The Best Places to Drink in Hungary

An unmarked door on Klauzál utca is the only hint a cocktail bar is back there, and the 1920s-ish marble and copper interior suggests someone took the speakeasy aesthetic pretty seriously. Black Swan is an upmarket cocktail bar with a menu rooted in Hungarian ingredients and technique, which is a more interesting premise than the decor-as-personality alone. The 50 Discovery list has noted it among its picks.

A cocktail bar in central Pest that opens with a floor-to-ceiling abstract mural behind Scandi pendant lights, blue booths, and wooden floors, which is a pointed statement in a city that built its nightlife reputation on artful ruin. The team ferments, refines, and ages Hungarian ingredients, and runs a zero-waste operation while doing it. The 50 Discovery recognized it. Budapest still has its ruin bars; this is what comes after them.

The lobby bar of the Four Seasons Gresham Palace, Múzsa leans hard into the Art Nouveau bones of the building, the kind of room that makes first-time visitors stop walking. The cocktail list runs to nine signatures, each built around local Hungarian ingredients with a quietly technical hand. Small sharing plates drift toward Japanese-Hungarian fusion if you want something to eat. A beautiful place to feel like someone briefly glamorous.