The new kid on Budapest’s entertainment block, Gozsdu Courtyard is at the heart of the city’s newly revamped Jewish Quarter and has become the destination of choice edgy nightlife and bar hopping. Running between Dob utca and the cool design stores of Király utca, Gozsdu comprises a series of interconnecting courtyards lined with balconied townhouses and was built in the early 20th century. Once home to workshops and tenements, the courtyards became part of the Jewish ghetto in World War II, with thousands of Jews incarcerated here. Happily the complex was given a glamorous facelift in the 2009 and now positively overflows with smart cafés, ruin bars and restaurants featuring international cuisines from Yiddish to Thai; it’s a city hotspot and on summer evenings the crowds spill out into the open air.
And in a city full of funky flea markets, Gozsdu Courtyard comes into its own on Sunday mornings when it is site of the funky GOzsdU BAzaar; this is one of the best places in Budapest to source unusual jewelry, vintage clothes and local delicacies such as honey and pálinka (traditional Hungarian fruit brandy). The Jewish Summer Festival takes place there over the last week of August, with workshops, live music and antiquarian bookstalls, while occasional night markets also take place in the run up to Christmas.
