From Dublin with love, top-quality shaves and haircuts in the heart of Budapest
Budapest is full of American-style barbers, staffed by bearded, fully tattooed snippers who have long squeezed out the old-school Hungarian competition and now charge three times the price.
True, they all speak English, and the background music will be an improvement on whatever passes for daytime radio in Hungary.
But there’s one place that’s a notch above the rest, and it’s not just in the name. The Celtic Barber shop is overseen by an experienced trio, experts in their trade, fluent in English and eminently affordable. Zsolt and Stella will add a soothing alcohol rub to your basic Ft3,600/€8.75 trim, Ft4,000/€9.75 with a tip, with other styles and shaves also available. Fades are a speciality.
Conversation flows freely and the airwaves stay mercifully silent. The job is over in a jiffy and culminates in a hot towel placed on a silver tray for you to refresh afterwards.
But it’s Eliza who’s been the star of the show since the shop’s opening back in 2018. And no wonder, since it was this multilingual Hungarian hairdresser who had the idea for such a venture, setting up the business with her other half, Tom, a Polish entrepreneur, when both were working in Dublin.
It’s no coincidence, then, that the walls are covered in framed badges of sundry Irish soccer clubs – Shamrock Rovers, UCD, Dundalk – and a little Polish flag beckons passers-by from the shop window.
Oh yes, the location. Király utca is, bar none, the best street in Budapest, a cornucopia of secondhand record shops, purveyors of diving equipment, antiquarians and top-notch alternative bars such as Roots, Szabad and Unity. Here, at No.90, opposite a boutique selling wedding dresses and a repair workshop in place since 1910, Eliza and her crew welcome back the many loyal regulars among the 50/50 split of domestic and foreign customers.
And the name? “My husband was drunk one night…” explains Eliza, telling a tale she’s probably been asked about far too many times, and with a beginning that characterises many a football yarn. This particular one begins in Dublin. “He realised that he wanted to bring back a little piece of the culture around us. The Celtic Barber Shop seemed the best idea.”
So, sadly no talk of ’67 or Celtic’s chances in Zagreb next month, just a quality haircut with all the trimmings, and at a great price, too.
The Celtic Barber, Király utca 90, Budapest 1068. Open Mon-Fri 10am-8pm, Sat 10am-4pm.
