We love Budapest’s stores that are overflowing with interesting and offbeat design items, whether they are pop-up shops or permanent retailers with a rotating stock. We could spend hours browsing through piles of brand-new design treasures and retro relics at these stores, feeling like we’re at a flea market in the middle of downtown. Now we have a new destination for feeding our fascination: Szimpla Design Shop, which recently opened next to the famed ruin pub on chaotic Kazinczy Street, where they intermingle old and new décor items in an adorable, youthful, and certainly not simple way.

We find the entryway to this design store right next to Budapest's best-known ruin pub, Szimpla Kert. The shop is small, but very atmospheric: it is filled from floor to ceiling with an ever-changing selection of knickknacks. Antiques, vintage treasures, upcycled objects, and designer items sit side by side on the shelves here.

At least 50-60 different brands are represented here, most of them being Magyar designers, but we can also find inventive and niche-filling items from international designers, too. Old lamps, fashion accessories, glass objects, textiles, and décor items cover every surface at Szimpla Design Shop.

The management strives to fill up Szimpla’s ground floor “room” with high-quality and somewhat special design items. We immediately found our favorites, such as the creative textile dolls of Amy Winehouse and Frida Kahlo, made by Krisztina Komlós. (Unfortunately, they just ran out of Björk Barbies.) We love the Lubloy mugs and the concrete earrings of MOHA design, and we just can’t become bored with the funny caricatures of ART HEKK.

In addition to its regular opening hours, Szimpla Design Shop also awaits guests with special thematic fairs, named Szimpla Treasures, monthly. This way, Szimpla’s Sunday farmer’s market now has a stylish little sister, enticing everyone with workshops, fundraising, and expert traders.

We recommend Szimpla Design Shop to both visitors and locals, and to lovers of kitsch, antique, and vintage goods.

Szimpla Design Shop

Address: Budapest 1073, Kazinczy utca 14
Opening Hours: Tuesday-Friday: 12pm-7pm, Saturday: 11am-4pm