Apart from newborns and cave dwellers, there is certainly no one in this country who has not heard of the legendary Gundel restaurant. But whether its reputation extends beyond Hungary’s borders is a far more interesting question. In the 1990s, it was frequented by international stars and served as a regular haunt for emigrants returning home from abroad; then, somehow, it was left to its own devices in an indefinable state of limbo, in which nobody really felt it was their own. In 2021, the Eventrend Group took over its management, with plans to set the restaurant – which turns 130 this year – on a new course. We spoke to Jenő Magyary, Gundel’s managing director, and Zoltán Kőrössy, the founding owner of the Eventrend Group, about the old days, the days before that, and the present; about what it means when people say ’Gundel belongs to everyone„; what people think of the legendary restaurant, prices, and just how difficult it is to get a job there; and, of course, we also discussed the legendary New York Kávéház, where it’s almost impossible to get a table on weekend mornings.
Pénzcentrum: You took over the management of Gundel Restaurant and Café just over a year ago; what were the most important lessons you learnt during that first year, and what particularly surprised you?
Jenő Magyary: We took over the restaurant on 8 December 2021, and at the end of ’22 I was asked not only to become, alongside Csaba Szabó, the head of the Andevent mini-holding operating within Eventrend, but also to serve as managing director of the Gundel restaurant. What I hadn’t realised was that this building is full of surprises – both positive and negative. Not least because it will be 130 years old this year, and as such, it has a soul of its own. Countless technical issues came to light after the handover, issues which hadn’t really been addressed in any depth over the past 20 to 30 years. One such area is energy management. We made progress on this last year: we installed solar panels, replaced the gas boiler with a more modern model, and began fitting heat pumps – we’re already heating several rooms this way.
It’s a different sort of challenge, but the widespread perception that Gundel is an elitist establishment also means a lot of work – we’re trying to change that belief in people’s minds. When Mr and Mrs Láng opened the restaurant, there weren’t really any other fine-dining establishments apart from Gundel; perhaps only Mátyás Pince and the Kárpátia restaurant were considered good, but a completely different sort of gastronomic crowd frequented the city back then, and that sense of elegance and elitism still lingers in people’s minds, rather than the old, pre-war Gundel that we’d like to bring back now – after all, that’s what Károly Gundel himself believed in.
Namely, that this place belongs to everyone; at the beginning and in the middle of the last century, anyone from a private to a senior officer could pop in to eat or even just have a drink at an affordable price. To be honest, I never would have thought it would take so much effort to break down prejudices and misconceptions.
Zoltán Kőrössy: I’ve been in the hospitality industry for over 30 years, but this place is very special to me because when you walk in here, you know that this is the cradle of Hungarian gastronomy – its origins, its very DNA. Until we took it over, I’d only ever been upstairs for Sunday brunch; I’d never actually been inside the restaurant itself. I think this is very typical of the general mindset: we know it’s here, we’re familiar with it, but we think it’s not really for us, that it’s not meant for us.
Our predecessors did a great deal to create this aura. In the 2000s, men still had to wear a suit and tie just to be allowed into a restaurant – a notion that seems utterly outdated today. The restaurant behaved as if it were a church that we were expected to revere. Added to this, of course, were the high prices, the stuffiness, and many other factors that kept many people away. When Gundel became part of the fabric of society in the early 1990s, as Jenő himself explained, there were in fact no high-quality restaurants in the capital.
Since then, dozens of excellent restaurants have opened, yet Gundel has remained true to the legacy that was appropriate in the 1990s, as back then a great many Hungarians who had been living abroad returned home, and they were curious about it, wanted to see it and could afford it. We had to show it to them!
At the same time, this has always been a large-scale venue with a high capacity, whilst it was marketed as if it were a small restaurant with just 30 seats. There are 130 seats in the dining area alone, and in fine weather the terrace can accommodate a further 150–200. Back then, it didn’t even call itself a restaurant, but a pub. You could pop in here at any time; there were no social clichés, no ‘more welcome’ or ‘less welcome’ guests, and no exorbitant prices. We’re trying to recreate this and get the message across to people, but when something has been drummed into people’s heads for 30 years, it’s hard to change their perceptions.
Jenő Magyary: At the same time, I think we’re on the right track. Of course, there are some of our guests who don’t necessarily understand this; they look back on the 1990s with a certain romanticism, even though the world has changed, and nowadays we, too, would like to get much closer to people.
The year before last, we served 55,000 people, of whom roughly 3 per cent said that they liked the place better in the ’90s and 2000s’, so the vast majority said it’s a good place to come and have a Sunday lunch. This suggests we’re heading in the right direction, as evidenced by the fact that our visitor numbers are increasing by several thousand every year.
How many guests in total are they expecting by 2024?
Jenő Magyary: I’m hoping we’ll end up with between 57,000 and 60,000, but that also depends on the weather, as we mustn’t forget that most of it is grown in the garden.
Zoltán Kőrössy: Back in the 1920s and 1930s, on the occasion of the large May Day processions, there used to be several thousand people here in the Liget. Back then, the city’s layout was very different; this was effectively the outskirts of Budapest, a somewhat marshy, swampy area, a sort of entertainment district with pubs, brothels and restaurants. Back then, as many as a thousand people could sit here in the Gundel garden. Today, that would be equivalent to a garden terrace on the scale of a small festival.
How are prices set, and how much does a guest spend?
The average spend per person is currently 16,000–17,000 forints, whilst in a fine-dining restaurant it tends to be somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000 forints. Of course, I realise that not everyone can afford even these 16,000 forints, even though people can spend that much money on all sorts of unnecessary things, perhaps even pointlessly. But you can even just have a bowl of goulash soup here for 3,000 forints, in beautiful surroundings with polite service, for exactly the same price as anywhere else in the city. These days, a visit to Gundel costs exactly the same as a meal at an average, non-fine-dining restaurant, but the setting and the ambience add an extra dimension to the experience.
If there are 300 guests here at any one time, how many staff members are needed?
Jenő Magyary: We can serve a maximum of around 200 people at any one time when the garden is full; we close off part of the indoor dining areas; at such times, 6–8 staff members look after the guests, and there are the same number in the kitchen, plus the temporary staff who only join the permanent staff on days like these. At present, the total staff number is 80; this does not include trainees, but it does include the event organisers, waiting staff, kitchen staff and pastry chefs.
I asked this because it is a recurring topic in the Hungarian press that no other sector is affected by labour shortages to the same extent as the hospitality industry – is this a problem you are also experiencing?
Jenő Magyary: If we were to go back a year in time, I’d be saying right now that we’re in a bit of a bind when it comes to staff, but things are much easier now. It’s true that we’re very selective when it comes to choosing our colleagues, and perhaps that’s one reason why staff turnover is minimal. One of the reasons for this is that we place great emphasis on the selection process.
Is it difficult to get a job at Gundel these days?
Jenő Magyary: We try to be open to everyone, but if someone cannot grasp the spirit that lies at the heart of our message – namely, that we truly welcome those who come here, and pay attention to their every move, then that waiter might not be the right fit, even if they can carry six plates at once. For us, a colleague who shows the respect that makes a guest want to return – because they feel they’ve gained something extra here – is of far greater value.
In today’s Hungary, where this kind of hospitality is on the wane, is it difficult to find people like that?
Zoltán Kőrössy: During the two waves of Covid, not only did 120,000 people in the tourism and hospitality sector lose their jobs from one moment to the next, but workers’ confidence was also shaken. Previously, they had believed that the sector was stable and that there would always be guests, something they could count on under any circumstances.
Over the past two years, however, the number of workers needed has returned, and perhaps confidence has also been restored. The other factor is that, due to the economic slowdown, the sectors that previously acted as a drain on the labour market – logistics, retail and construction – which offered real alternatives, are now effectively slowing down, and there is likely to be negative labour demand in those sectors.
At present, there is no recruitment problem in the tourism and hospitality sector in practical terms, although there may be regions – such as the area around Lake Balaton – and certain job roles where this is the case; however, in Budapest, a business with an unblemished employer brand can find suitable staff without any particular difficulty. It is a good question as to what will happen if the construction industry starts to boom again and the ‘brain drain’ effect reoccurs. Here at Eventrend Group, we always have recruitment needs, but we are always able to fill these positions within a few weeks.
Which are the critical roles for which it is most difficult to find suitable staff?
Jenő Magyary: Particularly senior managers. We spent nearly a year looking for someone to fill the director’s post, whilst also firmly believing in internal training and career progression. On this occasion, too, we gave our colleagues the opportunity, but we did not find the sort of dedication and drive we needed, so we realised that sometimes it is worth bringing in fresh blood from outside. At the same time, one of the great strengths and virtues of our group of companies is that career progression is driven from within, as there is mobility between the companies within the group.
Zoltán Kőrössy: Here, every member of our senior management team started out as a waiter, a back-of-house assistant or an events intern.
Gundel is certainly well known here at home, but how well known is it abroad as a brand name?
Jenő Magyary: It’s a mixed picture. This, too, has a historical background, as when the restaurant reopened following the change of regime, it had a certain appeal for Hungarians living abroad. As we’ve already mentioned, there weren’t many good restaurants at the time, so the restaurant welcomed a host of famous foreign guests, ranging from the Italian royal couple to the Pope.
This has changed recently, though it is true that we are increasingly making our way back onto the global gastronomic map. In 2021–22, 25–30 per cent of our guests were from abroad; last year, this figure reached 50 per cent during the week, whilst the weekend is still dominated by Hungarians. We are a Hungarian restaurant, serving Hungarian flavours and offering classic Hungarian hospitality; we play Gypsy music from Wednesday to Sunday, and we are making a conscious effort to ensure that foreign visitors find their way back to us. During periods when our fellow Hungarians aren’t visiting, our target is definitely to have 60–70 per cent of our customers be foreign visitors. We Hungarians don’t tend to go to restaurants very often on weekdays, unlike the Italians or the French; we tend to save dining out for the weekend. There are, of course, financial reasons for this as well.
Even if only slowly, real wages in Hungary are rising – is this already having an impact on spending?
Jenő Magyary: Yes, in two respects: firstly, last year we served 1,500 more guests than in the previous year, and secondly, the average spend increased by 15–20 per cent from 2022 to 2023.
Wasn’t that due to the rise in prices?
Jenő Magyary: Not necessarily, as we haven’t raised our prices at the same rate as our competitors. We did adjust our prices at the end of last year, but for three-quarters of the year we deliberately kept our prices well below those of the restaurants in Városliget.
Didn’t that decision result in a loss?
Jenő Magyary: No, in fact 2023 was particularly successful; we managed to achieve a good level of profit relative to turnover. Our aim was to use this to break down the preconceptions people have about how expensive Gundel is – that you can’t just pop in here for a pancake or a bowl of soup. Our pricing strategy may not have been entirely in line with that, though it’s true that we now operate at the same price level as the nearby Robinson Restaurant.
Zoltán Kőrössy: A fall or rise in real earnings is, in essence, merely a statistical figure. The average person is most likely to perceive this simply as a shopping trip now costing 30,000 forints rather than 20,000, but these are subjective perceptions. What has happened now is that the rise in inflation has stopped, whilst wages are, in effect, continuing to rise; so the decline in real wages has halted, but this does not mean that everyone has suddenly found themselves flush with cash. It was evident earlier that people had used up a great deal of their savings, but the question is when the current growth in real earnings will translate into a genuine increase in demand; I think this will become apparent from retail figures, and may start to show up in restaurant spending from the second half of the year onwards.
Returning briefly to our news item about abroad – we had actually thought that Gundel was much better known abroad, but the New York Kávéház, which belongs to the Eventrend group, is by far the best known.
That’s exactly what I wanted to ask: what’s going on there? Are they giving something away for free every weekend? The queue sometimes stretches all the way to Blaha.
Zoltán Kőrössy: I could say that it is the result of 15 years of deliberate, systematic work – which is, in fact, true – but, fundamentally, we too are surprised by what is happening there. It’s like when an athlete trains conscientiously, giving it their all, but in the end is themselves surprised to have swum an Olympic-level time.
When we took over the venue in 2009, we were in the midst of a severe global economic downturn, and tourism in Budapest was at a significantly lower level. Even back then, it was an old building – 118 years old – and whilst many people knew it existed, people simply loitered about inside it. The New York Theatre’s historical legacy is the kind of cultural and literary richness founded on the aura of the thousands of writers, poets and artists who lived and worked there. That is, of course, no longer there today, but there remains a beautiful architectural legacy.
We had lots of plans for how to put it back on the map, and we worked hard on the literary front too, but it seems that this doesn’t strike a chord with people today. When the New York Insurance Company built its headquarters, the architectural brief was that the building should house the world’s most beautiful café. We brought this core concept to life, as no one before us had ever set their sights on this goal. We have earned this title for several years running, based on votes from major travel websites.
We started using it as our main slogan in December 2011, and at the same time, the visually-driven world of Instagram selfies – which is the breeding ground for this – emerged. Who wouldn’t want to visit the world’s most beautiful café whilst they’re in Budapest? Everyone wants to see the best of the best in the world. Year on year, more and more people have been coming, and over the past 5–6 years it has become Europe’s most Instagrammed venue; nowadays, dozens of people pop in, and it’s clear they’re only there for the photo. The main reason for the visit isn’t the culinary experience, but there’s nothing wrong with that; they come so they can say they’ve been here too. That’s why foreigners are willing to queue for 20–30 minutes. Of course, there’s decent food in New York too, but it’s much more of a café. The average spend there is around 7,000 forints, and naturally, the most expensive coffee in Budapest is available there, costing around 3,000 forints. But given that a significant part of Hungarian literature was born here, it’s a fair question whether 7,000 forints is a lot to pay for a basket of goods. Probably not. Although it costs twice as much as one on the other side of the boulevard, it’s not unaffordable.
Jenő Magyary: When we go abroad, we also visit the iconic sights, and we don’t mind spending 15 euros on two coffees and two pastries. When you’re on holiday, you don’t look at the prices. And 90 per cent of the customers here are foreigners.
Zoltán Kőrössy: But there are 150–200 Hungarian guests every day, which is quite a lot, and 800,000 people visit the place every year. New York essentially functions as a bustling gastronomic museum.
In a large-scale operation like this, does the workforce wear out more quickly, and is staff turnover higher?
Jenő Magyary: Yes.
Zoltán Kőrössy: We have to serve 2,000 guests a day, and 3,000 on peak days, yet there are some who have been doing this for 15 years. But physically, it’s an extremely gruelling task.
Jenő Magyary: A great many people come to work in New York because we run a professional operation there. Anyone who spends half a year or a year with us will have seen it all – not to mention that it looks good on their CV. We’re proud that we have colleagues who have been with the group for 5, 10, 15 or even 20 years; staff turnover typically occurs at the lower levels, whilst the middle and senior management teams remain stable.
