Image by Eszter Szilva

Cukorka means candy in Hungarian and from December it also refers to one of the coolest places in Budapest where you can indulge in sugary delights and the stunning design and idea behind this tiny candy shop. It’s always inspiring to see places like this being born in Budapest.

The vivid red walls almost shocked me when I entered the candy shop but everything gets calmer in the other corner where candies are made on a sterile steel counter in front of bright white tiles. Behind there is a row of transparent bottles with flavor and color materials which made me feel like I came across some secret laboratory. And that’s pretty much the case because all the candies are made here by hand according to less-known, traditional recipes from abroad and from Hungary as well.

You can choose from at least ten-fifteen different tastes of candies and lollipops ranging from cinnamon to piña colada, all made on the spot by the friendly staff. If you have difficulties picking your favorite (which I had, of course), tasting  them at the counter might help you out. Cukorka also organizes “candy shows”, when you can get an idea how these sweet little treats are made.

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Cukorka | Shopping, Snacks | Pack of candies HUF 900
Múzeum körút 7 | Central Pest
Mon – Fri 10:00 – 19:00, Sat 10:00 – 15:00

Copyrights Spotted by Locals Budapest

Image by Eszter Szilva

El Rapido has introduced a pretty unusual combination to the bar scene of the seventh district. It’s a taco buffet and a deli upstairs, plus a flea market bar in the cellar where everything you see is on sale.

Located in the busy Kazinczy street, El Rapido offers cheap and fast tacos and other Mexican-like fast food. The target group is clear: mainly those who arrive late in the evening from the neighborhood’s clubs and bars. As El Rapido is a deli as well, the shelves are packed with international food such as curry sauces, exotic spices and Mexican beers. 

While the small buffet is mostly crowded with people waiting for their snacks, downstairs you’ll enter a much more tranquil place. The smoky cellar bar is full of old tables, chairs and seemingly useless but funny retro gadgets, books and other bric-a-bracs. It feels a bit like sitting in a storage. That sort of a storage where you can choose from forty different types of Mexican tequilas… The slogan is the following: you can buy anything here. So if you feel that your chair is perfectly comfy, you just have to bargain a nice price and be happy with your Budapest souvenir.

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El Rapido | Bars, Coffee & tea, Snacks | Taco al pastor HUF 600
Budapest, 1075, Kazinczy utca 10. | Central Pest | +36302792861
Mon – Tue 11:30 – 02:00, Wed – Fri 11:30 – 03:00, Sat 12:00 – 04:00, Sun 17:00 – 02:00

Copyrights Spotted by Locals Budapest

Image by Szilva Eszter

Facades of classic cinemas with their black letters and neon commercials always impress me. The entrance of Szikra Cool Tour House opposite Nyugati station is one of these spots. The name of this complex institution is a Hunglish word pun: kultúrház (yes, to be pronounced Cool Tour House) means cultural center especially since the early socialist era where different events were organized from official celebrations to concerts of local choirs. Szikra’s programs are just as diverse.

Built in the 1920s, Szikra functioned as a cinema until the end of the 1990s. Its main sensation is the roof of its theatre room which can be opened and closed thanks to a clever machinery. When I was there last time at a Pecha Kucha night, the audience gathering to listen to designers and architects was just as amazed by discovering the starry night above their heads as cinema goers of the 1920s could have been. There’s something magical about sitting in a traditional theatre and watching the sky framed by golden stuccos.

Szikra admittedly goes against Budapest’s famous ruin bar trend by evoking a cabaret milieu. The ornate and shiny decors and the posh bar go perfectly with the atmosphere of the theatre. The program ranges from mainstream to alternative, from jazz concerts to independent theatre performances or DJ sets. The building houses a bar and bistro which you can reach from the street from as early as 8 o’clock in the morning. The snacks and drinks keep you sated until the show begins.

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Szikra | Art & culture, Bars, Cinemas, Music, Snacks, Theaters | Espresso HUF 250
Budapest, 1066, Teréz krt. 62. | Central Pest | +3619110911
Sun – Tue 10:00 – 02:00, Wed – Thu 10:00 – 04:00, Fri – Sat 10:00 – 06:00

Copyrights Spotted by Locals Budapest

Image by Eszter Szilva

Entering this tiny veggie buffet in Pozsonyi street makes you feel that everything you eat here is fresh, tasty and healthy. And the chefs of Nemsüti guarantee that it’s really the case. Here you can fuel up on yummy vegetarian or vegan dishes, soups, sandwiches, cakes and fresh juices. The food is always seasonal, fresh, does not contain flour, sugar and artificial stuff. The materials are of the best quality.

This family-run buffet is a true success story, quite similar to the triumph of the Sunset Cookies in Woody Allen’s film Small Time Crooks, translated Süti, nemsüti (‘Cookies, Not Cookies’) in Hungarian. Except the owners of Nemsüti had never intended to rob a bank. That’s the origin of the name, which might be a bit complicated by I could not help sharing it. In addition, Nemsüti didn’t sell cookies in the beginning. It started out as a simple sandwich bar offering healthy snacks, but now they cook menus and run a home delivery as well. In lunch time, the buffet is always full and might run out of the menus, so it’s advised to order the menu the previous day.

Despite its name, Nemsüti sells now cookies as well. All of them home made, with brown sugar and lots of fruits. Delicious, of course.

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Nemsüti | Snacks, Restaurants (Intern.) | Main dish HUF 800
Jászai Mari tér 4/b | Central Pest | +3617826711
Mon – Fri 11:00 – 17:00

Copyrights Spotted by Locals Budapest

Image by Miklos Zsamboki

As the name suggests perfectly, Noir is a chocolate bar. While Hungary is not a chocolate world power like, say, Belgium, Noir certainly does its part in meeting the needs of local chocophiles. It’s got all sorts of chocolates, including hot drinking chocolate, hot drinking chocolate with various spices from chili to cardamom, hot chocolate with or without alchohol, or hot chocolate with or without spices and/or alcohol on ice.

What more need I say? If you have the craving for sweet, sweet (or dark andbitter) chocolate, this is the place to go. Do reserve a table if you’re planning to visit in the evening, it gets crowded around that time.

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Noir ChocoBar | Bars, Snacks | Hot chocolate from HUF 700
Hegedu utca 6 | Central Pest | +36202228555
Sun – Mon 15:00 – 22:00, Tue – Sat 15:00 – 00:00

Copyrights Spotted by Locals Budapest

Image by Ferenc Nadai

Arioso is a coffee-, furniture- and flowershop very close to Deák Ferenc Square. It’s a small, friendly place where you can sit down in the middle of the day for a tea and a hot sandwich, or maybe a salad, and have some peace away from the rush of the street. Besides the street front area, Arioso also has an even mellower garden in the back, open whenever the weather is nice.

They also have furniture and other home decoration elements like candelabras for sale, and if you walk a few meters down the street, you’ll find the Arioso flower shop (which is where the photo was taken) with a wide selection of really elegant potted and vase plants, bouquets and the like.

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Arioso | Coffee & tea, Shopping, Snacks | Tea HUF 350
Király utca 9 | Central Pest | +3612663555
Mon – Fri 10:00 – 19:00, Sat 10:00 – 16:00

Copyrights Spotted by Locals Budapest

Image by Hélène Bienvenu

Gozsdu udvar is a scenic Budapest passage at the heart of the Jewish district. It leads from Király utca 13 to Dob utca 16 (and the other way round of course!).

It was built at the very beginning of the 20th century by a Hungarian Romanian philanthropist, Mano Gozsdu. At the time Budapest was a bustling capital, I have absolutely no problem imagining how lively it could have been over there. The promenade connecting the six yards to each other was probably full of little shops and workshops. Unfortunately WWII came and communism followed suite. The passage was left abandoned.

And here’s the good news: Gozsdu udvar was renovated in 2008. It’s now all bright and shiny (maybe a bit too much?), slowly filling up with luxury homes, cafés and bars.

Gouba market is held there in the open-air every Sunday along the passage from early spring (end of March) till end of October. It is similar in spirit to WAMP (check the article here), the famous Budapest design market. One could argue that it’s even more pleasant as the location is quite unique and gives a feeling of a real market.

On Gouba you will find Hungarian design items (jewellery, clothes, accessories…) but also some antiques, drawings, stationary… It’s the perfect place to shop for original Hungarian presents!

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Gouba – Gozsdu udvar | Shopping, Snacks | Free
Király utca 13 – Dob utca 16 | Central Pest
07:00 – 22:00 daily

Copyrights Spotted by Locals Budapest

Image by András Nagy

The former Corvin Áruház hosts two spots at once: Jelen [present] on the ground floor and Corvintető on the top floor. This duality lets you combine alcohol and concerts, starting on the ground floor and going high or beginning at the top and slowly sinking down to the very bottom. It’s close to a major traffic conjunction still in a small street, a cozy and spacey pub at the same time with three rooms, as you can see on the photos.

I’ve been wondering why the concert room of Jelen is smaller than the actual pub area. The more the merrier? Indeed. All of my concert memories tell about a heavy crowd although there might have been only 50 people. Nice trick! However, they never charged me for a concert. Regarding the musical profile, I’d tick the ‘jazz’ and ‘world music’ boxes on the query.

The wine bar has a pretty solid assortment of wines from all over the country, also for take-away. Jelen feeds you bistro food, they have a brunch menu, a lunch menu and a la carte meals.

It’s an excellent stop on your downtown bar hopping tour, easy to reach and within a block you’ll have several other places to visit. Due to the late closing time there is no hurry, just make sure you find your way back home.

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Jelen | Bars, Coffee & tea, Music, Snacks | Soproni beer HUF 490
Blaha Lujza tér 1-2 | Central Pest | +36203443155
Mon – Tue 11:00 – 02:00, Wed – Fri 11:00 – 04:00, Sat 16:00 – 04:00, Sun 16:00 – 02:00

Copyrights Spotted by Locals Budapest

Image by András Nagy

Handmade quality chocolate, all forms and tastes that a real connoisseur can dream of. Pralines and table chocolates are just the top of the iceberg. Personally I am a big fan of (dark) chocolates, I don’t even want to hide my enthusiasm.

The shop is really small where the design and the lights create a calm atmosphere that accentuates the bitter-clean smell of chocolate and cocoa beans. I’m still in the phase of tasting various pralines, certainly I can recommend all of the flavors but I wouldn’t miss the lemon-oil caramel bonbon at no cost. The sweets are wrapped in stylish wrappers or put in design-boxes.

Chocolate can also be used as raw material to create artworks: chocolate sculptures, boxes or “rusty tools” show the skills of the craftsmen and -women. Eating these beautiful pieces of art would be blasphemy! Well, hard times sometimes bring the heretic out of the chocolate believer.

The street where the shop is located has been undergoing a major transformation for some time and it has turned into a nice pedestrian street, just like the surrounding area. You’ve got to watch out not to walk past the shop, look for the chocolate brown shop front.

Details about this spot (Show on map)
Rózsavölgyi Chocolate | Shopping, Snacks | Box of bonbons HUF 2715
Királyi Pál utca 6 | Central Pest | +36308148929
Mon – Fri 10:30 – 13:00 & 13:30 – 18:30, Sat 12:00 – 18:00

Copyrights Spotted by Locals Budapest

Image by András Nagy

Enter this confectionery and you step into the world of “Charlie and the chocolate factory”. White walls and lights help you focus on the vast selection of sweets in all colors: jellies, candies, lollipops, mints, marshmallows and designer cakes. Not enough? Walk to the end of the counter to find milk rice and ice cream. Go for a smoothie or an airy mousse, you won’t be disappointed anyway.

A child’s dream has come true in this shop: I love the expression on the people’s faces as they walk around or try to pick their choice at the counter. Pure joy is what you see.

The owners (already running one of the best confectioneries in town) had the idea of creating cakes that, besides tasting good, look beautiful too. Total success, I can tell you.

Allow yourself a little treat and try those sweets! You deserve it. Remember, diets always start on the same day: tomorrow.

Check out some more pictures.Please note that Sugar is closed 24 -26th December and 1-4th January.

Details about this spot (Show on map)
Sugar! | Coffee & tea, Snacks | Chocolate raspberry pie HUF 480
Paulay Ede utca 48 | Central Pest | +3613216672
Mon 12:00 – 22:00, Tue – Sun 10:00 – 22:00

Copyrights Spotted by Locals Budapest