Where the hallowed and the hip co-exist
Budapest’s Jewish Quarter offers bars amid the ruins, bookshops on every corner
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY— Once a handsome 19th-century residence for a wealthy industrialist family, this building is now a ruin. Inside, there’s an old, wrecked Trabant — that famously terrible East German automobile that’s partially made of cardboard. Upstairs, you can sit in a bathtub.
There’s a tuba randomly encased in glass, a table made out of an old wooden pommel horse and a fairly frightening-looking garden gnome hanging from the ceiling on a swing. And as I return with a beer in hand from one of the more than seven bars built right in, I can’t quite believe that this is one of the most famous bars in Budapest.
Set in the heart of the Jewish Quarter, Szimpla Kert sparked a renaissance in this neighbourhood when it opened more than a decade ago. And while gentrification has drawn waves of new visitors to the area, it hasn’t changed everything. Still home to three synagogues — including Europe’s largest — this neighbourhood’s past remains its strength, with the hallowed and historic coexisting here with the hip (and hipster).
Case in point — Szimpla Kert. While the rambling, ruined building rocks until 4 a.m., DJs cranking out techno and people piled five-deep at the bars scattered around its labyrinthine layout, all is quiet when freelance local guide Veronika Lovago meets me in front on a weekday afternoon.
“You look at it and you think, ‘Oh my God, it’s going to collapse,’ but somehow they turned it into a bar,” she says, turning to the tumbledown facade. “All the items you see in there, they came from the residents of the building.”
As we walk away, turning down a series of narrow lanes, Lovago explains the long, rich — and often tortured — history of its Jewish community. Settled in the country for centuries, this significant group, which numbered more than half a million in the second half of the 19th century, were accorded equal rights in 1867.
Both that community — and the country as a whole — benefited.
But the Jewish Quarter became the Jewish Ghetto in the late stages of the Second World War, with tens of thousands dying when the Germans erected walls around the area, hemming in the Jewish population and forcing them into appalling conditions. Hundreds of thousands more died when they were removed to death camps. While survivors remained, the neighbourhood continued in a downward spiral, slowly disintegrating under 45 years of communism, Hungary a key country in the Eastern Bloc.
That is, until someone had the idea to turn actual ruins into a ruin bar (several more have opened in the area). And the neighbourhood retains its culture and legacy, with kosher restaurants and Jewish art and bookshops seemingly around every corner. In fact, the plain beige building right next door to Szimpla Kert is still a mikve, an orthodox bath for married Jewish women. Lovago also takes me past the orthodox synagogue, the newest of the three that still stand in the Jewish quarter, a handsome Art Nouveau structure finished in 1913, decorated with a number of typical Hungarian symbols, including tulips on the stainedglass windows.
Nearby, we proceed through the Goszda passage, a series of seven courtyards interlinked by a pedestrian mall. Long ago home to the shops of leather tanners — once one of the few trades open to Jews — it’s now chock-a-block with brunch spots and karaoke bars, the firewalls adorned with murals. Over my several days in Budapest, I make a number of visits to the Jewish Quarter.
On sunny afternoons, I sample the fare at Karavan, a back lane converted into a series of local food stalls, tasting burgers served on langos, a traditional Hungarian fry bread, as well as chimney cake, a beloved dessert finished over charcoal and consumed on special occasions.
In the evening, I return to sip good Hungarian vino at Doblo wine bar while a slick duo sing chill Tracy Chapman covers, and later to kick up my heels into the wee hours at Szimpla Kert. And I visit that fixture of any gentrified neighbourhood: the hipster barber shop. Despite online reviews that bemoan a first-come first-served policy and wait times of up to three hours, I walk right into the Barber Shop Budapest, past the “NO PHOTOS, NO LADIES” sign, to find an old-timey chair immediately available.
Feeling fresh and clean-shaven, a couple days later, I finish my tour with Lovago. As we reach the conclusion of our walk, I try a flodini, a traditional Hungarian Jewish cake with plum jam, walnut, apple and Poppy Seed at a very small shop called Rachel’s. Then, we pass by a monument honouring Carl Lutz, who is credited with saving tens of thousands of Budapest’s Jews during the Holocaust.
We finish at Europe’s largest synagogue, an imposing Moorish-Byzantine masterpiece that opened in1859. I’m surprised to learn that it’s closed to tourists today — the first day of Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles. Tim Johnson was hosted by Iberostar Hotels & Resorts, which didn’t review or approve this story.