The 15 Best Chinese Restaurants in Budapest

It’s usually a good sign when a Chinese restaurant is buried deep within Chinatown and this is exactly the case with Spicy Fish, one of the top Chinese restaurants in Budapest — to get to it, you'll need to journey out to Monori Center, a 15-minute cab ride from downtown. Spicy Fish's menu features dishes from all parts of China, but especially prominent are seafood and the hot plates from Sichuan (the head chef is from there).

There exist many theories why it was China's Sichuan Province of all places where chili peppers have reached an absurd level of intensity. Whatever the reason, Sichuan food has become synonymous with spicy and mouth-numbing flavors thanks to the generous use of chilis and Sichuan peppercorns. In Budapest, if you don't feel like trekking out to the city's Chinatown, Hange Restaurant will satisfy your cravings for red pepper-laden dishes. Hange too is a bit outside downtown, occupying the ground floor of a modern office building in District 9.

Wenzhou-born owner of Milky Way Seafood Restaurant knows a thing or two about crustaceans. Not only because any self-respecting man from this seaside Chinese city can make a decent fish soup, but also because he worked at a fish market for 15 years before venturing into the restaurant business. Accordingly, Milky Way specializes in what he knows best: whole steamed lobsters, crabs, tiger prawns, shrimps, and carps. The restaurant cooks live animals and uses little seasoning to let the ingredients speak for themselves.

Wang Mester Kínai Konyhája is a Sichuan restaurants in the residential Zugló neighborhood, a bit outside the city center. The Chinese owner, Wang Qiang, was among the first restaurateurs in the early '90s to introduce unadjusted Chinese food to Budapest locals. He is also a savvy businessman and self-promoter who adopted "Maestro" as his stage name, earning him more legitimacy than any stellar resume could — to this day, his name is synonymous with top Chinese food in Budapest.

Taiwan, which opened in 1991, was one of the first Chinese restaurants in Budapest to serve unadultered Chinese food and nearly three decades hence it's still going strong. Since most customers here are Hungarians, the dishes are slightly adjusted to local tastes but not distractingly so.

Budapest’s Chinatown (Monori Center) isn’t the most fashionable place, after all, who gets excited about decor-deprived rows of warehouses far outside the city center? The obvious answer: fans of Chinese food. Shandong Restaurant is located on a particularly rundown section, but I urge you not to turn your back on it. Similar to HeHe, this unpretentious space serves up some of the best Chinese fare in Budapest.

There's consensus within the local Chinese community that Dabao Jiaozi is the place to head to for home-style dumplings in Budapest — quite a statement in a city with more than 30,000 Chinese people. Dabao makes Shandong-style dumplings, which means the wrappers are a bit thicker and chewier. There's only two versions; both with a base filling of ground pork and shrimp, one packing napa cabbage, the other shredded Chinese chives. I'm slightly in favor of the chive-version, but there isn't much of a flavor difference and they're both very good.

In case you've never been to a Chinese restaurant designed as a hunting lodge, here is your chance. Momotaro's former occupant decorated the space with taxidermy and animal antlers and the current owner seems to find it a fitting theme to accent their Chinese cuisine as well. Momotaro is among the top-tier Chinese restaurants in Budapest, serving traditional pan-Chinese dishes with a focus on dim sums.

Mandarin Grill and Hotpot is a DIY Chinese restaurant in Budapest's Chinatown (Monori Center). The restaurant specializes in the food of Dongbei, a region in northeastern China, reflecting Chinese, Mongolian, and Russian influences and a cold climate. The restaurant is split into two: the right-hand side booths are for hot potting, the left section is for self-made barbecue.

Aranytál restaurant fuses two contemporary Chinese food trends: spicy food and hot potting. The restaurant draws inspiration from the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing, known as the birthplace of spicy hotpot, the communal cooking experience where people sit around a boiling broth and cook for themselves an array of meats and vegetables. Daohuaxiang is a 10-minute cab ride away from Budapest's city center, located on the ground floor of an drab, oversized dining room.

If you like Chinese pancake and are curious about an offbeat part of the city, head to this tiny takeout shop buried deep within the Kőbányai Piac, one of Budapest’s two Chinatowns. Known as jianbing and originating in northern China, these savory crepes are a beloved street food across China. Here, a Chinese lady will help you customize your order and freshly prepare it on a cast iron griddle before you. Many versions exist but eggs, fried crackers, hoisin sauce, and a drizzle of cilantro and scallions are standard ingredients. I also like to add pork floss and sausage for a protein boost. The result is a crispy bundle of flavor bomb (eat it while it's hot).

Happy Panda is a takeout shop a bit outside the city center specializing in jianbing, a popular northern Chinese savory crêpe. Usually eaten for breakfast, it's packing sweet bean paste, meat, a fried cracker, scallion, cilantro, and a scrambled egg. It's cheap, filling, and tasty. Happy Panda offers five versions, including a vegetarian, all of them made to order on a cast-iron griddle before you. There's also dumplings, a couple of soups, and noodle dishes, but you're here for the jianbing. Happy Panda can get a little overwhelmed during peak lunch hours, but the owner-couple does its best to get to your order quickly.

For a communal dining experience in Budapest, consider visiting Wang Fu (Mimóza), a long-standing Chinese hot pot restaurant a bit outside the city center. First, you'll need to choose the ingredients from two oversized fridges located by the entrance and containing a countless variety of raw meats and vegetables. In the meantime, servers will prepare the cooking broths at your table. The fun begins when you start dipping the ingredients into the hot liquid for anywhere from a few seconds (raw beef) to several minutes (noodles).