I might have touched on the food aspect of Budapest slightly in my first post but I can’t stress enough what excellent value all the restaurants we ate in were. Great value for money on the actual food but also the level of service – to the point that I didn’t mind that every single place we went automatically added a 12.5% ‘voluntary’ tip to the bill.
Just one word of warning, though pretty much all menus had an English translation, the translation can be a bit sketchy – I would argue over their definition of cake – so it’s worth checking the Magyar version with a phrasebook to check!
Recommended Budapest restaurants
- Bock Bistro/Bisztro
Next door to the Corinthia, we went for lunch here once we’d dumped our suitcase and absolutely loved the atmosphere, the wine (520 HUF’s a glass = about £1.80) and the delicious ‘cracklings’ – be warned, this is not crackling as we know it but is instead pork fat with little bits of crackling in it – they don’t seem to do butter in Budapest!
We had their meat and salad plate (or, as they call it – ‘A cold taste from Lali chef’s pantry’) to share and it was very generous, with loads of bread. Beware of the super hot chilli pepper – delicious but deadly! 
I would recommend booking as we were very lucky to get a table.
- Menza
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- Houses of Parliament at night
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- Chocolate ‘cake’ from 21 Kitchen
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- Apple strudel to share
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- My main – Pork schnitzel with potato salad
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- Mr B’s main – Knuckle of lamb with Rosemary
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- Bone Marrow on Toast – yep, I tried it!
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- The biggest starter I’ve ever seen! Mr B’s Beef Consomme
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- Poor, poor photography at Menza
Just round the corner from the opera house, this place was soooo cool, I wanted pretty much all the fittings, wallpaper and tablecloths for my house! I loved this place so much that I want to go back every day – my stomach would be so happy. We had cocktails, two starters, two mains, one puddings, two coffees, two liqueurs and a bottle of wine for under £50 including tip…???!!!
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- 21 Magyar Vendeglo (Hungarian Kitchen)
Chocolate 'cake' from 21 Kitchen
In the castle district this restaurant was just plain lovely, we had their meat and salad plate (Hungarian bistro plate) to share – we enjoyed the first one so much – why not?
- Legenda river cruise
Houses of Parliament at night
Not strictly a restaurant I know but the food was very good – four courses with three choices for each course – and the view unparalleled!
Related articles
- Budapest in a nutshell, on a shoestring (January 2011) (moonunderwater.org)
- Weekend Update: Budapest (iamchrisbritton.wordpress.com)
- Hello from Budapest (niscili.wordpress.com)
