Black Swan Budapest — Restaurant in Budapest

The location: right in the heart of Pest, the Black Swan bar looks rather unsuspicious and might almost be a little hard to find. The bar's door is managed, i.e. you only get in after ringing a bell (more on that in a minute), as it should be the case with any highly frequented bar these days. Once you're in, you get to enjoy the beauty of the location: numerous very high shelves full of spirits and liquors make for quite a first impression. The bar is very small with only a few tables and some additional seats at the shiny counter. This could be a very lovely and very cozy place if it wasn't for the base-prone music that makes communicating with each other a bit of a challenge.

The drinks: The drink menu comes with 12 signature drinks and a complete no-go from a guest's point of view: rather than noting the actual spirits of their signature drinks in the menu, only the aromas and flavours of the drinks produced are explained. According to the waiter, this happens to "not have people dragged away from a certain aroma just because they think they don't like the base spirit". Well, guess what: I have good reasons not to like Vodka, others might have good reasons not to like Mezcal, Whiskey or Gin.

Unfortunately, the Black Swan people entertain a lot of gimmicks to make a visit seemingly more enjoyable for their guests: drinks are served in bowls rather than glasses, and just like every second bar in Budapest, the bartenders work with smoke and garnishes and decoration ad extremo. Behind all that veneer was, in my case, the "Let off steam", an obvious reminiscence of a Tommy's Margarita, served with a big smoke bubble atop, which supposedly represented the "thermal sources of Budapest". Alrighty.

The evening my company and I spent at the Black Swan could have been lovely and enjoyable, but unfortunately, matters took a few turns turn for the worse. First, the bar's doorbell is a complete and utter disgrace. Visual doorbells exist, so there is literally no need whatsoever to have a doorbell so loud that it will not only startle people everytime it goes off. It will also interrupt conversations on the tables nearby time and again.

Then, after having had one of the bar's signature drinks, I went for a classic, which turned out to be a problem. "Stay away from Tiki" I was told after ordering a Mai Tai and a Royal Bermuda Yacht Club to no avail. Well: after all, a Mai Tai is an absolute all-time classic, and having a bottle of Orgeat in your bar is not a rocket science.

Its catastrophic climax did our visit at the Black Swan bar reach roughly two hours after we had come there. The waiter came to our table and informed us that "the next guests for the table will come in ten minutes" and that we had to pay and to leave. According to him, tables are assigned to guests for two hours. This was literally the first time I was kicked out of a bar, and the fact that this happened, indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of a cocktail bar and the concept of being a bartender that the people at the Black Swan adhere to. Being a bar and being a bartender means creating an enjoyable place of hospitality combined with the art of cocktail craftmanship. Being a good bartender implies more than pouring spirits together and serving them in a fancy glass. A business model that requires a bar to throw out customers is the exact antithesis to this. No fancy bowl, no shiny smoke and no hand-crafted cocktail ingredient will compensate for this level of failure. I recommend the staff at the Black Swan bar to read Sasha Petraske's bar manual.

All in all and despite all the excellent reviews, the Black Swan bar is not a bar that can compete with the great cocktail bars of our time (i.e. the Hildegard Bar in Berlin or the Kronenhalle Bar in Zurich). It's a somewhat nice place to consume a fancy drink, a beverage shop if you will, with substantial deficits in the staff's understanding of...

We visited this bar after seeing it recommended on the Top 50 Bars list, but unfortunately our experience did not live up to the reputation. The entrance is a bit hidden, which does add to the speakeasy feel, and the interior itself is quite nice.

However, the service was disappointing. The bartender was stoic and bland, offering near zero customer interaction or hospitality. The overall atmosphere felt unwelcoming. While the cocktail menu is uniquely designed around taste descriptions and alcohol percentage, the drinks themselves were mediocre at best and far below what one would expect from a highly ranked bar.

Signature cocktails may appear creative, but the quality of mixology was low-end, and certainly not on par with world-class standards. Pricing is on the higher side, which could be justified if the experience and quality matched, but in this case it did not.

If you do decide to visit, I recommend going with no more than four people, as the space is small. That said, based on our experience, we cannot recommend this bar and are baffled as to how it earned a spot among the...

Black Swan is rated one of the best in Budapest, but this comes as quite a surprise. The speakeasy bar concept is very well maintained and followed here that you need to ring a bell and wait to be let in. The ambience is really quaint and well maintained. Good music and friendly staff too. The drinks were a let down though. They have a concept of not letting you choose cocktails based on the liquor you prefer and want it to be a curious feeling throughout until you figure it out yourself. I personally don't like this but still gave it a shot for the experience. The drinks are quite flavoured up with all ingredients we except the liquor itself unfortunately. This was a huge disappointment and even after 5-6 cocktails, you don't feel the liquor flavor or the feeling of being tipsy (which is normal for an average human being). I'd recommend this bar for the experience but definitely not a place for good drinks since they are sweet and not worth the...