Anyone know where to eat in Budapest?

[Benedict Jenks]

I'm planning to  be in Budapest in April - can anyone recommend places to eat?

[ithinknot]

I am planning to be there too in April. Let me know if you have any info

[Beachfan]

Since I'm going there soon, I thought I'd get this post up at the top to see if anyone has a recommendation.

[Beachfan]

I can add a couple for the next visitor.

Cafe Ruszwurm near the Palace has world class pastries for under $1.

Alabardos is an expensive but good restaurant on castle hill, good place to try Hungarian fois gras d'oie.

The best was in the town of Szentendre, Aranysarkany Vedeglo (Golden Dragon Inn) which was inexpensive and absolutely super. Worth the train ride (45 minutes) just for lunch, and you can catch a boat back for the cruise down the Danube.

Kacsa Vendeglo was also nice, reasonably priced upscale restaurant.

[marktynernyc]

On my third visit to Budapest I finally made reservations at Gundel - my Hungarian tutor thought it to be a tourist trap and over priced.

I tried the taster's menu with wine pairings - eight courses for $60: belinis with caviar, goose potage with goose liver, venison, and

cheeses to name a few.The restaurant is very elegant - beautiful lighting and woods. There was a gypsy band that played various songs - nothing too loud or overly sentimental. Service was smooth and well paced. For dessert I wish I had tried the Gundel pancake - next time

I'm in Budapest. Lunch is suppose to be a bargain. http://www.gundel.hu/

Aranyszarvas (the Golden Stag). Excellent game appetizers and game entrees. Large selection of Hungarian wines. Favorite dishes:

deer pancakes with a white wine paprika sause ( delicious ); smoked wild boar; venison with ragout of mushrooms with potato dumplings.

Address: Szarvas ter 1, located on the Buda side near Erzsebet hid, somewhat near the Rac Baths

[Beachfan]

Mark, I couldn't quite tell if you liked Gundel.

The town of Szentendre is only about an hour from Budapest by train; if you want to do a Danube boat ride, I highly recommend lunch at the Golden Dragon; fabulous and different, and you can take the boat back.

[marktynernyc]

I did enjoy my meal at Gundel. It was the first week of December 2001 - the city was already very quiet at night - Christmas lights on Vaci. The restaurant wasn't packed - and they have a no smoking section. I remember realizing that night the difference in flavor between goose liver and duck liver. George Lang also owns Cafe de Artisse (?) here in NYC, which I found to be average. I will go back to Gundel for dinner when I'm in Budapest again - maybe this December again.

[valcs]

Ok gyus... I tried few once and here are the recomendations:

Gundel, excelent i do mind the gipsy music and recently they sold their name for supermarket goods (wine, goos liver in can, paprika spice) etc

Soul Cafe this one is my favoririte. It is on radayi street (Blue metro stop Kalvin Ter). Very resonable and great food !!! They have a good selection of "not commercial" excelent hungarian wines. There are also other restaurants on the radayi street. for vegetarians they have grilled vegies baked in bread... looks tastes better then sounds...

Vista Cafe it was my favorite before but they changed their menu and i feel it is not like it was before. but my favrite desert is still there. the wallnut cake with ice cream... yummmm

Articsoka was a disspointment for me. it is near the national opera and lot of people are going for it.... hmmm not me... although the service was very nice

If you want a coffee go for Central Kavehaz... right in the center

good luck

[Paul Bell]

Have just returned from Budapest, on the whole the food was as you might expect, large portions of middle european food at very low prices, although possibly strangely drinks in particular wine are not cheap in most restaurants a reasonable bottle of Hungarian wine was about £12. It is probably similar to Prague about seven years ago (although the food is generally hot).

We ended up going to two places twice which is very rare and an indication that these were better than most restaurants and more appealing (to us anyway). The two restaurants are Cafe Kor and Bagolyvar (junior Gundel). Cafe Kor is pretty basic as a restaurant but the food was pretty good, probably the only place we encountered that could survive in London, (broadly equivalent in style and quality to Baltic). Bagolyvar delivers 'Hungarian home cooking', grilled meats, salads, soups and traditional desserts and does it well.

Aside from these Museum was very good, Legradi and partner was not that great, food was the least good of all of them at a higher price.

There are also a number of excellent cake shops

Should anyone ever want more in depth information let me know.

Paul

[wgallois]

Thanks for the helpful posts above, which really enhanced my stay in Budapest.

I had better start with Gundel because, as others have noted, it is quite an experience. You will not forget a meal there in a hurry. Scruff that I am, I had to be lent a jacket to go into the dining room, though the hostess graciously suggested that I could lose the jacket once sat at the table. The dining room is large and on the night we were there it felt rather like one was joining a party at a home for retired gentlefolk. The clientele were a mix of older Euro-smoothies and tour groups with their ID badges swinging round their necks. Everyone was going wild for the gypsy band. There is a choice of six or seven set menus, and, being vegetarians, we went for the euphemistically-termed 'Light Menu'. It is not light, but then who the hell goes to Hungary for light cuisine? We began with a layered vegetable terrine that had a tangy dill seasoning; it came with some crummy bread and inedible chicory. Things looked up from there, as we moved on to a lovely white asparagus soup with a parsley crisp, and then a creamy zucchini custard. Becky felt the former was overseasoned with salt and the latter overseasoned with pepper, though we liked both dishes. The main course was weird in pretty wonderful way. It might be best if I just list the ingredients that were there on the plate: penne in a cream sauce, a giant parmesan crisp, steamed spinach, asparagus, wild mushrooms, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage balls, and a mozarella and potato ball. It was like a gigantic vegetarian roast dinner - all very tasty, but were feeling pretty full by this stage. The pudding was a very good strawbery strudel with cream cheese and stewed strawberries. We had a nice-ish Tokay as an aperitif and a good Tokay Riesling with the meal. The menu itself was priced at 38 Euros, and I think ouur bill came to around 150 Euros overall.

Paul's suggestion of Cafe Kor was a good one. This is one restaurant where it is certainly advisable to book, as it seems to be popular with locals and tourists. There we had broccoli and chiled strawberry soups as starters, and camembert pancakes and goat's cheese with wild garlic and salad as mains. The goat's cheese salad is a particular winner as what one gets are two huge disks of fried goat's cheese on a bed of leaves, which is absolute antithesis of the healthy-lite-diet goat's cheese sald one might get in other countries. For pudding we had a bloody heavy walnut gnocchi with vanilla custard. For quality-stodge fans this was a winner.

We also tried places which offered fairly identikit Euro-Mediterranean trendy cafe-food: Tom George and Chelsea in the Art'Otel. Both were fine, and the former might be nice place for lunch on a hot day.