Budapest is a city we particularly enjoyed eating our way through. Its food scene moves easily between modern bakeries, serious specialty coffee, vegetable-forward restaurants and bars where Hungarian wine gets the attention it deserves. We covered a lot of ground during our visit, but these are the places that stayed with us — and the ones we would return to first.
Best Restaurants in Budapest
101 Bistro
101 Bistro brings the flavours of Taipei to Budapest in a contemporary, playful format. The menu is compact and designed for sharing, with plenty of vegetable-forward options and dishes that feel both comforting and surprising. We loved how understated the restaurant itself was compared with the intensity of the flavours. One of those places where we would happily order almost everything on the menu.
Pingrumba
Pingrumba takes inspiration from the Middle East, North Africa and the travels of its founders, bringing everything together in generous sharing plates. Mezze, vegetables, spices and fresh herbs play a central role, making it particularly easy to eat well here without relying heavily on meat. We also loved the restaurant itself, with different rooms and a beautiful winter garden giving each part of the space its own atmosphere.
TwentySix
TwentySix is built around an enormous indoor garden in the centre of Budapest, with real trees and plants creating a surprisingly lush setting throughout the year. The Mediterranean-inspired menu is designed for sharing, with plenty of vegetables alongside fish and meat. The surroundings are undoubtedly part of the attraction, but we liked that the food and cocktails were strong enough for it to be more than simply a beautiful restaurant.
Breakfast & Lunch in Budapest
Fågel by Artizán
Fågel is the daytime sister concept to Artizán and combines good coffee with a simple, wholesome breakfast and lunch menu. We came here for one of their generous porridge bowls and loved how relaxed the little space felt. Being right next to Artizán also creates the obvious problem of leaving with far more bread and pastries than you originally intended.
Portobello
Portobello is a modern all-day café where breakfast, lunch, specialty coffee and natural wine comfortably sit together. The cooking feels creative without becoming overly complicated, with seasonal ingredients and plenty of vegetable-forward options. We particularly liked that it works equally well for a proper lunch or a slower morning with coffee — one of those versatile addresses that is useful to know in any city.
Franziska
Franziska has become one of Budapest’s established brunch addresses, with colourful breakfast dishes, plenty of plant-based options and a bright, contemporary setting. We originally discovered it through its vegan cakes and breakfast bowls, but the concept is much broader than that. ItCache legen is a good option when you want something fresh and generous without falling into the standard eggs-and-avocado brunch formula.
Seed
Seed is slightly removed from the busiest parts of central Budapest, but the unusual combination makes it worth knowing. Specialty coffee sits alongside freshly made pizza, which sounds slightly random until you are actually there. We liked that Seed doesn’t try to fit neatly into one category — it works just as well for coffee as it does for a casual lunch.
Scusi Focacceria
Scusi brings a little Italian comfort to Budapest with freshly baked focaccia as the heart of the concept. The sandwiches are generously filled but still feel considered rather than overloaded for the sake of it. It is an easy lunch stop when you want something quick without resorting to generic fast food, and one of those places where the smell of freshly baked bread does most of the convincing.
Best Bagel Basilica
We can be surprisingly critical of bagels — too often they are dry, dense and mostly rely on the filling. Best Bagel Basilica convinced us otherwise. The bagels are freshly baked and have the texture we actually want: chewy without becoming heavy. It is a straightforward concept, but a very useful address for a quick breakfast or lunch around the centre of Budapest.
Bakeries & Sweet Stops in Budapest
Artizán
Artizán is one of Budapest’s best-known craft bakeries and a great stop to combine with exploring the area around the Hungarian Parliament. The focus is on naturally fermented bread and carefully made pastries rather than overly decorative baking. We originally came for something sweet, but it is the quality of the baking in general that makes Artizán an address worth remembering.
Freyja – The Croissant Story
Freyja takes laminated pastry seriously. The bakery built its reputation around croissants and continues to experiment with both sweet and savoury variations without losing sight of the pastry itself. Layers, texture and good butter are what make this place stand out. For us, it remains one of the bakery stops we would prioritise on another trip to Budapest.
VAJ
VAJ gives traditional Hungarian baking a much more contemporary setting. Familiar local flavours and ingredients appear alongside sourdough bread, viennoiserie and modern pastry, making it particularly interesting if you want something with a stronger sense of place. We liked seeing ingredients such as poppy seed used in a way that still felt unmistakably Hungarian without the bakery becoming overly traditional.
Chez Dodo
Chez Dodo is a specialist macaron atelier where the pastries are made fresh on site and treated with the kind of precision normally associated with much more formal pâtisserie. The flavour combinations change regularly and the macarons are generously sized, often with an additional centre hidden inside. Even the packaging is beautifully considered, making it particularly dangerous if you intended to buy only one.
Gelarto Rosa
Gelarto Rosa may be one of Budapest’s more photographed sweet stops, but the concept is more than a visual gimmick. Gelato is carefully shaped into delicate roses, layer by layer, with plenty of interesting flavours to choose from. It is playful and undeniably pretty, but we were pleasantly surprised by the quality too — which is ultimately the reason it stays on this list.
Best Coffee in Budapest
My Little Melbourne
My Little Melbourne has been part of Budapest’s specialty coffee scene for years and remains a reliable address right in the centre of Pest. The focus is straightforward: properly made coffee, different brewing methods and a relaxed café atmosphere. It is a useful place to know when exploring central Budapest and one of the addresses that helped put specialty coffee on the map in the city.
4 Minutes
4 Minutes is a small coffee stop on the Buda side of the city and a particularly convenient one to combine with exploring the area around Fisherman’s Bastion. The café itself is intimate and uncomplicated, with specialty coffee taking centre stage. We liked having somewhere genuinely coffee-focused in a part of Budapest where many cafés are understandably aimed primarily at visitors.
Budapest Coffee Stand
Budapest Coffee Stand keeps things simple: small spaces, good coffee and a format designed just as much for takeaway as sitting down. With several locations around the city, it is one of the easier specialty coffee names to work into a day of exploring. Sometimes you don’t need an elaborate brunch menu — just a reliably good cup of coffee on the way somewhere else.
9BAR
9BAR is one for people who appreciate the details of coffee. The small café has a strong specialty focus and is particularly known for carefully prepared espresso drinks — including some seriously precise latte art. What we liked most was that it still feels accessible rather than turning coffee into something overly serious. Small, focused and very easy to recommend.
Madal
Madal is one of the more established names in Budapest’s specialty coffee scene, with several locations and its own roasting operation. The cafés have a calm, uncomplicated feel and the coffee is consistent across the different branches. It is perhaps less of a one-off discovery than some of the smaller places on this list, but exactly the kind of reliable local name that is useful to know.
Wine Bars & Drinks in Budapest
Marlou
Marlou was one of our favourite discoveries for wine in Budapest. The focus is on natural and low-intervention bottles, with Hungarian producers sitting alongside wines from elsewhere in Europe. The team is knowledgeable without making the experience feel intimidating, which made it easy to simply explain what we normally enjoy and let them guide us. A very good place to explore Hungarian wine beyond the obvious names.
Doblo Wine Bar
Doblo offers a more classic Budapest wine-bar experience, with a broad selection of Hungarian wines and regular live music in an atmospheric brick-lined space. It feels quite different from the more contemporary natural wine bars in the city, which is precisely why we think it deserves a place here. A good address for discovering local varieties in a setting that feels distinctly Budapest.
Szimpla Kert
Szimpla Kert is hardly a secret anymore, but it remains the ruin bar that defined an entire Budapest nightlife scene. The sprawling former residential building is filled with mismatched furniture, art, bars and seemingly endless little rooms. It can become extremely busy at night, so we actually prefer seeing it earlier in the day when you can properly take in just how unusual the space is.
