The Vault — Restaurant in Bucharest

Beautiful speakeasy style bar built from a former bank vault. Unfortunately, they like to tell potential customers that they are full 1 hour from closing with only 5 people in the bar. No wonder they have so many bad reviews for being super pretentious.

[Update] - My response to reply from The Vault

Hello Vikrant

Thank you for replying to my review of The Vault. I appreciate your kind and professional response, however it is not reflecting the truth.

My girlfriend and I arrived at the bar 1 hour before closing time, as my review specified, and the bar was almost empty.

While we were waiting to speak to the hostess, we started taking pictures because let's face it, you have a beautiful and unique bar. The bar man rudely told us that pictures were not allowed. That is completely out of line... How is it that in the days of social media does your bar not allow pictures? You don't want the free marketing? I don't think so.

Finally, the hostess approached us and said that the bar was full, keep in mind, 1 hour before closing time. So that was for sure a lie.

What I think happened is your staff judged me and my girlfriend for the way we were dressed. Well, I am sorry we are backpacking travelers who wanted to take a break from our professional lives and wear what makes us feel comfortable. I understand if you have a dress code policy, and if we were denied service for that I would have completely understood. However, we were told that the bar was full instead.

If I ever travel to Bucharest again, I will not come back to your bar. My girlfriend and I were made to feel unwelcomed and ruined our moods for the rest of the evening. For this reason I will not be giving your bar any of my business, and I strongly feel that my review is completely honest especially for causal traveling people.

It's a shame, because we are American travelers who tip generously. You really should train your staff to be more friendly and honest. Romanian people are so nice and friendly but your bar was an unfortunate exception.

Thanks again for...

Visited the Vault 19/9 and it was certainly a mixed experience that we had.

I’m a cocktail bar owner myself, so there is probably things I noticed that the regular customer would not which also might be reflected in my rating of the place.

First I wanted to order The Vault version of “The Last Word” which the called “Lost Words” but due to empty stock the couldn’t provided green chartreuse for this. OK - this is a well-known problem in some parts of the work atm. I therefore switched to a safe choice and placed an order for a negroni, which I poked forward too. Despite being an well stirred cocktail they “secretly” substituted the Alkemist Gin out for a standard Tanqueray which in some ppls opinion might not be a problem, but for me it certainly was.

For our second order we waited first of all 10 minutes to just get our order taken (this was a Tuesday night with approximately 10 customers in the place). Finally we order and our cocktails get the creation and also attention they deserve from what I assume was the bar chef. Great. The cocktails are done and we can’t wait to taste them - unfortunately they are left on the bar desk for around 7-10 minutes done before the “bar chef” finally ask the runner to deliver it.

Do I have to say we didn’t order a 3rd round and went to another place.

The place is aesthetic beautiful in a old vault underneath the hotel it resides in. Not a place I would spent my whole night due to it becoming a bit dull later.

The drinks was as expected and delightful, but i’m not fan of the substituting gin which DO make a difference for straight-up cocktails as a Negroni.

Prices was above average and I would rather spent 35-50 lei on smaller cocktail bars such as The Owl House, than 55-80 lei at The Vault. Basically you get what you pay for but here I do tend to think that you pay for more than what you get.

Might come by again in the future, but certainly not my...

Went to grab some drinks, got seated pretty fast, without any reservation, by a kind bartender. Ordered 3 drinks, Reach the stars which was presented like a reinterpreted Pornstar Martini ( served with a shot of Prosecco) , Phoenix of Bucharest ( also presented as a mix of drinks which should be served in 2 dif glasses) and a Gnogging around. Order came fast, but noticed the the drinks were not looking same as presented so asked about it. The lady the brought the drinks said that it was the good order and the drinks are not as presented as she did the full mix in the big glass and this is how it should be. After tasting, at least the "Reach the Stars" was very bad to taste. We've had a second bartender to the table asking for the issue ( which was a good thing) but with a superior attitude , mentioning that he has a 7 year experience and a shot of prosecco added to the cocktail will not change the taste that much and that they didn't brought it separately because they are out of the shot glasses. He offered to redo it or to get it off the bill but we refused. 10 min later, the lady came back with some free shots for us, which would be a nice gesture, if the attitude would have been kind. She was clearly upset because of the situation and avoided eye contact with us. In the end, when paying the drink was removed from the bill but the whole story was not about the money, but about getting a nice experience overall. It's maybe a Romanian thing in hospitality that the people don't understand : a good customer service can erase any mistake or bad food/drink, but it's not valid the other way around. I'm sure that the bartenders are experts in their field, but if they have to do the customer facing too, would be good to invest in some improvement on this area. P.S. Buy some extra shot glasses :) You cannot be such a fancy bar ( location & prices) and remain without available glasses on a...