Where to Eat in Budapest: 18 Must-Try Budapest Restaurants, Dessert Shops, and Food Halls

We’ve been to Budapest twice in six years. Before then, the only traditional Hungarian dish I was familiar with was goulash.

I gravitate towards traditional food when we travel, so in my research on what and where to eat in Budapest, almost everything I read told me to expect dishes that were similar to the food in Prague.

While we found much of that to be true with Eastern European dishes like chicken paprikash, beef goulash soup, and langos, what I didn’t expect was to find an exciting contemporary food culture that would have me revise my Budapest food itinerary midway through our first trip.

At first glance, Budapest looks every bit the classical city, with its overwhelmingly Gothic and neoclassical architecture. But it’s also incredibly hip and exciting with a vibrant restaurant scene. The Hungarian capital is forward-thinking in its approach to art and design, and much of that creativity seems to have carried over into its food.

The food in Budapest runs the gamut from traditional to trendy, from classic to contemporary. Aside from traditional Hungarian food, you’ll also find plenty of modern restaurants offering global dishes like Italian pizza, American burgers, and Middle Eastern mezze plates.

If you’re looking for a diverse Budapest food experience, then this list of eighteen of the best Budapest restaurants, dessert shops, and Hungarian food halls has you covered.

WHERE TO EAT IN BUDAPEST

To help organize this list of the best places to eat in Budapest, I’ve categorized them by type of restaurant. Click on a link to jump to any section of the guide.

Traditional Vegan Dessert Food Halls

TRADITIONAL FOOD

1. Bambi Eszpresszo

This was the first Hungarian restaurant I went to on our first trip to Budapest. As soon as I dropped off my bags at our Airbnb, I took a tram to the Buda side to have a late breakfast at Bambi Eszpresszo.

As mentioned at the top of this guide, I was most curious about traditional Hungarian food in Budapest, so what drew me to Bambi Eszpresszo was its authenticity. It’s described as a genuine communist-era neighborhood bar that doubles as a cafe. It isn’t some trendy brunch spot trying to look like a retro dive. It’s the real deal, and you feel it as soon as you walk in.

The doily tablecloths speak for themselves, as does the red faux-leather upholstery that hasn’t been changed since 1961. This place looks like a time capsule!

Bambi Eszpresszo serves mostly soft drinks and spirits, but they do offer a few breakfast dishes like toast with ham, sausages, and omelettes.

I had black coffee and this Hungarian virsli, which is like a long and thin boiled Frankfurter sausage served with bread and mustard. It was delicious and one of the best sausages I’ve ever tasted in my life. The snap on that casing was amazing!

That group of older gentlemen, a few tables away from me, was playing some type of card or board game. They’re clearly neighborhood regulars, which further speaks to the authenticity of this traditional Hungarian restaurant.

I enjoyed the unpretentious neighborhood vibe of Bambi Eszpresszo so much that I ordered a pint of Dreher beer to wash down that delicious breakfast. Welcome to Budapest!

Bambi Eszpresszo is located in District III on the Buda side, just past the Margaret Bridge. It’s about a 3-minute walk from Margit hid, budai hidfo H Station.

Bambi Eszpresszo

Location: Budapest, Frankel Leó út 2-4, 1027 Hungary (District III)
Operating Hours: 7AM-10PM, Mon-Fri / 9AM-10PM, Sat-Sun
What They Offer: Breakfast, spirits, wine, beer

2. Franziska

We stayed in Erzsebetvaros, the trendy Jewish Quarter (District VII), on our second trip to Budapest. It’s home to a number of great restaurants, many of which specialize in brunch. The highly-rated Franziska is one of them.

Franziska serves all-day brunch dishes, smoothie bowls, sweet brunch fare, and smoothies. The eye-catching dish below is the vegan brekkie. It’s made with toasted sourdough bread topped with beetroot hummus, roasted cabbage, wakame, edamame, baby spinach, pickled beetroot, black sesame seeds, and roasted peanuts.

Franziska isn’t a vegan or vegetarian restaurant, but they do offer a few plant-based dishes like this one on their menu.

Available from noon onwards, this protein bowl is made with fresh salad, quinoa, roasted sweet potatoes, seasonal grilled vegetables, sunflower seeds, herbed ricotta cream, hemp seeds, and dried tomatoes. I had it topped with tofu, but you can choose to have it with either pulled chicken or smoked salmon instead.

Budapest’s brunch game is on point, and Franziska is one of the most highly rated brunch restaurants in the Jewish Quarter. It’s in a stylish space too, which is pretty common in Budapest, and one of the things I love most about this city.

Franziska

Location: Budapest, Rumbach Sebestyén u. 3, 1075 Hungary (District VII)
Operating Hours: 8AM-4PM, daily
What They Offer: Brunch dishes

3. Mazel Tov

Mazel Tov is one of the most popular restaurants in Budapest. We didn’t have time to go on our first visit, so I made sure to prioritize it on our return trip.

Also located in the Jewish Quarter, Mazel Tov offers Middle Eastern-inspired dishes with a strong focus on Jewish and Israeli flavors. Think hummus, mezze plates, falafel, and shawarma, served in a hip ruin bar-type space. You’ll see what I mean in a bit.

Mazel Tov offers many hummus dishes, but what really caught our eye were its seasonal hummus plates, like this green pea hummus made with mango tahini, sugar snap peas, and roasted bell peppers. I’m a big fan of hummus, and this was probably one of the best and most unique I’ve ever had. Cool and refreshing, it was delicious.

What you’re looking at here is the DIY falafel sandwich. Served with freshly grilled sourdough pita, the dish is made with crispy falafel balls, hummus, Israeli salad, Yemeni cabbage, sweet potato chips, and tahini.

To eat, you take a little bit of everything and stuff it into the pita. DIY deliciousness indeed! Those sweet potato fries are amazing.

This is the chicken shawarma plate. It’s made with secret-spiced chicken thigh fillet with Mazel Tov’s signature beetroot salad, Yemeni cabbage, and tahini.

This is what Mazel Tov looks like from the outside. If you’re unfamiliar with Budapest’s ruin bar concept, it involves taking abandoned or semi-derelict buildings – usually old pre-war apartment blocks or factories – and converting them into trendy bars or restaurants. It’s a cool concept and another thing we love so much about Budapest.

We got here before they opened at noon, but Mazel Toz is hugely popular and fills up quickly. I suggest arriving early to avoid a wait.

Mazel Tov

Location: Budapest, Akácfa u. 47, 1073 Hungary (District VII)
Operating Hours: 12NN-11PM, Mon-Fri / 12NN-12MN, Sat-Sun
What They Offer: Israeli cuisine

4. Bors GasztroBar

Bors GasztroBar is where we got our first taste of modern Hungarian food in Budapest. Like many of the trendier restaurants in the city, they pride themselves on being purveyors of gourmet Budapest street food like baguette sandwiches, soups, stews, salads, and pasta dishes.

As you can probably tell from the style of their menu and the colorful names they give their dishes, Bors GasztroBar oozes energy and creativity. And you can taste it in their food.

Bors GasztroBar was easily one of our favorite Hungarian restaurants in Budapest. According to many locals, they serve some of the best Eastern European street food in the city center.

I asked the server for soup recommendations, so I don’t remember exactly what this was, but it was unbelievably delicious. It was so flavorful.

It’s the type of dish that makes you wide-eyed when you take that first bite, simply because you weren’t expecting it to be that good. It’s amazing and just one of many inventive soups and stews they have at Bors GasztroBar.

I took photos of their menu, but unfortunately, it’s in Hungarian. I did a quick google search and some of their colorful soup creations include “ginger-blueberry fruit soup with mandarin panna cotta” and “caramel French mustard pheasant ragout soup”.

Bors GasztroBar is a street food shop, so they serve everything in easy-to-eat takeaway containers.

This is the French Lady, one of Bors GasztroBar’s signature baguette sandwiches. It’s made with chicken breast, raspberry onion jam, and edamer cheese. Like the soup, it was absolutely delicious and perhaps the single best dish we had on our first trip to Budapest.

It seems that everything they serve is delicious, but these grilled baguette sandwiches are Bors GasztroBar’s bread and butter. You can get them in half or full portions.

Bors GasztroBar is located along Kazinczy Street in the Jewish Quarter (District VII), on the same block as Karavan street food park (#16) and Szimpla Kert, one of the most famous ruin bars in the city center.

Bors GasztroBar is a TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence awardee with a 4.8-star rating, even with almost 3,400 reviews. It has to be one of the most highly-rated Hungarian restaurants in Budapest, which isn’t surprising considering how good their food is. One local reviewer described it as his go-to place whenever he has friends visiting.

As you’d expect, Bors GasztroBar is one of the busiest restaurants in Budapest, so be prepared for a crowd, but the queue does move reasonably quickly. The place is small with no tables inside, just counters and barstools.

Bors GasztroBar

Location: Budapest, Kazinczy u. 10, 1075 Hungary (District VII)
Operating Hours: 11:30AM-9PM, Sun-Thurs / 11:30AM-10PM, Fri-Sat
What They Offer: Grilled baguette sandwiches, soups, stews

5. Stand25 Bisztro

If you’d like a more refined meal in Budapest without breaking the bank, then Stand25 Bisztro is a great place to go. It’s the sister restaurant of one Michelin-starred Stand, one of the best restaurants in Budapest. Both are helmed by the chef duo of Szullo Szabina and Tamas Szell.

Stand25 Bisztro is a Michelin-recommended restaurant. They offer a la carte dishes, but what caught my eye was their 3-course tasting menu, featuring modern interpretations of traditional Hungarian food.

For one of our starters, we had this beautiful grilled eggplant tartare with Vaszoly cheese and pumpkin seeds.

Every dish from Stand25 Bisztro’s tasting menu was inventive and delicious, but this meatloaf with yellow pea puree and gravy may have been our favorite. It was made with Mangalica pork, which is an Hungarian breed of domestic pig prized for its fatty marbled meat. It’s often hailed as the “Kobe beef of pork”.

Check out my article on Stand25 Bisztro for more pictures of this fabulous meal from one of the best Hungarian restaurants in Budapest. It truly was a great dining experience, especially for the price.

If you enjoy fine dining, then you may want to make a reservation at their sister restaurant, Stand as well. They’re known for their eight-course tasting menu of modernized Hungarian classics.

Oddly enough, Stand25 Bisztro is located in an open-air space within the Hold Street Food Market. Situated next to meat and produce stands, it’s an unexpected, informal setting that belies award-winning gourmet Hungarian food.

NOTE: Stand25 has moved to a new location. They’re now located in District I, along Attila Street on the Buda side. You can refer to their website for more information. Their sister restaurant Stand is located on the border of District VI and VII.

Stand25 Bisztro

Location: Budapest, Attila út 10, 1013 Hungary (District I)
Operating Hours: 12NN-4PM, 5:30PM-12MN, Mon-Sat (closed Sundays)
What They Offer: 3-course tasting menus (a la carte dishes also available)

VEGAN FOOD

6. Tahina Bite

On our second visit to Budapest, we had just finished a long train ride from Romania that left us famished and depleted. Craving something simple but supremely healthy, we were thrilled to find Tahina Bite, a falafel restaurant just a short walk from our Airbnb in District VII.

Tahina Bite is a cozy vegan restaurant in Budapest’s Jewish District, serving sandwiches and nourishing salad bowls centered around falafel. Pictured in the foreground below is the Superfood Bowl. It features falafel paired with quinoa, hummus, chickpeas, beets, tomatoes, spring onions, and black seeds, all drizzled with tahina sauce.

Behind it sits the Go Green bowl. It’s made with falafel, zucchini noodles, moutabal, cucumber, radish, and carrots dressed in a creamy coconut pesto sauce.

Tahina Bite is located in District VII, just around the corner from the Dohany Street Synagogue. Aside from salad bowls, they make plant-based sandwiches featuring falafel as well.

Tahina Bite

Location: Budapest, Wesselényi utca 2, 1077 Hungary (District VII)
Operating Hours: 11AM-9:30PM, daily
What They Offer: Vegan sandwiches, salad bowls

7. Szabad Bisztro

This place is awesome. Szabad Bistro is a vegan restaurant that offers a focused menu of the most delicious plant-based burgers and comfort food. Not only are their dishes amazing, but the restaurant itself is pretty cool too. More on that later.

The stars on Szabad’s menu are the plant-based burgers, but they offer a few other dishes as well, like meatless pasta dishes, tapas, and sides. Pictured below is a hearty bowl of their bean goulash served with flatbread. If you’d like to get a taste of Hungarian goulash but don’t eat meat, then this is a great alternative.

We’ve had many versions of vegan meatballs, including Ikea’s plant balls, which we love, but Szabad’s Balkan-style not meatballs are by far the best we’ve ever had. Sorry Ikea!

Drenched in a tasty garlic-tomato sauce, these plant-based balls are absolutely delicious. They’re moist and juicy with a nice, bouncy texture, just like any well-made meatball. If no one told you, you’d probably never guess these were vegan.

Before I turned to a (mostly) plant-based diet, burgers were my comfort food. They’re my hypothetical last meal and something I’ve missed terribly ever since I gave up meat. I’ve had my share of plant-based burgers, but rarely did they measure up to the real thing. Until our second trip to Budapest.

I’ll talk about the others later in this guide, but this Balkan burger from Szabad is the best damn plant-based burger I’ve had since changing my lifestyle. It’s made with a Beyond Meat patty served with baked cabbage, onions, and ajvar, in what I believe to be lepinja flatbread. Ajvar refers to a smoky Balkan relish made from roasted red bell peppers and eggplant.

Like the vegan meatballs, you’d never suspect this burger to be plant-based if no one told you. The sweet and smoky ajvar is fantastic, and the use of lepinja is genius. It’s soft and springy – kind of like mochi bread – and goes so well with the burger.

As of this writing, Szabad offers five types of plant-based burgers on its menu. I’m trying the rest on our next trip to Budapest.

We had lunch at Szabad Bisztro after an early morning soak at Szechenyi Thermal Baths. It’s located on the eastern half of District VII, away from the Danube River and closer to the park. Even if you aren’t vegan, I think burger lovers will still enjoy this place.

Szabad’s interior is simple, but cozy and welcoming. They play excellent trip-hop music too, at least when we were there. It’s the kind of place you’d want to linger and spend hours in, long after you’ve finished your meal.

If we lived in Budapest, which we’d love to do, we’d undoubtedly be regulars at Szabad Bisztro.

Szabad Bisztro

Location: Budapest, Király u. 101, 1077 Hungary (District VII)
Operating Hours: 12NN-11PM, daily
What They Offer: Vegan burgers and comfort food

8. Vegan Love

Vegan Love is another plant-based restaurant that makes excellent vegan burgers. They offer over ten plant-based burgers on their menu, along with hot dogs, wraps, gyros, salads, and sides.

Pictured below is the hagymas dog (onion dog). It’s made with vegan sausage, vegan cheddar, iceberg lettuce, pickles, fried onions, ketchup, and mustard.

They have many delicious-looking vegan burgers on their menu, but this dupla veggie smash burger looked doubly good to me. It’s made with two smashed plant-based patties served with vegan cheddar, tomatoes, iceberg lettuce, pickles, fried onions, and homemade burger sauce on a sesame-seed bun.

Compared to Szabad’s Balkan burger, the patties on this one were a bit looser and more crumbly, but it still tasted like a real burger. It was delicious, and again, one of the best vegan burgers I’ve tried so far. We’re definitely coming back.

Vegan Love is located on the Buda side, just across Liberty Bridge (Szabadsag hid).

Vegan Love

Location: Budapest, Bartók Béla út 9, 1114 Hungary (District XI)
Operating Hours: 11AM-9PM, daily
What They Offer: Vegan burgers, comfort food

9. Vegazzi

We fell in love with Budapest on our first trip, but coming back now, as a more plant-focused eater, I love it even more. Based on the cities we’ve visited, the plant-based food scene in Budapest seems to be on another level, and this vegan pizzeria is another testament to that.

But before we get to the pizza, we loaded up on fiber with these arugula salads, to “clothe our carbs” and reduce the glucose spike. Thanks for the hacks, Glucose Goddess and Justin Richard!

These salads were made with arugula, baby spinach, vegan feta, cherry tomatoes, dried tomatoes, and walnuts, in a homemade balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing.

How beautiful does this pizza look? Vegazzi makes two types of pizzas – Canotto-style (pictured below) and pinsa.

Canotto-style is a twist on Neapolitan pizza. It’s known for its airy, puffy crust achieved through high hydration and long fermentation. Vegazzi’s Canotto-style pizzas consist of Italian pizza flour and stone-ground whole wheat flour made from ancient Hungarian wheat. The dough is fermented for a minimum of four days using a mixed fermentation technique with biga and sourdough.

Vegazzi offers around a half-dozen Canotto-style pizzas on their menu. This was the pizza ungherese. It’s made with San Marzano DOP tomato sauce, spicy grain sausage, garlic, onion, vegan sour cream, arugula, and olive oil. Who needs meat on their pizza when you can have something as good as this? That crust was everything.

Vegazzi is located in District VI, about a 20-minute walk from the heart of the Jewish Quarter.

We didn’t try their pinsa today, but we will on our next trip to Budapest. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s a type of Roman flatbread made with a blend of wheat, soy, and rice flours. It’s typically lighter and crispier than its pizza cousin, thanks to high water content and a long fermentation process. Vegazzi ferments their pinsa dough for three days.

Vegazzi

Location: Budapest, Jókai u. 7, 1066 Hungary (District VI)
Operating Hours: 12NN-9PM, Tues-Sun (closed Mondays)
What They Offer: Vegan pizzas

10. Tokmag

I’ve been so impressed with Budapest’s plant-based burgers that I wanted to try as many as I could. Tokmag is another popular and highly-rated vegan restaurant known for its burgers, pasta dishes, rice box meals, salads, and desserts.

Tokmag offers around half a dozen vegan burgers made with non-meat ingredients like beetroot, squash, mushroom, and zucchini. This one was the green pea burger. It’s made with a sweet potato and green pea patty served in a whole grain bun, with green pea cream, spinach, cucumber, crispy carrots, and a mint and green onion cashew sauce.

Unlike the previous two burgers, this one was clearly plant-based, but it was still enjoyable.

Tokmag offers a few interesting vegan desserts as well. Those apple tarts made with thin slices of apple arranged like roses seemed particularly popular.

Tokmag is located in District XIII, close to Margaret Bridge (Margit híd). If you’re planning on visiting Margaret Island, then this is a great place to stop for a healthy meal.

Tokmag has a large basement dining space that sees a steady stream of customers, at least when we were there. It seems to be quite popular with the locals.

Tokmag

Location: Budapest, Hollán Ernő u. 5, 1136 Hungary (District XIII)
Operating Hours: 11AM-8PM, Mon-Sat / 11AM-7PM, Sun
What They Offer: Vegan burgers, pasta dishes

11. Happy Veggie

To be honest, I didn’t have high hopes for this restaurant. We were taking a train to Vienna from Budapest Keleti, and we wanted to enjoy a healthy meal close to the train station. With a name like “Happy Veggie” (and a matching generic-looking sign), I expected this Chinese restaurant to be no more than a cafeteria-type place, one with pre-made dishes that you pointed at and got to-go. I was wrong.

As it turns out, Happy Veggie offers made-to-order vegan/vegetarian versions of Chinese favorites, like this wonton soup made with celery, mushrooms, carrots, seaweed, and peanuts.

These dry sesame sauce noodles were delicious. They’re made with cucumber, carrots, and plant-based protein, topped with a sesame paste, peanut butter, and chili pepper sauce.

If you prefer noodle soup, these hot and sour noodles made with plant-based protein, sweet potato noodles, coriander, green vegetables, peanuts, chili pepper, and sesame seeds are a great choice.

See what I mean about the sign? Happy Veggie doesn’t look or sound like much, but it’s a highly-rated plant-forward Chinese restaurant located near Budapest Keleti train station.

We were shocked to open the door and find this. The restaurant looks much nicer from the inside!

Happy Veggie seems to be popular with the locals, as there was a steady stream of customers eating at the shop or grabbing food to go while we were there.

Happy Veggie

Location: Budapest, Thököly út 7, 1076 Hungary (District VII)
Operating Hours: 10AM-7PM, daily
What They Offer: Vegan Chinese food

DESSERTS

12. Molnar’s

This was one of the biggest surprises from our first trip. I had often come across kurtoskalacs in my research, but I wasn’t overly excited about it, until I got to try it at Molnar’s Kurtoskalacs.

Kurtoskalacs, or chimney cakes, are spit cakes specific to Hungarians from Transylvania. Popular in both Hungary and Romania, they’re made by wrapping yeast dough around baking spits and roasting them over charcoal.

While roasting, the cakes are basted with melted butter until their surface caramelizes and forms a shiny golden brown crust.

When cooked, kurtoskalacs are typically dusted with ground walnut or powdered cinnamon, but you can get them in other flavors as well, like vanilla, almond, chocolate, and coconut.

I wasn’t expecting much, but the first bite blew me away. Kurtoskalacs are delicious! They have a crisp caramelized coating and a soft, buttery interior. Texturally, it was like eating a cross between a cake and a croissant.

We enjoyed the chimney cakes so much that we decided to try the version filled with soft serve ice cream. My god, these were pure heaven.

You can get a better appreciation for the cake’s texture in this picture. This is what it looks like when you tear it apart. It tears away in spiral form.

Located in District V, near Elisabeth Bridge, Molnar’s Kurtoskalacs is cited by many local publications as one of the best restaurants in Budapest to try chimney cake. They’re a TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence awardee with a stellar 4.5-star rating over 1,500 reviews.

Molnar’s

Location: Budapest, Váci u. 31, 1052 Hungary (District V)
Operating Hours: 9AM-8PM, daily
What They Offer: Kurtoskalacs

13. Pichler

On our second trip to Budapest, we wanted to try chimney cake from a different shop, so our research led us to Pichler, a kurtoskalacs and gelato shop not too far from Molnar’s.

According to the person who recommended Pichler, they roast their chimney cakes only after customers order them. Apparently, Molnar’s does not. It takes longer for you to get your chimney cake, but the fresh roasting is said to make a world of difference.

Pichler offers the usual chimney cake variations, but their specialty is pistachio. They dust them with finely ground pistachio, and you can even have the inside of the cake spread with pistachio cream. As tempting as that sounded, we held off on the pistachio cream and still found the regular version to be absolutely delicious, especially with coffee.

As they say, “Happy wife, happy life!”

We enjoyed the kurtoskalacs at Pichler, but to be honest, I don’t know how much better it was than Molnar’s. I was expecting the fresh roasting process to make much more of a discernible difference, but it didn’t.

Perhaps too much time has passed since our visit to Molnar’s, but one thing I did notice is that we couldn’t peel away the chimney cake in one long strand at Pichler, the way we could at Molnar’s (see previous picture). It would break off in pieces.

Not sure why that is, but we did enjoy peeling it in one long piece and eating it like that at Molnar’s.

Pichler is located close to Molnar’s, less than five minutes away on foot, so I suggest trying both. Let us know which one you liked better!

Pichler

Location: Budapest, Kossuth Lajos u. 4, 1053 Hungary (District V)
Operating Hours: 9:30AM-10PM, daily
What They Offer: Kurtoskalacs, gelato

14. Ruszwurm Confectionery

Another cake you need to try in Budapest is dobos torte, or drum torte. Considered Hungary’s signature cake, it’s a type of sponge cake layered with chocolate buttercream and topped with a hard caramel coating.

Open since 1827, Ruszwurm Confectionery is one of the oldest pastry shops in Budapest. It’s located near Matthias Church (Buda Castle), and is known for being one of the best places to have dobos torte and other pastries in Budapest. Check out the mouthwatering selection of cakes in their vitrine.

Dobos torte is named after the chef who invented it in 1884 – Jozsef C. Dobos. Cooling techniques were limited at the time, so he wanted to create a pastry that would keep longer.

He accomplished this by coating the sides of the cake with ground hazelnuts, chestnuts, walnuts, or almonds. Together with the hardened caramel top, the wall of nuts helped keep the cake from drying out, thereby giving it a longer shelf life.

Dobos torte has a crackingly hard caramel top and multiple layers of chocolate buttercream. It’s rich and chocolate-y and not too sweet.

We intended to have just the dobos torte, but every table seemed to be enjoying this cream cake as well. Called kremes in Hungarian, it consists of a generous amount of smooth pastry cream sandwiched between two layers of puff pastry.

Soft, rich, and creamy, I actually preferred this kremes to the dobos torte. It was delicious and perfect with coffee.

Located in District I, less than a hundred meters from Matthias Church, Ruszwurm Confectionery is a Budapest institution. It’s the perfect place to stop for coffee and cake after visiting Matthias Church and the Fisherman’s Bastion.

Ruszwurm Confectionery

Location: Budapest, Szentháromság u. 7, 1014 Hungary (District I)
Operating Hours: 10AM-6PM, daily
What They Offer: Cakes

15. Gelarto Rosa

Have you seen those rose-shaped gelato cones on Instagram? In Budapest, Gelarto Rosa near St. Stephen’s Basilica is the place to have them. You choose between two to four flavors, which the servers then shape into rose form.

And there you have it! The perfect St. Stephen’s Basilica shot. It may be touristy and cliched, but who cares? It’s gelato, it’s pretty, and it tastes damn good.

Gelarto Rosa is located in District V, about fifty meters from St. Stephen’s Basilica.

Gelarto Rosa

Location: Budapest, Szent István tér 3, 1051 Hungary (District V)
Operating Hours: 10AM-9PM, daily
What They Offer: Rose-shaped gelato

FOOD HALLS

16. Karavan

Karavan is a Budapest institution. This trendy food park was popular when we first visited, and it’s still just as popular today.

Located in District VII, in the same alley as Bors GasztroBar (#4) and Szimpla Kert, one of the most famous ruin bars in Budapest, Karavan is a fun open-air food park, with around ten food trucks permanently parked in the space. It’s a colorful and lively place to get cheap street food in Budapest.

One of the most popular trucks at Karavan is Langos Burger. An award-winning stall, they specialize in langos, a classic Hungarian dish. But as their name also implies, they make their langos with a twist.

A 2018 survey of top chefs, food writers, and bloggers declared Langos Burger to be one of the ten best street food stalls in Europe. Exactly like my kind of place!

Langos refers to a traditional Hungarian dish of deep-fried dough. It’s a popular snack that can be topped with any number of ingredients, though the classic version is made with just sour cream and grated cheese.

We had the green version topped with arugula and sheep cheese on our first visit, and we had it again on our second. Crisp on the outside and soft and doughy on the inside, it was delicious and much better than I imagined it would be.

This is the fusion dish that gives this street food stall its name. They call it the langos burger. Using traditional langos for buns, you can get them with beef, pork, or chicken patties.

We went with the langos beef burger made with arugula, sheep cheese, and grilled paprika. Juicy and perfectly cooked, the beef patty was delicious to eat with the crisp but doughy langos buns. It was so good.

As much as I wanted to have the langos burger again on our second trip to Budapest, I had given up meat, so I had to get something else. Luckily, across from Langos Burger is the Zing Burger & Co food truck. They offer around a half dozen types of beef burgers, all of which you can substitute with a plant-based patty.

What you’re looking at here is the plant-based version of the Angus street burger. It’s made with chipotle mayo, caramelized onions, cheddar cheese, pickles, and homemade ketchup and mustard. The buns are made with eggs, so unfortunately, their burgers can’t be fully vegan.

I’m starting to sound like a broken record here, but this was again one of the best plant-based burgers I’ve had so far. Man, Budapest really knows its burgers.

Karavan

Location: Budapest, Kazinczy u. 18, 1075 Hungary (District VII)
Operating Hours: 11:30AM-11PM, Mon-Wed / 11:30AM-12MN, Thurs-Sun

17. Time Out Market

We love the Time Out Market in Lisbon, so we were over the moon to learn that they had just opened their newest food hall in Budapest a few weeks before our second visit.

Located in District VIII, less than a 10-minute walk from Karavan, the Time Out Market in Budapest consists of over a dozen kitchens and bars.

Like any Time Out Market, Time Out Budapest features a large dining space with these long high tables and stools. It’s housed in the historic Corvin Palace, so it isn’t as big as other Time Out markets, which often take up huge hangar-like spaces. However, this one does look and feel more refined than the others.

After deliberating back and forth, which always seems to happen at these food halls, we ordered this Napoletana pizza from Anyukam Mondta. It was one of the busiest stalls at the time, which is always a safe way of choosing if you can’t decide on where to eat.

This delicious cheeseless pizza was made with San Marzano DOP tomato sauce, anchovies, Taggiasche olives, capers, basil, and EVOO.

After several weeks in Europe, I was craving something Asian. Thankfully, the market has a couple of stalls offering Asian food, including this Vietnamese spot called Hai Nam Pho. Vietnamese food is one of my favorites, and this beautiful bowl of tofu pho was exactly what I needed.

I also tried something from a Taiwanese stall, but the appetizer I ordered wasn’t worth writing about.

Time Out Market

Location: Budapest, Blaha Lujza tér 1, 1085 Hungary (District VIII)
Operating Hours: 11:30AM-11:30PM, daily

18. Gozsdu Udvar

We stumbled upon this cluster of restaurants on our first trip to Budapest, a reminder of just how many cool spots you can discover simply by wandering the city. On our second trip, our Airbnb host specifically recommended it to us, which made the discovery even cooler, knowing that it’s local-approved.

Gozsdu Udvar is a cluster of seven buildings and six interconnected courtyards in the Jewish Quarter. It houses a series of interesting Hungarian restaurants, bars, cafes, galleries, and shops.

Gozsdu Udvar is lively and a lot of fun, especially at night. It’s similar in vibe to the area around Szimpla Kert, though perhaps with a slightly older crowd and more upscale dining establishments.

There are plenty of great-looking restaurants at Gozsdu Udvar, but we visited after dinner, so we just stopped at some random bar for a quick drink. But do check this place out, as many of the establishments here look promising.

During the day, you’ll find vendors selling an assortment of wares, mostly artisanal goods like handmade jewelry, figurines, small paintings, and other knick-knacks.

Gozsdu Udvar

Location: Budapest, Gozsdu udvar, 1075 Hungary (District VII)
Operating Hours: 9AM-11PM, daily

BUDAPEST LOCATION MAP

To help you navigate, I’ve pinned all the Budapest restaurants recommended in this guide on this map. Most are located on the Pest side, which seems to be the trendier half of the city.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON BUDAPEST RESTAURANTS

Budapest is such a vibrant and exciting city. It’s bursting with creative energy, which is something I never expected. And as you can see from this list, that creative energy carries over into its food.

There are only a handful of cities that we’ve fallen in love with to such a degree that we actually want to move there. Budapest is one of those cities. We’ve already been twice, but we’re already looking forward to our next trip, to experience more of Budapest’s vibrant restaurant scene.

Until then, I hope this Budapest restaurant guide leads you to a few great meals in the city. Believe me, there are plenty.

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