A building on the edge of Városliget.

Lyon – and perhaps the whole of France – would look a little different without the Bocuse family. Just as Vienna would without the Sacher family, the German capital without Lorenz Adlon, or the Roanne region without the Troisgros family. Generations of these famous hospitality families may not shape a city’s destiny in quite the same way as decision-makers, but their fates are, in one way or another, intertwined.

The Gundels were a family like that too, but it was purely by chance that they made their mark right here, in our country. Or rather, there are no such things as coincidences – as we all know. That is why we believe in them. Anyway, the point is that they found a home in Budapest, and it was here that the family name became a household name.

The children of János Gundel in 1890. The founder of this Hungarian hospitality dynasty was born in Bavaria in 1844 under the name Johann Adam Michael Gundel. He arrived in Hungary at the age of 13 and went to work for a relative, György Gärtner, a restaurateur in Buda. He started out as a busboy and, 18 years later, having acquired several restaurants, he also bought the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Among his creations was the ‘palócleves’ soup, devised in honour of Mikszáth. He had five children, of whom Károly Gundel continued the family tradition in the hospitality industry and carried on the family legacy.

The building has stood in the City Park in this form since 1894 – that is, for exactly 130 years. At that time, the restaurant was run by Ferenc Wampetics; Károly Gundel then leased it from the capital in 1910. From then on, it was not only guests who wore down the palace’s red marble staircase; the Gundel family’s life became so intertwined with their restaurant that they actually lived here as well.

Károly Gundel was born in Budapest in 1883. It would be impossible to summarise his life’s work here, so let me instead mention just two words: the title of one of his most famous books: The Art of Hospitality. Although she never cooked at all, she was truly a legendary hostess, to whom we owe far more than just a few famous recipes. The photograph was taken in 1920, when she was 37 years old.

Károly Gundel’s family and Ferenc Wampetics in 1917.

Although this photograph dates from the second half of the 20th century, it is nonetheless true that even around the time of the zoo’s foundation, shady trees and plenty of greenery awaited visitors. According to recollections, the Zoo’s palm trees naturally spent the winter in the Palm House, but as the warmer weather approached, Gundel’s staff would spend weeks carrying them over to the restaurant’s garden, where they spent the summer.

Károly Gundel and his wife, with their ten children, in 1924. Later, their 13 children went on to have a total of 26 grandchildren, including such famous figures as the actors Zoltán Latinovits and István Bujtor, rock musician Károly Frenreisz; their descendants also include sports reporter and presenter Gábor Takács Gundel.

The Gundel name became famous for the luxury menus served to celebrities, but Károly Gundel was a fine host; there really was something for everyone at his restaurant. On the terrace, they used to serve savoury pretzels and boiled eggs in gravy, but many people would just pop in for a pint of draught beer after a stroll in City Park.

Gundel’s had its own 11-piece band and regulars„ tables. It is said that anyone could sit down near the entrance gate for a pretzel and a beer. The further in one went into the ”depths’ of the garden, the more affluent the company at the tables was likely to be: bankers, lawyers, doctors and artists, amongst others, used to spend their time here.

The garden terrace in 1935, during its heyday in the interwar period. At that time, as many as a thousand chairs could be set out beneath the huge awnings and the shady trees. The restaurant had support facilities – unimaginable today – such as its own pigsty, laundry and even staff accommodation. Today, the outdoor seating area is a little smaller, but it is still huge, with capacity for around five hundred guests.

Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, visited Hungary on just one occasion, in 1993. During the four days they spent here, they visited the Opera House, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Kecskemét and Bugac. On 5 May, Prime Minister József Antall and his wife hosted a lunch in honour of the royal couple. The 32-person lunch, held at the Gundel restaurant, was reportedly the only occasion on which their own court chef did not cook for them whilst in Budapest. They set aside exactly 100 minutes for the lunch. The menu was handwritten, and the waiters were taught a special choreography. But even this could be taken a step further: a 1952 Tokaji Aszú was also served, the grapes for which had been harvested in the year the Queen ascended the throne.

At Gundel, of course, a special menu was put together in his honour, featuring pink-smoked salmon with white asparagus and a sage sauce, pigeon essence, braided veal fillet with Hungarian wild rice and morel mushrooms stuffed with goose liver, as well as strawberry tromp-l‘œil too. The dishes for the dinner were conceived by Kálmán Kalla, Gundel’s executive chef at the time. After 31 years, the restaurant has once again included the menu created for Queen Elizabeth II on its menu. The young chef at this prestigious establishment, Viktor Moldován, spent nearly twenty years in Japan, which is why he has a special flair for fish dishes.

It is said that there’s no need to write the menu here; it’s been set for 80 years. Obviously, that’s not quite true, but there are 11 dishes you’ll always find: Tokaji Aszú goose liver pâté with poppy seed bread, goulash soup, Újházi chicken soup, Palóc-style lamb soup, Kárpáti pike-perch fillet with mushrooms and crayfish, paprika chicken with nokedli and cucumber salad with sour cream, Bakony sirloin, Viennese cutlet made from Mangalica pork, the original Gundel pancakes, Somlói galuska, and Rákóczi cottage cheese with sour cream ice cream.

The restaurant was nationalised in 1949. The family were evicted from the building and, because of their German origins, were even exiled to a farm in 1951. The restaurant only returned to private ownership after the fall of communism, and in 2006, during the tenure of the brilliant Kálmán Kalla, Condé Nast Traveller ranked it among the world’s top ten. It is now owned by Danubius Hotels, and since 2021 has been operated by the Eventrend Group, which also runs the Centrált and the New York Kávéház.