Bucharest Nightlife

My friend and I visited Opium Studio one evening during our visit to Bucharest in March 2008.

This quirky little bar is located on Strada Horei, between Bulevardul Ferdinand and Bulevardul Pache Protopopescu, to the east of the city centre. Finding it involved a lot of wandering down dimly lit side streets and passing groups of stray dogs. I really wasn’t sure where we were heading, and the review in the guidebook (complete with the bar’s motto: “an endless dream”) did little to ease my fears that this might be some narcotics-filled den of iniquity. The bar’s external appearance offered no clues as to what lay inside, but we proceeded through an archway and found the large wooden door that led inside.

I’d like to point out in the strongest possible terms, and much to my relief, that this is *not* a drugs den and, despite its name, you cannot purchase opium there!

When we entered, we saw a group of young locals sitting around a large table smoking narghile pipes in a room to our right, and a dimly lit bar area (with décor that could best be described as “eclectic”, and just a little bit morbid) to our left. The music was not at all what I expected – some rather incongruous 1950s/60s love ballads.

We sat at a table in the bar area and ordered a couple of beers. The waitress, perhaps assuming (wrongly!) that as tourists we might not want the cheaper local beer, brought us a couple of bottles of Heineken (9 Lei / 1.80 GBP per 500ml bottle). Once we’d had time to look at the drinks menu, we saw that bottled Silva Brune was available at 7 Lei, Corona at a rather expensive 15 Lei per bottle, as well as a large choice of spirits, wines, vodka shots, cocktails, soft drinks and hot beverages.

The bar is open daily until 4am, and we noticed karaoke nights being advertised on the menu – but thankfully not while we were there!

On leaving, the barman asked us where we were from and asked us to spread the word of this bar to friends and family back home – or, in my case, to random people on an Internet travel site!

A friendly, quirky, and just a little scary bar on the back streets of Bucharest.

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Nightlife in Bucharest

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