Don’t forget to check out the Spring and Easter Fair on Vörösmarty square, it’s open until the end of April. You can buy local, artisanal handicraft products, pottery, ceramics, jewellry and leather products. There are workshops and concerts every weekend. Also, you can taste the most fantastic treats of the Hungarian cuisine, traditional Easter dishes as ham and knuckle, and great cakes, including of course the festive chimney cake.
This is of course a very subjective lists and is based on my own experiences and on my guests’ feedback. There are hundreds of great restaurants in Budapest and it’s very hard to pick only 5 as I keep discovering new places all the time and show them to my guests on my Foodie tours.. These are the places I’d recommend to my guests and where I would go with my family, too. I only selected places with Hungarian meals, so that you can taste the best dishes of our cuisine.
Aszu restaurant: great food, great wines and cozy atmosphere with live cimbalom music. My favourite is the Chicken Paprikás.
Budapest Bistro: such a nice place near the Parliament with very special and modern Hungarian dishes and live piano music. My favourite is the Hungarian Bistro plate.
Pest-Buda Restaurant: is in the heart of the Buda Castle District, a classy little place with red and white checkered tablecloth. My favourite is the Goulash soup.
Rézkakas Bistro: an amazing mix of the authentic Hungarian dishes and international flavours topped with great wines. This is one of the very few places where vegeterians can have a fantastic selection, too. My favourite is the Lajosmizse “terrine de foie gras”.
WineKitchen: yes, it’s a Michelin-star restaurant, still the prices are reasonable, the staff is friendly and they offer fresh and creative daily menus every day. My favourite is the Fresh fish from the market.
+1: Strudel House: a place where you can actually see the strudel making and you can try the best sweet and salted Hungarian strudels. My favourite is the sweet cottage cheese strudel.
The 20th of August is always very special for Hungarians, not only because we celebrate St. Stephen, the founder of the Hungarian Christian state but also because our country’s “birthday cake” is introduced. The cake is selected every year by the panel of reputable master confectioners, the applicants are to create innovative and creative cakes reflecting traditional Hungarian tastes and the cake should also have to be connected to the 20th of August holiday.
And now, please meet the “Green Gold of Őrség”, this year’s winner. It comes from a small Salgótarján cake shop and has the colours of the Hungarian flag (red-white-green). The layers of the cake are: pumpkin seed oil and almond flour sponge cake, white chocolate ganache, crunchy pumpkin seed praline, raspberry jelly and pumpkin seed jelly.
What can I say? We’we just tasted this beautiful cake with my guests today in the Ruszwurm cake shop near the Matthias Church and it was delicious. Enjoy!
You might find that Hungarian people adore sweets, one of the locals’ favourites is the marzipan. The smooth and sweet almond paste can be a nice addition to a great cake and little or large figurines are often created of it, too.
Do you know what Michael Jackson and the Budapest Parliament building have in common? They can both be made of marzipan. The sweetest museum of Hungary is located in the heart of the town of Szentendre where you can admire dozens of statues made of marzipan. You’ll see full-figure marzipan statues of famous Hungarian people, celebrities from all around the world, Hungarian buildings and a lot more. You can also see the atelier with the ladies creating new figurines every day.
Don’t forget to buy some sweets in the shop after the tour in the museum. I’ll happily show you around the museum if you book the Danube Bend tour by car.
Probably your first impression is that all Hungarian dishes are red and hot. It’s somehow true but I’m sure I can change your perception if you decide to book a Foodie tour with me. Paprika is of course is the most important ingredient of our cuisine, it’s actually something we should be grateful for being dominated by the Turks for 150 years.
When you visit Hungary, you have to try all our different specialties. You need to taste fresh sausage and hot dog at a butcher’s, our delicious cakes in the 100-year-old cafés, fresh pastry at the bakeries, goulash soup prepared in a cauldron over open fire, artisan ice cream and chocolate, lángos, our delicious deep-fried fritter and all the pickled vegetables.
The old Hungarian proverb says that those who are eating must drink, too, so don’t forget to taste some of the best Hungarian wines.
