We’ll start our gourmand tour of Hungarian flavours with the traditional Hungarian hospitality ritual of having a shot of pálinka accompanied by freshly made pogácsa (savoury scones) at Rákóczi tér 10, a typical Budapest grand-style apartment in a 19th century building like you can see all over Budapest. During this short ‘ceremony’ we’ll teach you HOW to drink pálinka and why it is so essential to our Hungarian lifestyle. You can also get some insight into what’s behind the facades of the buildings and how families live in this urban environment.

Following the pálinka ritual we invite you to visit to the nearby local market hall where you can see not only the whole range of traditional Hungarian products, but talk to the vendors and taste whatever appeals to you.

We’ll start or culinary tour at the Vecsés Pickles and taste the best of their wide range of pickled goods and explain why it is such an important part of the Hungarian diet. For example, after a shot of pálinka, it’s a must. Combined with this, we’ll visit Angéla’s sausage and Salami stand – she will offer you a selection of the best home-made Hungarian delicacies to taste.
We’ll continue our walk through the main hall and see the vegetable selection where we’ll explain why paprika (fresh and ground) is a staple of Hungarian cuisine. The meat stall is where you can see some items you’d never find in a western shop, and we’ll visit the small stalls of local vendors from the countryside who sell their own organic or bio products.

Passing the Lipót bakery you can see a wide range of bread and bakery products Hungarians are so addicted to, including the 5-kilo, round loaf round called the ‘peasant loaf.’

Our next tasting stop is the cheese stall of a family-run enterprise known all over the city. You can taste their best cheese products, a spoonful of real sour cream – one of the basic ingredients of Hungarian cooking that we miss so much when we are abroad.

Having left the dairy delicacies, we’ll enter the Best of Hungarian Lunch Menu Zone where locals have their full meal daily. After getting acquainted with traditional meals, we can skip the queue and head for the real thing: the best lángos in town by Krisztina, where you can see how it is made, and of course you will need to taste this hot, fresh deep-fried dough covered with a garlic, cheese and sour cream.

After leaving the market the next challenge is to try a bowl of super GOULASH soup at the nearby Rákóczi restaurant, named after its owner, Gyuri. Goulash has the reputation for being the symbol of Hungarian cuisine and so it’s become commercialised. Our firm stand is that Real Hungarian Goulash is available at Gyuri’s. We’ll tell you about the history of this staple meal and provide the recipe so that can make it for yourself when you get back home. We’ll also tell you about some typical meals including pork aspic and many other things that might sound weird to foreign ears.

Finally, dessert. Nothing is more amazing than a Hungarian dessert adored by foreigners: chestnut purée with cream. The best is available at the nearby Kristály Patisserie where we finish our gourmet tour with some chestnut purée or a cake of your choice, and a delicious cup of coffee.