Best of Budapest

Home delivery is an eternal problem in Budapest. There aren’t many places that deliver really first-rate food, and rotating between the same five restaurants gets pretty boring after a while. The situation is even more disastrous if you feel like eating Italian. There are some good pizza places in town, but they don’t deliver, which is actually commendable. They shouldn’t deliver if it would seriously ruin the quality.

But there is a place, and we’ve just discovered it. Though it’s not cheap, there’s a huge difference between their pizzas and the average home delivery horror.

The place is Il terzo Cerchio, one of Budapest’s elite Italian restaurants where you need to dig deep into your pockets to pay for a hearty dinner. You’d never think that they, of all people, do home delivery, and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg either.

The average price of the pizzas is HUF 2200–2400, twice the price of the usual bloated air-disc that too often passes for pizza, but, then again, who wants to eat bloated air?

If you order additional toppings, you’ll have to pay even more, but these guys don’t fool around. We ordered a little Parma ham to go on the quattro formaggi pizza, and they scattered so much ham on it you could hardly see the crust. It took about 40 minutes to arrive. It tasted just like the exquisite pizza we had in Rovinj yesterday, the best on the entire Istrian peninsula. And Istria is just next door to Italy, where almost every pizza is good, but the one made in Rovinj is definitely competitive. As is Il terzo Cerchio’s.

This is what the pizza looks like:

The crust is out of this world. Crisp outside, soft and tender inside. Not dry anywhere. It’s thin, but marvelously thin. The toppings are topnotch quality. The gorgonzola is fantastic. The tomato sauce is magnificent. The Parma ham is really from Parma. And all this makes one fine pizza. This doesn’t work for others. But for these guys, it’s a snap. If you want to order a good pizza, try these guys, but when you do, post a comment about which one you liked the best.

Translation provided by Helpers Business and Immigration Services. Find us at www.helpers.hu

You may find the original article here.

The founders of the Best of Budapest blog started writing about why they love living in the capital of Hungary on their Hungarian site “Egy nap a városban” (“a day in the city”) back in 2010. As they love to roam the streets of the city and discover all the hidden nooks and crannies, they really know Budapest by heart: they know the best shortcuts, the most beautiful views, the history of emblematic buildings, and even their secrets; they know where to drop in for a coffee and where to eat a nice, rare steak; they know where to spend a lazy afternoon or a fun night.

Nowadays Budapest is really lively, regarding to the hamburgers, although we have to say it is always lively. In the last weeks several new burger places had their grand openings. According to Adam, there is one, which could easily be on our top list: for this we must have the same opinion so soon I am going to check the Finomító Kantin, and if we agree, the list will be refreshed.

The Jack’s Burger  isn’t amongst the best few places of Budapest, but it is absolutely good and it has a huge advantage: the place is located in the middle of the city on the Hercegprímás utca, which always gets in your way, even if you are heading to another direction. So somehow you always get there.

The newest chain of the restaurant chain is quite interesting, because the Jack’s Burger isn’t really a restaurant chain, it just looks like it. There is no western standard format it isn’t an unknown restaurant in Hungary, but with thousands of restaurants in the States. Jack's Burger is located only on the Hercegprímás utca and if we take a closer look at the date on the logo we can see that it was established in 2013. They are quite confident because it only gets cool from 2063.

So it isn’t a multi, it isn’t old, it isn’t even a chain, but the girl behind the counter was keenly talking about the possible openings of other restaurants in case of success. Now to be true, their enthusiasm is a little bit gratuitous:

We have been there in the beginning of May. The city was full of people, you hardly could have free tables and seats in the restaurants and pubs, but the Jack’s Burger was almost totally empty. Soon we will see, that it happened without any reason.

The food isn’t expensive. You can have sandwiches, chicken parts on a reasonable price though we haven't tried them, but we had hamburgers with fried potatoes for 1200-1400.

Actually we tried the specialty of the house, the Jack’s Burger Bacon Cheese with the own sauce of the house. The food is made right in front of you and you can see that the meat is quite thin, the potatoes are frozen and after a while you realize that you can only sit on the floor, because there are no chairs. It is said that they are going to have, if they get the permit for the terrace.

The burger is quickly done, so let’s concentrate on the food and the tray, which is really cool and practical.  You can simply walk to the nearest bench with it, where you can easily enjoy your meal.

As I have mentioned earlier the potatoes are frozen potatoes, but they are fried pretty well in a kind of spicy oil or in the oil something was fried in before. Anyway it is edible. The mayonnaise is the usual industrial one, what you can also get at the Burger King. 

What is more important than that is that this is the only place in the world where the food looks exactly the same that is sold to you.

Michael Douglas’ ’Falling Down’ would get a nervous breakdown here.

The bun is the usual, sweet one. It is tasty and it is absolutely ok, if you accept the existence of this type of bun, you won't have any problems with it.

The vegetables aren’t bad, although the tomato wasn’t that good. The salad is fresh and the cucumber is ok. The bacon was absolutely right and well done, even the quantity and the thickness was good. However the meat is thin, although juicy and tastes good, but it cannot be on our top list, although three years ago it would have been there. The onion was pretty well caramelized, and the special homemade sauce made the food to be really good. It was almost a cocktail sauce, but it was definitely good for the hamburger. This made the Jack’s Burger’s whole main course good.

So: if we compare the Jack’s Burger to the Ring or Manga, or to the Varieté, it is obvious that the Jack's Burger is a little bit behind them. But it is way better than the similar fast food restaurants, while it isn’t more expensive than them. This new place is in the top of the middle category, so if you are there, go and visit them. Anyway there isn’t any other good burger place around. Maybe after a while they will also have chairs and tables and after that the world domination!

Jack's Burger
Budapest
Hercegprímás utca 4.
06703176016

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We have already written about the Brody House. We have been to the place before. They had a brilliant event in connection with fashion. I think fashion is quite boring, however I’ve been watching the performance tensely for more than two hours. Many things have happened in the club’s life since then. For example they have opened the Brody Studios, their second center which is located in the Vörösmarty utca and not in the Bródy Sándor utca.

I know the post isn’t so interesting yet, but it is worth reading.

So the basics: The Brody House has started its activity with a hotel. No. Let's see what happened earlier. In 2000 two investors William Clothier and Peter Grundberg came to Hungary and they earned a lot of money by investing. The next logical step for them would have been to leave the country and spend the money in an exotic place, but they’ve rather stood here. They were thinking about supporting and keeping the local culture alive so they have decided to give something back from the money they have earned here. This is how they want to make a sensible quality change in Budapest. Formerly people like them were known as ‘mecenates’, but on one hand there are only a few nowadays, who support talented but hungry artists and on the other hand: these people do it in a wrong way. However Clothier and Grundberg know how to do it.

In 2009 they bought the house in the Bródy Sándor utca and they turned one of the floors of the house to the painters and also provided food and accommodation to them so they could calmly create. In exchange for this Clothier and Grundberg asked them to give some money from their revenue to the Brody House after selling a picture. After a while the idea came to open a hotel in the house with unique rooms which are designed by the artists having lived there before. That’s why each and every room is different. Meanwhile the Brody House became a club where artists and their audience can meet. This is not the Opera Ball where the entrance fee takes 100.000 HUF and you simply cannot have deep, meaningful conversations wearing a dress and having a makeup. Here if you are a member of the club (the membership fee is absolutely reasonable) you can easily gain access to the high quality events for only 1000-2000 HUF, where you can talk to people you usually don’t meet.

This kind of development resulted in opening the Brody Studios. You cannot find a hotel in it but you can meet the members of the club, you can see several artists sponsored by the Brody working simultaneously and you can also participate at high quality clubevents just like I did lately.

So the whole thing was about letting people with different cast of thought who love Budapest and culture meet each other, get drunk for free sponsored by Pernod Ricard. So they have the opportunity to think about something together which makes this city a better place. An idea that isn’t so big, just a small idea or thoughts from conversations which can slowly repaint the city.

While people were drinking we visited some artists who were actually working on something. I could meet so many interesting people. I am not a pally type of person I don’t really get closer to others except my nearest and dearest, but here I had the chance to talk about the decline of the national economy with a successful headhunter, I could also meet Thomas the professor from Great Britain, who is doing a research on the Hungarian history sponsored by the Queen. I met the owner of the pornographic penthouse in the Király utca and a successful German businessman who loves living in Hungary and he wouldn't move even despite the depressing circumstances.

During the short conversations I had the chance to get to know Budapest better in such a point of view which is different than mine so it is more realistic. It was an exciting journey and it is really good to have Brody here for us, which sets up the stage and shouts ACTION! Everything else is up to us. And we have a lot to do.

Photos by: Álmos Eőry

Brody Studios
Budapest, Vörösmarty utca 38.
info@brodyhouse.com

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I had already written about Sunday Brunch and it has been my favourite since then. This is an "all you can eat" category but with much better quality food than usual.If you get it by a'la carte, you can not decline. The popularity of Sunday Branch has increased massively due to the article so we were invited to try a menu compilation in the Marriott, called "Kostoló" - the Taster.

So the main concept of the dinner was creating a mixed menu in the Marriott's Peppers restaurant which is a little bit a'la carte as well as the Sunday Brunch. The point of the idea is having starters and dessert on a multi-storey tray but the main courses are choosen from the menu, including St. Jacob mussels with shrimps, duck, tenderloins or grilled lamb.

The starters are fantastic! Creams, pates, prawns with garlic saice on the third level of the tray, goose liver with dried plum in red wine sauce on the first, and one of my favourites; smoked trout with horseradish on the middle tray; sensational.

It is a particularly strong commencement of your meal to have these straters, home breads and baguettes are provided continuously, served with olives, tomato sticks and variety of sauces.

After this, nobody thinks that a pumpkin soup could be competitive, but I have to say - even though I don't like pumpkin - it is perfect, with strong creamy taste, not to mention their sorbet between the starters and the main course.

I ate steak for my main course. I enjoyed the mushroom Burgundi sauce with the medium rare meat.
The first time when I was there, I had lamb with pepper stew and I could not fault it. I tried prawns too, you will love it!

On the first level of the tray there are variety of delicious and special cheeses, supplemented by great toppings such as mustard with fig jam.

Unfortunately I wasn't happy with the desserts, they were characterless. But you can ignore my opinion because when we complained about it, they took our advice and changed the whole menu.

My last comment: The menu is 8100 HUF. This is not much for such quality and quantity. It is incredibly filling too.
But I think it is a shame that this price doesn't include the wine. A galss should be included in the menu.

Some of the guests - who ordered wine - complained about it and said that the wines did not complement the food well and it would have been better if they could have had free choice. I annoyed the Marriott until we came to a compromise; now if you say "Best of Budapest" when you book (you always have to), a glass of wine will be free of charge. So cool, isn't it?

Peppers Restaurant,

Budapest Marriott Hotel
1052, Budapest, Apáczai Csere János utca 4.
Tel.: +36 1 737 7377
Booking: reservations@peppers.hu