Gundel Restaurant Budapest
Jul 30th, 2011, 08:31 PM
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Gundel Restaurant Budapest
We will be leaving for Budapest in a few days. Someone recomended Gundel's. However, the guide books give it a mixed review, and some other people we know have given us conflicting views. This was to be our big splurge, but now I am having second thoughts. It is very expensive and I don't want to waste my hard earned money.
Any comments? Can anyone recomend a good, beautiful restaurant?
Mollybee
Any comments? Can anyone recomend a good, beautiful restaurant?
Mollybee
Jul 31st, 2011, 12:48 AM
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So you want a third category of informant, where you have the same chance of divided opinions?
I like Gundel's, perhaps because I don't take myself too seriously, and everybody in Gundel's (staff and diners) seems to be so earnest about things. The food is good, and they are expensive, very expensive by local standards.
Here is another place to consider, also at the higher-priced end of the market: http://www.bagolyvar.com/index.php?lang=en&mid=12. It close to Gundel's, is owned by them, but is quite different in almost everything but quality.
It's also possible to find excellent cheap food in Budapest. you might need to dig a bit, because most places that catch the tourist's eye are priced for the tourist market.
I like Gundel's, perhaps because I don't take myself too seriously, and everybody in Gundel's (staff and diners) seems to be so earnest about things. The food is good, and they are expensive, very expensive by local standards.
Here is another place to consider, also at the higher-priced end of the market: http://www.bagolyvar.com/index.php?lang=en&mid=12. It close to Gundel's, is owned by them, but is quite different in almost everything but quality.
It's also possible to find excellent cheap food in Budapest. you might need to dig a bit, because most places that catch the tourist's eye are priced for the tourist market.
Jul 31st, 2011, 01:11 AM
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Jul 31st, 2011, 04:43 AM
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We had a wonderful meal at Gundel a few years ago, and were happy we went on our trip. The restaurant has a lot of history, was beautiful, and the service was "old world" & very formal, yet enjoyable experience.
It is expensive however I wanted to include Gundel on our trip as I wanted to experience the food, and "experience."
We did have a delicious meal, and glad we went.
It was "way too much food....I could have easily split my entree." But, it was a festive meal, & I viewed it as a place I wanted to include when in Budapest.
Trend Girl
It is expensive however I wanted to include Gundel on our trip as I wanted to experience the food, and "experience."
We did have a delicious meal, and glad we went.
It was "way too much food....I could have easily split my entree." But, it was a festive meal, & I viewed it as a place I wanted to include when in Budapest.
Trend Girl
Aug 13th, 2011, 08:58 PM
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Gundel is not really a restaurant, it's a museum, and if you approach it that way you will fine that opinion is not divided at all, it's uniformly positive. Oh, some may argue that it's curators can be stodgy or that its collection is not daring, but it has 115 years of Hungarian spirit and soul (including several dark decades of ill repair and neglect and closure) and they all speak to you if you listen. Viewed from this perspective, even the stodginess and the rigidity are echoes in part of the warm formality of its grandeur and in part of the heel-clicking era of socialist chefs' training from state-maintained cookbooks.
It was a place where families went for brunch on Sundays in the park (the big city park is across the street), a place where generations celebrated major occasions. A grand room, an outpost of a different time. It's looking backward, not forward, so it's not a foodie destination, but for someone who wants immersion in the city's cultural history it remains special.
If you're looking for a great meal in a cutting edge restaurant, there are many better options look elsewhere (try Onyx or Bock Bisztro, among others) but if you are looking for a place that presents a peninsula of the past into Budapest's present ... Gundel is one of a very small handful of places that get this right (the Gresham Palace - Four Seasons - Hotel restoration is another; the Muzeum Kavehaz a third, Gerbeaud pastry shop another though the more modest Auguszt patisserie is perhaps a more realistic evocation of the past).
It was a place where families went for brunch on Sundays in the park (the big city park is across the street), a place where generations celebrated major occasions. A grand room, an outpost of a different time. It's looking backward, not forward, so it's not a foodie destination, but for someone who wants immersion in the city's cultural history it remains special.
If you're looking for a great meal in a cutting edge restaurant, there are many better options look elsewhere (try Onyx or Bock Bisztro, among others) but if you are looking for a place that presents a peninsula of the past into Budapest's present ... Gundel is one of a very small handful of places that get this right (the Gresham Palace - Four Seasons - Hotel restoration is another; the Muzeum Kavehaz a third, Gerbeaud pastry shop another though the more modest Auguszt patisserie is perhaps a more realistic evocation of the past).
