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What is it?
Situated between Vyner Street and the Andrews Road gallery enclave, this Mare Street curiosity shop is both on the art circuit and determinedly off any beaten track. The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art and Unnatural History, owned by eccentric collector Viktor Wynd may well be the weirdest thing you’ll find in the city. Peek through the windows and you’ll see a world in which velvet-cloaked Victorians, or perhaps The Mighty Boosh, might reside. Entering the shop, which is also the spiritual home of the esoterically minded Last Tuesday Society, reveals a wunderkammer of shells, skulls, taxidermy specimens and assorted oddities. Art gets a designated space in the first-floor gallery but, unsurprisingly, shows tend towards the eerily surreal. Its ground floor is home to a ‘pataphysical’ cocktail bar and absinthe parlour stocking the country’s largest curation of traditional absinthes, and where you can imbibe the ‘green goddess’ from an antique absinthe fountain. Don’t you just love a beverage with an elaborate ritual?
Why go?
Where else will you see a lock of Elvis’s hair, the skull of Pablo Escobar’s hippo, a mermaid skeleton and a collection of work from British surrealists all in one place? Just prepare yourself for the heebie jeebies.
Don’t miss
Looking to diversify your evening plans? The Viktor Wynd’s regular ‘menagerie nights’ give you the chance to pet some interesting creatures, like lizards and tarantulas, while frequent ‘Witchy Wednesdays’ offer tarot reading paired with a glass of absinthe.
When to visit
Open Tue-Fri 3pm-11pm, Sat: 12pm-11pm, Sun: 12pm-10pm. No under-18s permitted after 5pm.
Ticket info
Entry to the Absinthe Parlour and Galleries is free but admission to the Wunderkabinett it is £12 per person, or £8 for concessions, students or guests with a bar reservation.
Time Out tip
Don’t leave without trying one of the bar’s absinthe cocktails. ‘Wonder of the Impossible’ mixes the spirit with bourbon, peanut butter whiskey, miso and banana while ‘Soap Bubbles’ combines it with creme de cacao blanc, white chocolate, egg white and lime tonic.
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