# How Budapest Became a Force to Reckon With in Fine Dining > Discover how Budapest is undergoing a culinary revolution, with new fine-dining restaurants and Michelin stars. Find out why the city is worth a visit. - URL: https://langandtrip.com.ua/en/article/yak-budapesht-stav-syloiu-z-iakoiu-treba-rakhuvatysia-u-sferi-vyshukanoi-kukhni/ - Language: en - Published: 2024-07-24 - Categories: Culture, Leisure, Restaurants, Tours, Hungary, Food & Drinks --- While Budapest may be best known for its architecture, geothermal springs and communist heritage, the city's food scene has been drawing serious attention from travellers in recent years. The Hungarian capital keeps opening new and exciting fine-dining venues, many of them led by acclaimed chefs eager to bring imagination and prestige to the Budapest dining experience. In the past 12 months alone, two restaurants in the Hungarian capital have earned new Michelin stars, bringing the total number of Michelin-recognised establishments in Budapest to six. Hungary was awarded its very first Michelin star just nine years ago, which makes this a rather remarkable turnaround. There's no doubt that a culinary revolution is under way in the "Pearl of the Danube", but what set this surge in motion? A record number of tourists and a fast-growing economy have certainly played their part. Given Hungary's well-documented and difficult past, it's fair to say that fine dining wasn't necessarily a top priority for locals living under communist austerity. "Hungary has always been quite a poor country," explains Hungarian food critic Andras Jokuti. "So the main goal of Hungarian cuisine was survival. It was very important to get plenty of protein and carbohydrates: it was based on potatoes and meat." ## A Culinary Movement Shifting that perception has been a slow process, one that continues to this day. Still, the tide is unmistakably turning. Portuguese chef Miguel Rocha Vieira believes this is partly down to the fact that, over the past decade, quality produce has become far more available in the country. "We used to have to buy butter abroad, because there was no good-quality butter here," he says. "Now it's completely different." Vieira heads up the restaurant Costes on Raday Street, and was running the kitchen when it became the first in the country to earn a Michelin star, back in 2010. He creates modern takes on classic Hungarian dishes, offering set menus of four to seven courses with a range of wine pairings. Jokuti believes Vieira breathed new life into the restaurant scene by weaving Hungarian and Portuguese influences together in his cooking. "When Miguel came to Budapest, it was the very beginning of the story of fine dining in Hungary," he says. Vieira admits he knew little about Hungarian cuisine when he arrived in the country years ago, and that he was often "torn apart by critics". "My cooking has changed a lot," he adds. "Now I can proudly say that my fingerprint is in the food." "One of the best compliments we can get here is when someone says, 'I felt this dinner had a personality.'" Although Vieira tries to bring Hungarian traditions into his dishes, that isn't the "ultimate goal", and he certainly isn't thinking about Michelin stars while he's in the kitchen. "I always tell the guys, 'We have to cook for ourselves. We have to do what we believe in.' It's not about cooking for the sake of awards," he adds. "It's not about chasing stars or recognition." "That's the cherry on the cake. But it's not why we work 14, 15 or 16 hours a day." ## Modern Interpretations Hungarian chef Tamas Szell is credited with putting Hungarian cuisine on the world stage back in 2016, when his modern interpretations of the country's traditional dishes earned him a gold medal at the prestigious Bocuse d'Or Europe competition. Szell and sous-chef Szabina Szulló run the kitchen at the restaurant Stand, which earned its first Michelin star in March this year and shares Vieira's approach to cooking. "Food is the best communication between a chef and the guests," Szell says. "I hope our dishes carry sweet childhood memories. When I make a dish, it has to be acceptable to both our grandmothers and a Michelin inspector. That, I think, is the hardest part." Stand opened in Budapest in 2018 after the success of the Stand25 bistro in the market hall, which Szell and Szulló also ran together. "My inspiration definitely comes from childhood," he adds. "My mother had a saying: 'We're poor, but we live well.'" Szell says his fisherman's soup, which contains carp, paprika, water and tiny ravioli-style pasta known in Hungary as deraya, is the second most popular soup after goulash. "When I was a child, my mother often cooked it this way," he explains. It seems Szell's dishes are having their intended effect. Stand, on Szekely Mihaly Street, has been a huge success since it opened. In fact, Jokuti describes it as the "perfect Hungarian restaurant", praising the inventive way Szell manages to lighten the richness of traditional Hungarian cooking. "That, I think, is his greatest achievement. Somehow recreating tradition in something modern," Jokuti says. Szell sources his dairy from a tiny farm near Budapest, which supplies several of the city's fine-dining restaurants. Within 48 hours of the milk leaving the cow's udder, it's served at Stand in the form of cheese. "I think the ingredients are the most important thing," Szell adds. "Good ingredients are always trying to find a chef, and a chef is always trying to find the best ingredients." Set in the heart of Budapest, Babel is one of the city's newest Michelin-starred restaurants. It's relatively small, with a dozen tables, exposed brick walls and dim lighting that create an intimate setting for dinner. Inspired by Hungarian traditions and Romania's Transylvania region, chef Istvan Veres offers tasting menus of five to ten courses built around simple ingredients such as nettle or lichen. Veres says cooking is more of an "obsession" than a passion for him, describing how he often dreams up a dish and then tries to bring it to life the very next day. "In fine dining you have to do something special, something unique," he says. "You put your soul into the plate." "I'm never afraid of new things." According to Jokuti, it's precisely this fearlessness that makes Veres such a groundbreaking chef. "Istvan's taste isn't so easy to follow," Jokuti says. "I love going to Babel, because I'm always surprised." ## Humble Ingredients ![](/storage/image/prev/august-article-image-21-1-2024.jpg) Hoping to repeat the success of Stand, Babel and Costes is Salt, a new venue that only opened in October. It's run by chef Szilard Toth and manager Mate Boldizsar, who often serve the dishes to guests themselves. Toth regularly heads out to forage in the Hungarian countryside, returning with all manner of edible delicacies. "We find so many basic ingredients that the average chef doesn't see very often," Toth says. "That means we can present a whole world of flavours in our food: amazing flavour combinations you can't find anywhere else." The chef's table sits in the centre of the restaurant, so guests can come over to ask questions about the dishes or simply watch Toth and his team at work. The dishes are presented simply, some don't even require cutlery, and guests can opt for a menu paired with a selection of Hungarian wines to complement their meal. The Salt team takes pride in turning humble produce into refined dishes, and the restaurant is filled with jars of fermented or pickled foods gathered in the forest. "We have a dish called 'fat bread'," Boldizsar says. "In its original form, it's a very, very simple dish." "Just a piece of bread with fat. We put a little bacon on it, a little caviar and a little lamb skin." Only time will tell whether Salt earns the Michelin star it's after, but the restaurant already seems to be winning over plenty of diners in the short time it has been open. "I think he \[Toth\] shows that it's possible to create very hedonistic yet very modern food from sometimes humble but very Hungarian ingredients," Jokuti says. A restaurant like Salt would have been impossible to imagine in the Hungarian capital a few years ago. Its arrival is a clear sign of the bold direction the city's food scene is now heading in. "It's genuinely thrilling to witness this moment in Hungarian cuisine," Jokuti says. "I travel a lot, I visit the best restaurants in the world. It's amazing to see that I can come home and eat in these wonderful restaurants." "It's not a case of, 'Okay, this isn't that great, but at least it's Hungarian.'" "It can be a pleasure, it can be a thrill. We've reached a fantastic level."