contributors: adrian courage
Feb 24 '10
Apropó is... Apropos
As reported on these pages all too often, Budapest is awash with high-priced, high-concept restaurants that fail to live up to their own hype once the oversized plate of undersized food lands on the pristine white tablecloth. And while...
Sep 04 '09
Pálinka Laws Spur Rise in Moonshine Smuggling
While what can and can't be sold as pálinka is governed by strict EU laws that require the use of only fruit grown and distilled on Hungarian soil, tens of thousands of liters of illegally distilled fruit brandy are appearing...
Aug 28 '09
Drink and Dine in Disneyland this Weekend
Fans of Disneyland architecture and home-style Hungarian food will appreciate this quick heads-up for Traditions, Flavors, Regions Festival to be held in Budapest's Vajdahunyad Castle this weekend. The event is hosted by the Agricultural Marketing Board and promises the...
Aug 27 '09
Hungarian Winegrowers Under Increasing Pressure to Produce Better Wine for Less
Hungarian winegrowers tend to consider themselves to be a cut above foreign competition, particularly from those upstarts in the new world. But as much as Hungarians would like to claim their wine is superior in every way, the recent deluge...
Jul 02 '09
Linguistic Gymnastics Entertain Infopark Diners
An unidentified Internet user snapped this spectacular example of culinary incompetence in the canteen of Budapest's cutting-edge Infopark office complex - and boy it's a good one. By way of explanation, the Hungarian says "horseradish" ("torma") and not "gymnastics"...
Jun 25 '09
Your Cheap Budapest Lunch is Just a Tweet Away
We hear from one of our very few locally based pals on Twitter (the microblogging phenomenon is yet to really catch on here), that at least two restaurants are posting their lunch menus, usually a soup and a main...
May 07 '09
Reeling from Recession, Local Restaurants Brace for Potentially Fatal Tax Hikes
Although the mounting problems in the Hungarian restaurant trade are well documented on this site, portal Origo has taken the time to subject the industry's woes to a massive feature on Tuesday. In addition to the old news that Hungarians...
Mar 11 '09
Business Daily Fails to Get to Bottom of Ukrainian Restaurant "Invasion"
Ukrainian investors are swooping on the Hungarian luxury dining scene, reports Világgazdaság, although factual evidence of this trend is almost as shady as the unnamed businessmen themselves. In addition to the mid-to-high-end eateries on Liszt Ferenc tér that we know...
Mar 11 '09
Eger Winemaker Goes into "Liquidation"
Integrált Borgazdaság, the legal successor to state producer Egervin, is liquidating its assets, and in this case quite literally. The troubled winemaker is offering to pay its 440 suppliers in kind instead of the Ft 300 million it owes them...
Feb 12 '09
One Little Shop for All the Whiskey in the World
Whiskey is popular in Hungary, but not many people know their grains from their malts. The recently-opened WhiskyShop, just off Ferenciek tere, is out to change all that (along with the Scottish Corner, which offers a lot of other...
Feb 04 '09
Blind Justice (I): Bock Beckons, Beats Back Anti-Villány "Snobs"
Once the darling of Hungarian wines, wine snobs have turned against Villány recently - at least that's the general feeling at Művelt Alcoholista ("Erudite Alcoholic") and among the blog's army of commenters. They argue that not only are wines from...
Jan 15 '09
Pub Crawl Stop 2: The Queen Victoria
[Editor's note: The Queen Vic has closed, at least for the time being.] The Queen Victoria, the second stop on our English pub crawl after the Pointer Pub, promised to offer an altogether more English experience - the name...
Jan 14 '09
Pub Crawl Stop 1: The Pointer Pub
Since Christmas or thereabouts, two new venues have opened referring to themselves as "pubs," so what better excuse to embark on a short - or very short - pub crawl. The first stop was the Pointer Pub (details), named...
Oct 06 '08
Sugar! Serves Up Big Slice of Online Eye Candy
Hungary's insatiable appetite for cake and all things colorful and sweet just went online with the launch of Sugarshop.hu, the shiny new website for Sugar!, a bricks and mortar - or should that be sponge and icing - sweetshop...
Jul 02 '08
Craftswoman's Ice Cream Winning Over Spendthrift Customers Since 1990
Hungarians just love ice cream. But maybe not at Ft 220 (€0.90) a portion, which is a single scoop, or rather Italian-style scrape, costs at Artigiana Gelati (follow link for contact details and user feedback) on Buda's Csaba utca....
Jun 26 '08
Maligán Borétterem Falls Just Short of Own Hype
After singing the praises of József Szentesi's wines and budget restaurant, a visit to Maligán (follow link for contact details and user feedback), the restaurant he owns and used to run, was long overdue. He no longer runs it...
Jun 05 '08
Gold Bisztró Lunch Menu Takes Gold For Value - And Quality
When we first met eccentric wine-pusher József Szentesi, we were so taken with him and his wines that we promised to write gushing reviews of his other business ventures. While the long-awaited lowdown on the Maligán Borétterem (and its...
May 07 '08
Bar Ladino Brings Service With a Smile to Jewish Quarter Dining/Drinking
If you have ever been short-changed, chewed-out by, or deemed beneath the attention of the bar staff at Ellátó and always seem to end a night out at Sark Presszó then a nearby alternative like Bar Ladino is very...
Apr 01 '08
Testing the Ft 389 Mákos Guba at Mákos Guba
After a long period in which everything new in Budapest had to be overstyled and overpriced, or faceless imitations of established overseas hits, a few places have opened recently that seem to buck that trend, by offering something new...
Mar 27 '08
Mad Professor Unleashes Terroir-Breaking Experiments in Winemaking
Unlike many of our peers, we don't ever ever solicit freebies from restaurants in exchange for column inches, but we do accept the odd invitation as long as there is plenty of booze involved to liven up the conversation....
Mar 11 '08
Symbol Could be a Sign of Good Things to Come
Readers of these pages will know that the Budapest dining scene has been dominated by style over substance in recent years, and a tendency to cater to a market that doesn't exist. However, with the re-emergence of the new-look...
Feb 21 '08
Déryné Spawns Irresistible Love Child of Tom George and Szimpla Kert
This may look like a gallery of all the hippest and chicest restaurants, bars and cafés in Budapest, but all the above can be found between - and outside - the four walls of Café Déryné, the renovated cukrászda...
Jan 17 '08
Doing the Time Warp in Cleveland's Little Budapest
As most of people reading this site are never likely to visit Cleveland, Ohio, and as most of those thousands of Hungarians in what was once Hungary's second city by population have already been to Little Budapest, it is...
Jan 09 '08
The Hungarian Salami King of Illinois
Because of strict controls on the import of foods, Hungarians living in the US and Canada are starved of home-made Hungarian meat products, unless they can ask a friend or relative to play meat mule and smuggle their pungent...
Oct 31 '07
Budapest Burgerwar: The Clock Mexicanos Toro Hamburger
Before I start this Budapest Burgerwar™ review of the Clock Café burger, I must confess that before chowing down I had just raked in a nice poker pot and was in a particularly good mood. I should also disclose...
Oct 24 '07
Sniffing Out Home-Made Dairy Products in the Heart of Buda
For those lamenting the shortage of cheese outlets and not willing to go all the way to Kecskemét, we might have found salvation. As an appetizer, I managed to grab this under-the-counter snap of the home-made dairy products stand...
Oct 11 '07
Perfect Pre-Concert Dining at the Ypsilon Café
It may be a little out of the way most days of the week, but an event at the Budapest Sportarena or even the Puskás Ferenc Stadium is a great excuse to stop by the Ypsilon Café, one of...
Oct 04 '07
Majthényi Présház: The View Gets Even Better with Wine
Although Konyári wines are highly regarded in Hungary and even come with a recommendation in the Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book, actually tracking down the winery's restaurant with a view, which we had heard so much about, wasn't quite...
Sep 20 '07
Booze News: The Sneaky Entrance of Hungary's Second Black Demon
Anyone thinking Unicum was Hungary's undisputed black demon would have been right - at least until Soproni's Fekete Démon beer mysteriously slunk onto supermarket shelves. Not only is the new black deamon dark in name and color, it also...
Aug 15 '07
Budapest Burgerwar: The Cha-Cha-Cha Bodega Burger
The Budapest Burgerwar™ has recently seen both a disqualification and a non-starter, so it's nice to report back to HQ with a satisfied grin and a pair of hands still covered in the red stuff. Ketchup that is. The...
Aug 14 '07
Fajitas Fail to Compensate for Lack of Burgers, Bikers at Club 66
A seemingly simple sortie along the M1/M7 motorway to the edge of town and Club 66 resulted in spectacular and humiliating defeat in the increasingly desperate Budapest Burgerwar™. The reasonably stylish and surprisingly full restaurant modelled on the great...
Aug 06 '07
Budapest Burgerwar: Jeff's Burger Stand
Many readers protest that most of the "mid-priced" (Ft 1,000 to Ft 2,000) offerings sampled so far as part of the Budapest Burgerwar™ fly in the face of all the basic principles of the burger: a hunk of meat...
Jul 24 '07
Budapest Burgerwar: The Hungry Samurai
Having bowed down to the superior burger knowledge of Wilbur Mercer in the forum, I followed his recommendation and trooped off to Buda's Éhes Samurai to find out if it really is the best burger in town. The Hungry...
Jul 17 '07
Budapest Burgerwar: "Wikiburgers" Leave Mushroom for Improvement
Our Budapest Burgerwar™ has taken in America and Scotland, now it's Hungary's turn. The Wikinger Gyorsétterem on Móricz Zsigmond körtér usually comes highly recommended by Hungarians for two reasons. First, the burgers are large and well-packed and second, the...
Jun 28 '07
Carnivores and Nature Lovers Cool Off in Le Jardin de Paris
With the unbearable heat of summer upon is, it may be the perfect time for Jardin de Paris to make its first appearance on the Top 33 (that's an executive decision up to the boss). Even if the food...
Jun 08 '07
Ciao Budapest (VI): Novelli, An Italian Grill Without The Smoke
For years, the international community in the leafy ex-pat ghetto of Hüvösvölgy (chilly valley) to the north of Budapest has been dining out at Náncsi Néni. But times are changing and moneyed suburbanites are looking for something new, exciting...
Mar 27 '07
Terroir Club Breaking New Ground With Obscure Wines
We found our way to the Terroir Club, Budapest's newest wine shop, via a friend-of-a-friend relationship and, to be perfectly honest, that's probably the only way would would ever have found it. The small store is located in a...
Mar 21 '07
Klassz Outclasses Crass Hit-and-Run Critics
This site prides itself on usually being the first to write (at least in English) about recently-opened restaurants in Budapest. But we take even more pride in doing a good, thorough job when passing judgment on notable new establishments....
Feb 21 '07
Pótkulcs Pörkölt Shows Food, Smoke And Hipsters Do Mix
The above marhapörkölt (beef stew) with sztrapacska (greasy noodles usually served up with sour cream and crunchy bacon bits) was only intended as something to prevent the Löwenbräu from sloshing about too much at super-agreeable pub/hang-out/music venue Pótkulcs. Amazingly, it...
Jan 31 '07
A Hungarian Restaurant That Shows The Older Guys How It's Done
Budapesters seem to look for two largely incompatible things in their dining experiences. Value for money and a veneer of exclusivity - which helps explain the ongoing popularity of Remíz. On the other hand, what many of the top...
Dec 11 '06
Three Wise Monkeys Flatter to Deceive, Seem Open to Suggestions
It is a shame that the area around the Tabán park at the foot of Castle Hill is so neglected, because it is certainly chock full of history, particularly when it comes to eating and drinking out. The green area...
Nov 08 '06
A Thumping Wine Dinner at Eger's Thummerer Pince
When city-dwellers think of wine, their minds usually turn to store shelves and high mark-up restaurant wine lists. But in Eger, or any of Hungary's 23 winegrowing regions, wine is all about popping in to the local termelő for...
Oct 12 '06
Callas Takes Break From Opera, Plays It Cooler Than Tom George
The increasing "tomgeorgification" of the Budapest dining scene continues to cause concern, so it was with some trepidation that we stepped into Callas, the latest trendy café-restaurant-bar to open in Budapest - as of yesterday. The opera themed name...
Sep 25 '06
District VII Café Pulls Bohemian Rabbits Out of Hat
Naming your new café after a cult kids TV show is always a good idea, given how much time even non-hipsters spend reminiscing about the idiot boxes of their youth. "Bob and Bobek" (above, with big floppy ears; we're...
