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In the summer of 2009, I ended up in Budapest with a man whose surname was Farmer. We\u2019d been in Amsterdam, Berlin and Prague, drinking absinthe and sleeping on trains, and we found nourishment in Hungary by way of \u20ac5 goulash and \u20ac1 beers. Before Farmer dashed off to Madrid and I booked a cheap flight home, I went to the now-famous Szimpla Kert, one of Budapest\u2019s original \u201cruin bars\u201d hidden in abandoned ex-Soviet buildings. I found it to be a mystical place, cavernous and neon-lit, with a canopy of plants hanging from the ceiling among an endless parade of bric-a-brac adorning steel beams and dusty brickwork. There were rooms with comfy sofas and shisha pipes, a lively crowd, bashed up cars below disco balls. A jazz band played in front of squeaky food carts. <\/p>\n
Shoreditch Wine<\/a> House isn\u2019t quite the same but it\u2019s as close as you can get in London. It helps that the sommelier is Hungarian, with his circular spectacles and soft demeanour. You enter through a little alley in Shoreditch to find a quite plush-looking wine shop, but carry on into a space behind to find plants and candles, low sofas and \u2014 if you\u2019re lucky \u2014 a dog with an unimaginably long nose who potters about on the green floor, her shaggy fur illuminated by dim red lighting. <\/p>\n Music will be Balkan Beat Box adjacent, maybe, and the wine list is long and eclectic, meandering from high-end French (superb Meursault if you like) to farmyard orange, which was my choice. Divisive, still, these low intervention numbers. Some are every bit a con. Here, the wine is sturdy, plucky and moreish, ideal with a cigarette and a curl or two of charcuterie. This wine bar is a cosy, ramshackle place. Somewhere to chat and to round things off with a little Mirabellenwasser with the hosts. It is, above all else, an escape<\/a>. <\/p>\n