher. Snacks, vegetable dips, and charcuterie platters are available. In terms of offerings, atmosphere, and prices, Palack is comparabe to Kadarka on the opposite side of the Danube.

#6 MyWine Wine Bar

MyWine is a snug wine bar smack in the middle of Budapest's downtown. With cushy sofas and plush chairs, the place is more comfortable than other wine bars in the city where high-stools and plastic tables are the norm. Thirty or so wines are served by the glass, dozens more by the bottle, all of them sourced from wine regions across Hungary. For some privacy, proceed to the secluded section in the back.

MyWine is a project of three Hungarian businessmen, each of whom also owns a winery (Barta, Szentesi, Bodrog Borműhely). Evidently, they spared no expense on the interior but the place also feels a little undermanaged currently: customers are few, tasting events rare, the food offerings not always available. With a bit more fine tuning, this wine bar could become a treasured haunt for Budapest oenophiles.

#7 St. Andrea Wine & Skybar

St. Andrea is a Hungarian success story: starting as a small winery in northeastern Hungary's Eger wine region, they've become a nationally recognized label now also involved with a Budapest fine dining restaurant and, since 2017, this pricey rooftop bar towering over downtown's Vörösmarty tér. Often the best strategy for a rooftop bar is to let the view do the talking while ensuring that drinks are on point, and this is what they've done here.

Naturally, most wines come from St. Andrea's own winery, which makes both whites and reds, but other wines, beers, and cocktails are also available. In the summer months, be sure to sit at the outdoor tables in the front or the back of the space, both with panoramic views of Budapest (though the latter is partially obstructed by the grim facade of the nearby Marriott).

#8 DiVino Wine Bar

DiVino is a posh wine bar in the heart of Budapest's downtown with a picture-postcard view of the Saint Stephen's Basilica, Budapest's biggest church. Touristy it may be, still, it’s a sight to behold. DiVino is most enjoyable from its outdoor tables during the warm-weather months (you'd better avoid the dim interior with a club-like atmosphere). The selections include 150 types of wines sourced from leading Hungarian wineries, both big (Takler, Heimann, Konyári) and small (Pendits). Split by wine regions, all of them are listed on the walls. DiVino's customers are a mix of tourists who pass by the area and 30-plus Hungarians who enjoy sceney spots.