A new concept in the refurbished restaurant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chefs Andr\u00e1s Wolf and Viktor Moldov\u00e1n have set themselves the goal of making Gundel Restaurant a place for everyone! Many people used to think \u2013 and no doubt still do \u2013 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 caf\u00e9. You can actually pop in here just for a coffee and a cake. The caf\u00e9 has a separate menu. Upon entering, you find yourself in the caf\u00e9. 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 caf\u00e9 and restaurant is also maintained on the newly opened terrace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019t have a jacket, they would lend them one; otherwise, they weren\u2019t allowed in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gundel, which has been around for over 127 years, is a legendary institution and an integral part of Hungarian gastronomy and culture \u2013 though that is not to say it hasn\u2019t had its rough patches. But the elephant emblem and the beautiful building in V\u00e1rosliget \u2013 which many have only ever seen from the outside \u2013 are iconic. Just as are some of the dishes created here. It\u2019s 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 K\u00e1roly Frenreisz table; for him, as for his half-brother Zolt\u00e1n Latinovits, this place was practically a second home. K\u00e1roly 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. \u201eCook 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.\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201dChildren are the best \u201cbinding agent\u201d. The more, the better. They\u2019re what give life its flavour and zest\u2026\u2019 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, Gy\u00f6rgy Solti, Madonna, the band ABBA, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, Ji\u0159\u00ed Menzel, V\u00e1clav Havel, Angelina Jolie, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Robert Redford, Vilmos Zsigmond, Brad Pitt, Donald Sutherland, Fl\u00f3ri\u00e1n Albert, Imre Kert\u00e9sz. As the saying goes, if only these walls could talk\u2026!<\/span> It was the restaurateur Wampetics who laid the foundations for the restaurant\u2019s 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 \u2013 who lived upstairs \u2013 from the building did it no favours. Gundel\u2019s 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, Gy\u00f6rgy L\u00e1ng, 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 \u2013 one of the heirs and leaders of the Est\u00e9e Lauder empire \u2013 financed his dreams. Gundel was bought in September, closed in November, and reopened a year later. A \u201ewhopping\u201d 23 million dollars was spent on it, which was a world record at the time. L\u00e1ng lured the highly respected K\u00e1lm\u00e1n Kalla back from Washington, where he had been the chef to the Hungarian ambassador, P\u00e9ter Zwack; he then worked at Gundel for 15 years, and one of the restaurant\u2019s 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.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u2013 sometimes he even thought there were too many, when the private rooms upstairs were full as well. Eventually, he went to S\u00fcmegpr\u00e1ga, to his brother\u2019s guesthouse, and said he\u2019d 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\u2019t 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\u2019s traditions, slashed prices significantly and systematically won back Hungarian diners. It was symbolic that, on the restaurant\u2019s 125th anniversary, during a celebratory event, he cooked alongside K\u00e1lm\u00e1n Kalla \u2013 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was a pleasure to hear that the Eventrend Group, which is behind a number of major gastronomic enterprises, such as the New York K\u00e1v\u00e9h\u00e1z, which also boasts a long history, is taking over Gundel, and that Andr\u00e1s Wolf \u2013 who works as head chef throughout the hotel and once worked wonders at the hotel\u2019s fine-dining Salon restaurant, and is known to many from television \u2013 will be responsible for the restaurant\u2019s concept. In the kitchen, Chef Viktor Moldov\u00e1n 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, K\u00e1rp\u00e1ti pike-perch or Gundel pancakes here. They believe that this is where you\u2019ll find the best Hungarian food in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 caf\u00e9, where the menu is different, anything can be ordered \u00e0 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To start with, we\u2019re served sourdough bread with light Mangalica lard. It\u2019s 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 p\u00e2t\u00e9 is accompanied by Tokaji Asz\u00fa, 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 \u2013 of which I\u2019ve 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 \u2013 naturally served with homemade csipetke. The K\u00e1rp\u00e1ti pike-perch fillet is so tender it practically melts in the mouth; served with mushrooms and prawns in a buttery sauce, it\u2019s brought to us by Zolt\u00e1n Toldi, who does most of our serving. He\u2019s effortlessly friendly, doesn\u2019t make a fuss, and does his job expertly. Next comes the paprik\u00e1s chicken with nokedli and cucumber salad; it contains not only breast but also thighs, and to top it all, they\u2019ve left the skin on \u2013 which I normally can\u2019t stand. But now, miraculously, it turns out I do like it after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019ve got to know how to make it properly. We find it so amusing that the caf\u00e9 menu at Gundel features what was probably the most hated dish in school canteens \u2013 cabbage with tomato sauce and meatloaf \u2013 that we simply have to give it a go. And lo and behold, this isn\u2019t cabbage drowned in watery tomato sauce, but fresh, crisp cabbage, with the tomato giving it a distinct flavour. On the new menu, it\u2019s 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, R\u00e1k\u00f3czi cottage cheese pancakes and Soml\u00f3i galuska. The latter is the award-winning cake from the 1958 Brussels World Fair. It\u2019s worth noting that there are also lactose-free, gluten-free and sugar-free desserts, such as hazelnut cake with banana; I wouldn\u2019t have been able to list everything that isn\u2019t in it, because what really stands out is precisely what is in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chefs Andr\u00e1s Wolf and Viktor Moldov\u00e1n have set themselves the goal of making Gundel Restaurant a place for everyone!<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":17905,"template":"","publikacio":[233],"class_list":["post-17906","sajto","type-sajto","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","publikacio-art7"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gundel.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sajto\/17906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gundel.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sajto"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gundel.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sajto"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gundel.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sajto\/17906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gundel.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gundel.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"publikacio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gundel.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacio?post=17906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}