Palack in Újbuda offers a cosy home from home for home office during the week

If you like wine, prosecco and the increasingly bubbly and diverse milieu of Bartók Béla út, you’ve probably visited Palack. Over the last ten years, it’s always been a reliable place for evening chatter, dates, drinks and tapas. While this hasn’t changed, now during the day they’re offering something new, for you, your dog and your laptop. Their home office package and lovely lunch menu can brighten up your busy weekday.

After working hours, life at Palack usually starts around 5pm-6pm, but it’s now good to know that its doors also open from noon for sit-down business meetings, a decent espresso and a view of the daytime traffic of Gellért tér and Liberty Bridge.

This living-room feel now aligns with their current home office concept. They want to provide a base for those who find their own living room no longer offers sufficient inspiration at home, those who seek more stimulus but don’t want to give up on comfort either. Alongside, friends, business partners and interviewees who also work remotely can join this new working environment. And once the laptop cover is snapped shut, they’ll still be in the ideal place because it’s then that a relaxing night at Palack begins.

From now on, they’re reviving their modest kitchen during the day to put together the home office package (HUF 1,990) of caffeine and sustenance. This involves a coffee or tea and a sandwich or dessert as a snack.

You can choose any kind of coffee from the drinks menu, espressos, lattes and so on, while the tea brewing beside your laptop will be one of the gourmet Florentine filters of La Via del Tè. Their selection of sandwiches is decent, too: BLT, avocado toast, the light Healthy Egg bowl of avocado and fried eggs with pita, and for those who prefer something sweet with tea, there’s chocolate soufflé or Limoncello mascarpone cake.

And for those couple of hours of home office, there’s no need to worry that anyone will give you strange looks as you use your mobile or you take your own sweet time for your tea to cool down. Those who want to break out of home office at home are welcomed with pleasure, fast WiFi, comfortable chairs and a nice atmosphere.

Of course, their weekly lunch menu is also available, which includes a soup and a one-course meal (a pasta, salad or wrap), long a welcome choice for regulars. Depending what’s on that day, this hearty two-course lunch costs 2,200-2,500 forints.

And, if we haven’t said so already, there’s no need to leave the pooch at home. The place is dog-friendly, so after one or two hours, you can walk up nearby Gellért Hill together before returning to your temporary workstation.

Ten years of service at Palack guarantees that you’ll feel comfortable here, you’ll find what you were looking for during the aforementioned daytime visit and, when it comes to the evening, you’ll relax over a drink.

Among the early guests here was a curious young man who did not know much about local wine culture, and was a little in the dark. In no time, he was laying into the rosé, enjoying spritzers on the terrace. By the autumn, they often point thirsty guests towards the exciting middle-aged whites and reds.

Wednesday Tastings have become a concept at Palack, a casual, interactive five-item samplings that spice up the middle of the week. As well as the selected wines, word has spread of the modest but sparkling tapas kitchen. What better than ham, cheese or olives to go with your glass?!

Always considered a lovely spot, Palack has never drifted towards the snobbery that often characterises wine bars: it welcomes wine connoisseurs, enthusiastic amateurs and the uninitiated, too. Those happy to be enchanted by a light Sauvignon Blanc but not keen on delving into the variety of characteristics provided by a particular terroir.