What to eat in Budapest, and what to skip

Hungarian food has a reputation for being heavy and one-note, which is mostly the fault of what gets exported under its name. In the city it is more precise than that, and the good places are not the ones with photographs on the menu.

The dishes worth ordering

Gulyás is a soup. Thin, beef, paprika, potatoes, and eaten as a first course. The thick stew served abroad as "goulash" is closer to pörkölt, which is also on most menus and is genuinely the better dish.

Halászlé is a fish soup, deep red with paprika, made with river fish. It is a speciality of the river towns and it is much hotter than it looks.

Chicken paprikás with nokedli — small dumplings — is the comfort dish, and a good version is a very good thing.

Lángos is deep-fried dough with sour cream and grated cheese, eaten standing up. It belongs in a market hall, not a restaurant, and the upstairs of the Great Market Hall is the obvious place.

Töltött káposzta — stuffed cabbage — is winter food and appears on menus accordingly.

Dessert is a separate institution

Do not order dessert in a restaurant. Go to a cukrászda, a confectioner, which is a different kind of establishment entirely and is where the classic pastries are done properly. Dobos torte, with its caramel top; Esterházy, with walnut; somlói galuska, which is what locals actually order. Ruszwurm on the Castle Hill has been doing this since 1827.

Separately: kürtőskalács, the chimney cake, is genuinely Transylvanian rather than Hungarian and is mostly sold to tourists. It is also very good, so this is not a warning.

Where not to eat

The rule is reliable and short: avoid anywhere with photographs on the menu and a person outside inviting you in. On the tourist streets of District V and District VII, that combination tells you about both the food and the bill.

About the bill

Check for a service charge before you tip. In a large share of Budapest restaurants 12–15% is already added, and tipping on top of it is simply paying twice.

Markets

The Great Market Hall is the big one — paprika, salami, preserves and tourists on the ground floor, lunch counters upstairs, free to enter, closed on Sundays. The neighbourhood markets, Fény utca in Buda and Hunyadi tér in District VI, are where people actually shop.