After we finish our photography tours in Budapest, my guests are always asking the same thing:
Where can I eat some good Hungarian food in Budapest ?
Here are my recommendations, where I like to eat as Hungarian 🙂
Retro Lángos Büfé
Lángos, a deep-fried flatbread with is the number 1 street food in Hungary.
You can’t have it in restaurants, only in buffets, or markets.
Retró Lángos Büfé in downtown Budapest is one of the best places to have lángos!
This is one of the best places to eat lángos in the city.
Lángos is a fried flatbread, on which we put several toppings. Typically garlic sauce, sour cream and cheese, but here it can be “fortified” with sausage, bacon, onion, etc.
My favourite: the “hungarian” lángos with sausage and onions
They also make pancakes. The hungarian pancake is more similar to the french crĂ©pes, so don’t expect the same thickness as the american ones.
My recommendation on pancakes: try apricot jam filling and cottage cheese (tĂşrĂł) filling
They are also super-cheap and open until late night. The only downside is that you can only eat outside, and the number of seats is limited.
As they are very highly rated on Tripadvisor, expect a lot of foreigners here, although the locals also favor this place.
Find them on Google Maps. Their website is here
Best Wiener Scnitzel: Buja DisznĂłk (Lush Pigs)
The No 1 place to eat fried pork cutlet (Wiener Schnitzel in german). Owned by a famous hungarian chef (Lajos BĂrĂł) they will wow you with huge portions:
Recommended side is potato salad.
They have two sites:
One in Városliget park, just next to the entrance of Széchenyi Bath, see on Google Maps
And one on the Buda side, Google Maps here
The typical homemade hungarian dishes: Gettó Gulyás
A relatively new place in the party area of the city, almost next to Simpla ruin pub is the Gettó Gulyás.
Praised by many hungarians they have the kind of dishes that hungarian families actually cook. There’s a wide variety of stews, and their tĂşrĂłgombĂłc is said to be phenomenal.
Where all the locals flock to for cakes: Daubner
Daubner is the No. 1. confectionery on the Buda side, for a good reason:
- excellent quality
- at a relatively low price (ice cream is hilariously cheap and good)
Because of this, you’ll probably have to wait in the line quite much. On weekends expect 10 minutes easily.
But for that, you get delicious cakes, pies and pogácsa!
Bit out of the tourist area: on Google Maps here.
They don’t even have a proper Facebook page, but have a website.
Strudels closest to my grandma’s: Strudel Castle
When I was a kid, my grandma spoiled us with her home made strudels.
Since she doesn’t make them anymore, I’m always looking for that taste and consistency.
Surprisingly, I found that the Budavári RĂ©tesvár’s strudel comes closest to my grandma’s (of course, hers will be always unbeatable).
Budavári Rétesvár (literally Budacastle Strudelcastle) is almost next to the Mathias Church, in a small alleyway.
They offer a wide variety of strudels – my favorite is the poppy seed – sour cherry combo (meggyes-mákos), or anything with cottage cheese (tĂşrĂł, and it’s nowhere near cottage cheese, we just don’t have a better word)
Better macarons than in Paris: Chez Dodo
Small shop next to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, they focus on one thing only:
Making super-delicious macarons.
They don’t offer anything else, just macarons (okay, they have coffee). So they must be pretty damn good to stay alive 🙂
Although not a hungarian sweet, I highly recommend checking in, and just ask one of the lovely girls which flavour she recommends.
My experience: buy twice as much as you would think…
Chez Dodo on Facebook and on Tripadvisor
Gerbeaud confectionery
The highest quality and the No 1. pastry shop / café of Hungary. Located at Vörösmarty square, this is where the finest interiors meet the finest tastes.
They are always using in-house sources (like the apricot jam used in Gerbeaud cake is cooked here), and focus on not too many things at once: classical hungarian cakes are refined here into modern creations.
Expect 2x higher prices than anywhere else, though.
Gerbeaud’s website and Tripadvisor
Szamos confectionery
The “other” famous confectionery in Hungary is Szamos. They have numerous marzipan shops and cafĂ©s all around the country, but one of the best is at Vörösmarty square in Budapest.
Though it’s quite difficult to find the entrance of the place, they have a booth on the corner of the square, just next to the entrance.
This is purely the traditional line here, both in tastes and in the shapes of the cakes. Nothing hyper-modern fancy stuff here, only tasteful hungarian cakes and pastries.
