A new concept in the refurbished restaurant.

Chefs András Wolf and Viktor Moldován have set themselves the goal of making Gundel Restaurant a place for everyone! Many people used to think – and no doubt still do – that it is exorbitantly expensive and really only for foreigners. For a long time, that was indeed the case, but since the reopening, the situation has changed.

The prices are only slightly higher than those at the trendy restaurants on Liszt Ferenc Square. Whilst the quality there is often questionable, here it is guaranteed. A few years ago, there was even a set menu for 120,000 forints. The ground-floor premises, which have been brilliantly refurbished, have been divided into a restaurant and a café. You can actually pop in here just for a coffee and a cake. The café has a separate menu. Upon entering, you find yourself in the café. It used to be the case that the less well-off sat in the outer section, whilst the more affluent sat at the very back. This division between the café and restaurant is also maintained on the newly opened terrace.

The interior has, of course, retained its elegance; the slightly weathered walls have been restored shining beautifully, and one of the defining features of the interior is now a genuine, marvellous horse-drawn carriage, which helps to evoke the atmosphere of a bygone era, when many people used to arrive here in similar vehicles. However, they do not want this elegance to be accompanied by a sense of stiffness. I remember the days when, if someone didn’t have a jacket, they would lend them one; otherwise, they weren’t allowed in.

Gundel, which has been around for over 127 years, is a legendary institution and an integral part of Hungarian gastronomy and culture – though that is not to say it hasn’t had its rough patches. But the elephant emblem and the beautiful building in Városliget – which many have only ever seen from the outside – are iconic. Just as are some of the dishes created here. It’s astonishing just who has passed through these doors. The names of many of them are immortalised on the illustrative plaque on the wall by the entrance. The list includes an impressive array of both Hungarians and foreigners. Some of them have had tables named after them following the two-year enforced closure due to the pandemic and the magnificent refurbishment. We are sitting at the Károly Frenreisz table; for him, as for his half-brother Zoltán Latinovits, this place was practically a second home. Károly Gundel was a man who loved his family dearly; with 13 children, he had a rather extensive family network. He even offered a recipe for life based on this. „Cook the chosen medium (person) until tender and love them as passionately as you possibly can. Peel away and cast aside even the slightest trace of selfishness. Devote all your strength and attention to the good of your family. Seek no other spice in life than that which your work and family provide, and do not insist on always being right.”.

”Children are the best “binding agent”. The more, the better. They’re what give life its flavour and zest…’ As his business was doing well, he had plenty to support them on. And he established the restaurant in such a way that it became fashionable to go there; both Hungarian and foreign celebrities were happy to visit. By no means an exhaustive list, here are a few names: Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, King Harald I of Norway, Otto von Habsburg, György Solti, Madonna, the band ABBA, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jiří Menzel, Václav Havel, Angelina Jolie, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Robert Redford, Vilmos Zsigmond, Brad Pitt, Donald Sutherland, Flórián Albert, Imre Kertész. As the saying goes, if only these walls could talk…!

It was the restaurateur Wampetics who laid the foundations for the restaurant’s reputation at home; later, when Gundel took it over from him and renamed it, it gained an international reputation. There is no denying that nationalisation and the eviction of the family – who lived upstairs – from the building did it no favours. Gundel’s standards sank to a very low level. It was even closed down for a long time. It reopened in 1980, but the refurbishment was merely a token effort. Six years later, however, György Láng, who had left the country in 1947 and run a world-famous restaurant in New York, paid it a visit. He took a good look around, then returned six months later with a book entitled *The Next 50 Years of Gundel*. From this point on, the story reads like a fairy tale. His friend, Ronald Lauder – one of the heirs and leaders of the Estée Lauder empire – financed his dreams. Gundel was bought in September, closed in November, and reopened a year later. A „whopping” 23 million dollars was spent on it, which was a world record at the time. Láng lured the highly respected Kálmán Kalla back from Washington, where he had been the chef to the Hungarian ambassador, Péter Zwack; he then worked at Gundel for 15 years, and one of the restaurant’s golden ages is associated with his name. He preserved traditional dishes and revamped some of them; for example, there was Kalla-style chicken paprikash. He felt that the traditional version, with skin and thighs, was not to the liking of many foreign guests, so he prepared it for them using only breast meat, and cooked the sauce separately.

For a while, he kept both the classic dish and this one on the menu. The restaurant was bustling for a long time; there were plenty of guests – sometimes he even thought there were too many, when the private rooms upstairs were full as well. Eventually, he went to Sümegprága, to his brother’s guesthouse, and said he’d cook whatever the hunter bagged. Several chefs followed in his footsteps; some turned their backs on tradition and experimented with experimental gastronomy, which really didn’t go down well here. Then came the exorbitantly expensive era, when the number of foreign guests also dwindled considerably, whilst Hungarian guests were few and far between. Chef Zsolt Litauszki began to steer this historic establishment out of this difficult situation. He returned to the restaurant’s traditions, slashed prices significantly and systematically won back Hungarian diners. It was symbolic that, on the restaurant’s 125th anniversary, during a celebratory event, he cooked alongside Kálmán Kalla – not turning his back on the past, but with a multi-year, promising plan for the future. The pandemic threw a spanner in the works, and Gundel closed its doors to the general public. It was sad to see it empty.

It was a pleasure to hear that the Eventrend Group, which is behind a number of major gastronomic enterprises, such as the New York Kávéház, which also boasts a long history, is taking over Gundel, and that András Wolf – who works as head chef throughout the hotel and once worked wonders at the hotel’s fine-dining Salon restaurant, and is known to many from television – will be responsible for the restaurant’s concept. In the kitchen, Chef Viktor Moldován will be in charge; he spent 14 and a half years cooking Hungarian food in Japan, which was something of a rarity there, but unlike many other Hungarian restaurants abroad, it proved to be quite successful. Their collaboration has resulted in a menu that is both impressive and offers excellent value for money. This is actually changing at the moment, but much remains the same; for instance, you simply cannot do without goulash, chicken paprikash, Kárpáti pike-perch or Gundel pancakes here. They believe that this is where you’ll find the best Hungarian food in the country.

In the restaurant, you can choose from a three- or four-course set menu, but there are also several options for starters, soups, main courses and desserts, from which guests are free to put together a menu to suit their own tastes. In the café, where the menu is different, anything can be ordered à la carte. To enhance the atmosphere, Gypsy music, reminiscent of salon music, is played until 8 pm, after which the sound of a discreet bar piano can be heard.

To start with, we’re served sourdough bread with light Mangalica lard. It’s so delicious that we have to be careful not to fill our bellies with it straight away. For the starter, the trout is home-smoked and served with a garnish of gherkins and apples. The soft goose liver pâté is accompanied by Tokaji Aszú, which goes well with poppy-seed barchesz. The exquisite Zsolnay plates remain, as do the finely crafted silver cutlery typical of this establishment. The yoghurt-based bean soup is prepared with ease, but the goulash soup – of which I’ve often eaten the watery, watered-down rubbish aimed at tourists, is served here as a hearty, thick dish, almost a one-pot meal in its own right – naturally served with homemade csipetke. The Kárpáti pike-perch fillet is so tender it practically melts in the mouth; served with mushrooms and prawns in a buttery sauce, it’s brought to us by Zoltán Toldi, who does most of our serving. He’s effortlessly friendly, doesn’t make a fuss, and does his job expertly. Next comes the paprikás chicken with nokedli and cucumber salad; it contains not only breast but also thighs, and to top it all, they’ve left the skin on – which I normally can’t stand. But now, miraculously, it turns out I do like it after all.

You’ve got to know how to make it properly. We find it so amusing that the café menu at Gundel features what was probably the most hated dish in school canteens – cabbage with tomato sauce and meatloaf – that we simply have to give it a go. And lo and behold, this isn’t cabbage drowned in watery tomato sauce, but fresh, crisp cabbage, with the tomato giving it a distinct flavour. On the new menu, it’s made with savoy cabbage. For dessert, you can order a mixed selection served on a little elephant figurine. No guest should leave here without trying the Gundel pancakes, Rákóczi cottage cheese pancakes and Somlói galuska. The latter is the award-winning cake from the 1958 Brussels World Fair. It’s worth noting that there are also lactose-free, gluten-free and sugar-free desserts, such as hazelnut cake with banana; I wouldn’t have been able to list everything that isn’t in it, because what really stands out is precisely what is in it.

The reopening of Gundel is thoroughly encouraging. It could once again become one of the bastions of Hungarian gastronomy, and, alongside foreign visitors, Hungarians can finally feel that it belongs to them once more.