Irish pubs in Bucharest
What do our business trips and Irish pubs have in common? To be honest, not that much. But true to the Irish stereotype we like the odd pionta beoir, and if you’ve ever been in contact with the language industry, you’ll know that we’re one big family who treats conferences like a big reunion. At every event we’ve been to, we seem to have ended up at an Irish pub. Which is how it’s become a Retro Digital tradition to visit an Irish pub in every town we go to. So, from now on, just to lighten up the business mood a little bit, we’re going to be sharing the best and worst of Irish pubs Europe has to offer.
Our first Irish pub in Bucharest
Back in October, we visited Bucharest for Elia’s 21st Networking Days, where we were doing a talk about multilingual digital marketing. We kicked off the conference by holding a marketing-themed meet-up for all the conference attendees. And guess where we had it? At an Irish pub of course! Ryan’s Irish pub was just down the road from the conference centre (totally not the reason why we chose it :D). The staff were super friendly and helped us with the organizing before-hand as we had to make sure we had enough room for so many people to sit together. The food was great, beer was too, and being able to sit outside and make the most of the sun was a bonus!
The worst Irish pub in Bucharest
Never has an image been more geographically incorrect
There’s a street near the centre of Bucharest that seems to be home to literally dozens of Irish pubs. So, it’s not surprising that they have to make themselves stand out. But one seemed to stand out for all the wrong reasons, firstly, because of the name. …come on, really?!!! Thinking it couldn’t get any worse, we got inside and noticed the artwork of the Guinness factory right next to Big Ben, with a red London bus outside. We didn’t have the heart to tell them, but weren’t sober enough to endure it either (we’re such bad people!). Which led us to…
The best Irish pub in Bucharest
Alan and Ovidiu pouring Guinness together
. This really has to be the best Irish pub in Bucharest, and actually the best Irish pub we’ve been to so far. It was close to closing time when we went in (expecting another lousy take on an Irish pub), so we thought we were going to be the most hated tourists in town. But we were so wrong. Ovidiu’s passion for his pub just shone through from the moment we stepped through the door. He and Alan hit it off straight away, and before the other 2 of us could even sit down, Alan was behind the bar helping Ovidiu pour Guinness, re-living all those student years spent as a barman.
To make it even better, after closing Ovidiu came and joined us, and we all sat having baby Guinness together (this deserves real brownie points cuz none of the other pubs we’ve been to actually know what a baby Guinness was), and chatting until the early hours of the morning. We even got welcome shots when we took a group there from the conference the next evening. You could see how much effort went into everything. From the décor to the menu – they’ve really gone all out to create the most authentic Irish pub you could probably ever find. So, if you’re stopping by and looking for a great place, Kilkenny’s is hands-down the best Irish pub in Bucharest.