A TASTE OF BUDAPEST

Budapest has over 1,000 restaurants, offering Hungarian and international cuisine. In the past ten years the choice has been growing fast: French, Chinese, Russian, Italian, Serbian, Indian, American, Greek, British, Czech, Danish, even vegetarian or kosher eateries have been opened. We are doing well in fast-food operations too with all the major chains having outlets in Budapest. You will not have any difficulty in finding a place to eat which fits your budget.

The simplest way to learn a nation is said to be through its cuisine. This city has a number of flavours: different in Óbuda, Buda and Pest. What is Hungarian cuisine like? Many think that Hungarians eat heavy, fatty dishes, a key ingredient of which is the throat-burning hot red paprika. We have to disappoint you if you are one of the many. Lard has long been replaced with vegetable oils, and red paprika is only used to enhance the flavour of the dishes.

The first thing that people recall about Hungarian cuisine is goulash, which is, contrary to popular belief , not a stew but an artistically prepared thick soup. Sour cream is often used to soften flavour. You must try fish soup, chicken paprika, good home-made pörkölt (stew) and the excellent fresh-water fishes: grilled pike-perch, trout with almond. Also compulsory is goose liver. Whether fried or grilled, cold or hot, it is simply unforgettable.

Only the larger restaurants have their menus printed in foreign languages. To help you select your dish, some useful ‘restaurant’ words are included in our glossary. Desserts would deserve a separate chapter. The most delicious ones are strudels, Gundel pancakes, somlói dumplings and gesztenyepüré (cooked chestnuts mashed, topped with whipped cream). Specialities include salty and sweet pastas, of which túrós csusza (pasta with curd and sour cream) is warmly recommended.

Drinks

Wine: The choice of good wine is available in Hungary has increased dramarically over the past few  years. Most popular styles include: dry white Chardonnay and Reisling, medium-dry Zöldszilváni,  Harslevelű and Szürkebarát, medium-sweet Tramini and the aromatic Muskotály. Among red wine, the  dry Kékfrankos, Burgundi, Oportó, Cabernet and Pinot Noir are popular. From the medium-dry Merlot is one of the best ones. Eger is well known for its wine and the robust red Egri Leányka  and the dry red 
Egri Bikavér will show you why. There is a special type of wine called Tokaji, which is a dessert wine. Its bouquet and flavour come from mould that grows only in the fork of the Bodrog and Tisza rivers and the volcanic soil in which  the vines grow. There is sweet, dry, full-bodied and rich.  Try Tokaji Aszú! Hungarians enjoy drinking refreshing spritzers. This is basically a proportion of wine with a proportion of soda water.

Pálinka: This alcoholic drink is distilled from fruit grown in the orchards situated on the Great Hungarian Plain. It is a spirit native to Hungary and comes in a variety of flavours including apricot (barack) and cherry (cseresznye). However plum (szilva) is considered the best of all.

Beer: Beer goes well with many traditional Hungarian dishes and so many Hungarians chose to drink is with their lunch. The 3 main Hungarian breweries are: Arany Ászok, Kőbányai, and Dreher

Unicum: For over 150 years, a blend of 40 Hungarian herbs has been used to create Unicum. This is a bitter liqueur and can be drunk as an apéritif or after a meal, thus helping digestion. The recipe is held in secrecy of the Zwach family!

Now, some useful tips. In many restaurants with live Gypsy music, mainly frequented by foreign tourists, musicians go up to the tables and play a song on request. They expect a gratuity in return. If you do not like this kind of entertainment, try to sit further away from the band or go to a "music-free" restaurant. There are plenty of both types.

You are not advised to accept the waiter’s offer about the speciality of the house, particularly if you do not know the price. You should study the menu whether the main course includes the price of garnishes. Always ask for an itemised bill. Beverage prices are usually rather high in good restaurants, so first consult the wine list. Waiters usually receive a tip in restaurants, which is about 10-15 percent of the bill. Service is included in the price at some places, where no tip is expected.

There are places that you mustn’t miss: the Százéves Restaurant (V., Pesti Barnabás u. 2.), the world-famous Matthias Cellar (V., Március 15. tér) and the luxurious Gundel Restaurant (XIV., Állatkerti út 2.). To see the "other face" of Hungarian cuisine, you must go to small restaurants where tables are covered with gingham tablecloths. One thing is certain: the excellent dishes of Pest and Buda are worth trying in an attempt to explore the city which can boast with the highest number of Oscar-winning cooks.

The best Budapest restaurant guide Take a seat is available in bookshops in Hungarian, German and English languages, also you can check out our own list of restaurants here. 

A special and unique place of hospitality is the café. Glittering cafés as hubs of intellectual, artistic and social life became fashionable after the 1850s. From the second half of the 19^th c. to the 1940s, Budapest used to be called the "city of cafés". What is (was) a café? To call it a café restaurant is simplification. They were open throughout the day and night. Literary groups, politicians and artists had their regular cafés. One could buy all the daily papers, including the foreign ones. The idea, the hope of civil liberty and equality, free press and bourgeois Hungary was born in the Pilvax Café. A café was the editorial office of the first Central European cinema weekly, which started off Sir Alexander Korda, a prominent figure of the English film industry towards world fame.

One of the most important, the New York Café (VII., Erzsébet krt. 9-11 ), opened in 1894, was considered the world’s most beautiful and largest café. Cinema owners, advertising agents, actors and journalists stayed from early morning to noon, a posh audience spent the evening here, and finally gamblers, female acrobats and musicians turned up during the small hours. It was certainly a varied clientele but not without interest. The bustling café life began to wither after 1945: the miracle has faded by today. Still, when you enter the New York, you might imagine what it was like back in the glorious days.

Hungarian goulash (gulyas) is a thick beef soup cooked with onions and potatoes and usually eaten as a main course. What we think of as goulash is actually ‘porkolt’, meat stewed with onions and paprika, the addition of sour cream makes the dish, whatever it may be, paprikas. Pork is the most common meat dish.

Cabbage is an important vegetable in Hungary, either stuffed (toltott kaposzta) or made into a thick cabbage soup (kaposzta leves). Other delicacies include goose liver (libamaj) prepared in a variety of ways and roast goose leg (sult libacomb). Chicken paprika (csirke paprikas served with tiny dumplings (galuska) is always a crowd-pleaser.

Fisherman’s soup (halaszle) is a rich mixture of several kinds of poached fish, tomatoes, green peppers and paprika. It’s a meal in itself. Lake Balaton pike-perch (fogas) is generally served breaded and fried or grilled.

Some dishes for vegetarians to request are rantott sajt (fried cheese), gombafejek rantva (fried mushroom caps), gombaleves (mushroom soup), gyumolcsleves (fruit soup), sajtoskenyer (sliced bread with soft cheese) and turoscsussza (Hungarian pasta with cheese).

Bableves (bean soup) sometimes contains meat. Pancakes/crepes (palacsinta) may be made with cheese (sajt), mushrooms (gomba), nuts (dio) or poppy seeds (mak).

Large supermarket chains like Csemege Julius Meinl, Kaiser’s and Rothschild sometimes sell takeaway salads in plastic containers. Healthy brown bread is made from four to six different grains and is sprinkled with sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and rolled oats. You can also find kifli, crescent rolls made from reform dough.

Hungarian restaurants (etterem or vendeglo) are relatively inexpensive. Meal prices begin at around 300 Ft in a self-service restaurant , 500-800 Ft in a local restaurant and 1000-1500 Ft in a tourist restaurant. For many Hungarians, lunch remains the main meal of the day. Some restaurants offer a set lunch (menu) on weekdays and this is usually good value. It consists of soup, a side salad, a main course and occasionally a dessert.

Restaurant menus are often translated into German and sometimes into English. The main categories on a menu (in this order ) are eloetelek (appetisers), levesek (soups), salatak (salads) , keszetelek (ready-to-serve meals which are just heated up), frissensult (freshly prepared meals), haletelek or halak (fish dishes), szarnyasok (poultry dishes), tesztak (desserts), and sajtok (cheeses) – useful to know if you have to choose blindly from a Hungarian menu. If you’re in a bit of a hurry, order something from the keszetelek section and not a frissensultek dish which can take 20 minutes to prepare.

If garnishes (koretek) such as rice, pommes frites, burgonya (potatoes) or zoldseg (vegetables) are individually listed in a separate section of the menu, it probably means they’re not included with the main plate and will cost extra, though main courses always include some sort of garnish.

It’s not very common in Hungary, but a waiter may try to charge you extra for a dish you didn’t order or serve you imported bottled beer when all you wanted was ordinary Hungarian draught. If you ask for a pohar (glass) or a korso (half-litre mug) by name and don’t just say ‘beer’ (sor), they’re less likely to try this trick.

Always insist on seeing a menu with prices listed to get an idea of how much your meal will cost, and if you’re sure a waiter is deliberately overcharging but it’s only by 10 to 15%, just pay the exact amount without a tip. Some places add a 10% service charge to the bill , which makes tipping unnecessary. Tourist restaurants sometimes feature Gypsy music after 6 p.m. and these roving minstrels are accustomed to receiving tips. Give them 100 Ft and they’ll move to the next table.

The ‘csarda’ is an old-style inn or tavern offering traditional fare and wine. ‘Borozo’ denotes a wine bar, ‘pince’ is a beer or wine cellar and a ‘sorozo’ is a pub offering draught beer (csapolt sor) and sometimes meals. The ‘bisztro’ is an inexpensive restaurant that is often self-service (onkiszolgalo). The ‘bufe’ is the cheapest place, although you may have to eat standing at a counter. Pastries, cakes and coffee are served at a ‘cukraszda’, while an ‘eszpresszo’ is a cafe.