16 Excellent Fine Dining Restaurants In Budapest

Babel is a Michelin-starred fine dining restaurant in the heart of Budapest. The hushed, casually elegant dining room has only a dozen tables, set with white linen and overlooking the neighboring Gothic cathedral bathed in soft light (the Danube is just a stone's throw away).

Swedish celebrity chef Daniel Berlin has fine-tuned the menu while the day-to-day kitchen duties are carried out by a quintet of local chefs under Kornél Kaszás. The 8 and the 12-course tasting menus draw inspiration from Austro-Hungarian cuisine but the kitchen chases purity of flavors rather than a complete loyalty to traditional dishes or ingredients (that flavor-bomb of guinea fowl broth!). From black caviar to truffles, exquisite foods abound and are prepared consistently well. The service staff is kind and competent – no matter how mundane or technical your question, they'll likely have answers for you.

The 12-course menu runs €180 per person or €270 with pairing, either with Hungarian wines or a selection featuring craft vermouth, local beers, Normandy cider, and an idiosyncratic Tokaj szamorodni. Babel is currently the priciest of Budapest's Michelin-starred restaurants, but also one that offers an all-around, two-star experience (despite having only one Michelin star currently).

You wouldn't guess that a truly excellent fine dining restaurant hides in a dim backstreet of Budapest's District 7, just blocks from the heart of the party district. The vibes here are casually elegant: cushy modern furnishings, bare wooden tables, soft electronic music. The sleek below-ground kitchen sends out beautiful plates inspired by the traditions of Hungarian food, with twists and turns of course.

Aged Mangalica ham, stuffed cabbage, pure-tasting catfish with farmer's cottage cheese (túró), maroon paprika sauces reduced to earthy richness, homemade plum preserves. The list goes on. Most memorable is the brown-hued consommé, packing pockets of flavorful dumplings and evoking the celebratory Sunday family meals across households in Hungary.

The six-course tasting menu runs €125, or €195 with wine pairing. Apart from a delicious grower Champagne, the wines feature Hungarian producers from Somló, Balaton, Villány, and of course the Tokaj region (both dry and sweet). Laurel's service team is among the best in Budapest – alert, knowledgeable, but unobtrusive.

Borkonyha is a Michelin-starred restaurant in Budapest's downtown. Instead of a special emphasis on Hungarian food, the dishes here wouldn't seem out of place in fine dining restaurants around the world. Borkonyha's secret lies in its technical expertise: they serve up colorful, visually impressive plates that verge on the artistic. What does lend a local angle are the more than 200 types of Hungarian wines skillfully selected by Wine Director Krisztián Juhász.

The foie gras anointed with Tokaj aszú is Borkonyha's signature dish, on the menu since the 2010 opening. The luscious duck liver boasts a creamy texture and a paper-thin, crackly crust. The mains are a collection of prized meats beautifully plated with seasonal vegetables. Think rack of lamb, Mangalica pork, and wagyu beef.

With €30-40 mains, Borkonyha is among the most expensive restaurants in Budapest, but one with a relatively laid-back, bistro-like atmosphere. Advance reservation is a must.

Stand Restaurant is the fine dining project of local celebrity chef-duo, Szabina Szulló and Tamás Széll, and follows the success of Stand25, their acclaimed restaurant on the Buda side of the city. Here too, their success was almost immediate: accolades quickly poured in, and the restaurant won two Michelin stars in 2022, within a few years of opening.

It's the updated Hungarian classics that stand out from the eight-course tasting menu. It may be a fish soup, a traditional peasant fare in Danubian towns, served in a paprika-laced broth and drizzled with tortellini-like envelopes stuffed with smoked carp. The prettiest dish is the sterlet, a small species of sturgeon. The delicately rolled-up fish is topped with roe and drenched in a luscious clam sauce. You can observe the meticulous prep work that goes into these elaborate plates through the open kitchen where an army of cooks scuttle about.

The eight-course dinner tasting menu will set you back by €200 per person (€300 if you opt for wine pairing). The wine program, overseen by head-sommelier János Gervai, a winemaker himself, features bottles from the major wine regions of Hungary.

If you think the restaurant fashion of all things foraged, pickled, and fermented has run its course, think again. Currently, one of the most popular restaurants among Hungarian diners is Salt, a downtown establishment that plays so skillfully from the Noma playbook that it even earned a star from Michelin in 2021.

Bright flavors are the throughline of Chef Szilárd Tóth's 15-course dinner tasting menu, which costs €170 per person (€260 with wine pairing). Some of the ingredients are truly remarkable, such as the deeply flavorful aged mangalica ham and the koji-fermented barley crepe, which serves as a vessel for a tender goat meat tartar. But as I ate my way through the beautifully composed bite-sized courses adorned with rare flowers and herbs sourced by the kitchen staff, I felt wishing for more rounded flavors and buttery richness. And a bit more food. It's a tired cliche that fine dining meals leave one hungry, but I did toss a slice of bread in the toaster at home.

The wine list features both top Hungarian producers like Oremus, and Sauska, and also less-known family winemakers such as Szóló that specialize in natural wines. The service team is friendly and informed.

Essência is the project of the Portuguese-Hungarian husband and wife duo, Tiago and Éva Sabarigo. Before venturing out on their own, Tiago was head chef at another Michelin decorated establishment, Costes Downtown, while Éva came from the hospitality industry. Essência is a casual fine dining restaurant: the high-ceilinged hall features exposed brick walls, plush mid-century modern furniture, and bare wooden tables.

The five or seven-course tasting menu is called “May 17th,” their daughter’s birthdate, and features Hungarian and Portuguese dishes. Highlights include the creamy foie gras, a traditional produce of Hungary, the grilled octopus with beluga lentils, and the tender mangalica heritage pork with a paprika sauce and a side of Portuguese bread salad. The seven-course tasting menu costs €130 per person (€200 with wine pairing). As with the food, the wines are sourced from Hungarian and Portuguese producers.

Tiago Sabarigo is a skilled chef who puts out eye-pleasing dishes, but there's room for creativity when it comes to assembling the menu; for example, by replacing some of the cliched fine dining staples with more exciting ingredients from Hungary or Portugal.

Tucked away on a steep side street within the Castle Hill lies one of Budapest's iconic, special-occasion restaurants: Arany Kaviár. As with any self-respecting establishment that specializes in caviar, the dining room is furnished with opulent maroon and golden tapestry.

Fish is normally an afterthought in Budapest restaurants because Hungary is a landlocked country and many freshwater species are endangered and hence banned from fishing. Arany Kaviár sources its produce from a Hungarian fish farm populated with species that were once common in the local rivers, such as various sturgeons. In addition to a few fancy beef, lamb, and venison, fish and caviar comprise the la carte list (mains are €30-40).

Be sure to come with a full wallet if you're also eyeing the caviars. Entry level chum salmon sells for €20 (30 grams), and prices quickly reach triple-digit territory, topping out at €300 for the DeLuxe selection (50 grams), which includes ossetra and Iranian beluga.

St. Andrea is an upscale restaurant near Budapest's city center, occupying the ground floor of Eiffel Palace, a luxury office building. At lunchtime, most customers are senior executives from upstairs, discussing important matters over the three-course "business lunch" prix fixe. In the evenings, St. Andrea acquires a more typical fine dining atmosphere with dishes to match.

The rotating menu doesn't shy away from showcasing traditional Hungarian dishes through a fine dining prism, such as an updated chicken paprikash, pörkölt (beef stew), and somlói galuska (a wonderful chocolatey sponge-cake). An à la carte and a tasting menu option are both available, the latter for €110 including the wine pairing, while mains are €18-35. St. Andrea's ownership overlaps with that of St. Andrea winery in Eger, one of Hungary's prominent wine estates, meaning that the wine list is heavy on their own wines. Closed on the weekend!

Located in the heart of downtown Budapest, Textúra is the sister restaurant of Borkonyha, the Michelin-decorated establishment across the street from it. At Textúra, too, you can experience executive chef Ákos Sárközi's brand of technically precise cooking. Rather than piling the menu with updated Hungarian classics as many Budapest fine dining restaurants do, Textúra relegates the local staples to a supporting role. How come?

Sárközy is a local celebrity chef and most customers consist of his fans, for whom faraway dishes hold more appeal than yet another bowl of goulash, no matter how good. The best of what I've had was a lightly grilled octopus appetizer paired with tender blood sausage dumplings and a quince soup lightly spiked with chilis and drizzled with scallops. Not all dishes are hits, but they all impress visually – you'll do well to have your Instagram open. Mains are €25-30. The wine program, overseen by head-sommelier Krisztián Juhász, covers all wine regions of Hungary.

MÁK Bistro is a casual fine dining restaurant in Budapest finding inspiration in New Nordic cuisine. Accordingly, head chef János Mizsei, who trained in Denmark and Sweden, serves up bright-tasting and long-fermented flavors from seemingly everyday ingredients. The dishes are heavy on vegetables and fish, both of them prepared in light sauces. The interior shows obvious Scandinavian inspirations: the bare, exposed brick dining rooms have sleek wooden tables stripped of tablecloths.

Mizsei is known to go out of his way to scout for unlikely suppliers, like a farmer who collects birch sap in a Hungarian village. Don't go searching for goulash soup here: MÁK eschews the paprika-laced local classics. Several kinds of tasting menus are available, both vegetarian and meat-based, ranging in price from €100 to €150 per person without wine pairing.

Thanks to the late Hungarian film producer, Andy Vajna, who harbored top Hollywood connections, Budapest is home to a Nobu, the world’s fanciest chain restaurant (Robert De Niro is an owner of the parent company). This upscale Japanese-Peruvian establishment is located inside the dim ground floor of the five-star Kempinski hotel smack in the middle of Budapest's downtown.

If you're familiar with Nobu restaurants elsewhere in the world, rest assured that in Budapest, too, you'll will find all of Mr. Matsuhisa’s signature dishes: miso-marinated black cod, squid “pasta," tiradito, and rock-shrimp tempura. If you can get over how much they cost, they're a real treat. Consistent with Nobu's elite status, the restaurant often serves as a meeting place for high-profile Hungarian politicians and businessmen.

In 2010, Costes Ráday was the first restaurant in Hungary to earn a Michelin star. Since then, many chefs have come and gone, and many fine dining places have sprouted in Budapest. Costes's current conceit is a hard-to-define collection of seven courses inspired by the techniques of French fine dining traditions. Some are very tasty, such as the slices of celery root molded in the shape of a ravioli and filled with a flavorful spread of stracciatella cheese and smoked eggplant. Or the soft beef tongue with a playful side of sliced pear, creamy parsnip, and hazelnuts.

Still, on recent visits I felt that more than a dozen years after its opening, Costes is due for a revamp, both its austere interior and unfocused culinary direction. Fine dining has evolved in ways that Costes has not (for example in having service teams that are more casual but better informed than had been in the past). Note that Costes Ráday has a sister location in downtown (Costes Downtown), also fine dining, but with a more casual air.

Fausto’s Ristorante, which opened in 1994, is a classic fine dining restaurant in Budapest with a hat-tip to northern Italian fare. Forget pizza and Caprese salad; here scallops, foie gras, flatfish, and venison loin are the gastronomic currency. A couple of egg pasta and risotto are also available, made with deliciously rich sauces. The decor is traditional fine dining: soft background music drifts from the background of the dim dining room, which has only a dozen tables, all set with crisp linen tablecloths.

Under the vigilant eyes of owner Fausto Di Vora, always dressed in a chef's coat, an army of waiters quietly scurry around the tables that tend to fill up on Friday and Saturday evenings with well-heeled tourists and local businesspeople. Instead of a tasting menu, most people opt for à la carte whose mains are €28-35. The wine list is deep with both Italian and Hungarian options.