8 Delicious Goulash in Budapest

By Tas TóbiásLast updated: Oct. 9, 2025

Follow me

Hungary's most famous food, the goulash, is a crimson-hued beef soup layered with vegetables and imparting the sweet-sharp flavor of fresh paprika. The dish is named after the herdsmen in eastern Hungary – the gulyás – who prepared this hearty soup in large cast-iron pots. Few people cook it over open fire these days, but the goulash is still a beloved staple across households in Hungary. In restaurants, prices usually range €6-10 for a bowl.

#1 Gettó Gulyás

Gettó Gulyás is a cozy Hungarian restaurant inside Budapest's fashionable Jewish Quarter. The short menu features the heart of Hungarian cuisine, with many dishes imparting the sweet-sharp flavor of fresh paprika: goulash soup; Hortobágyi palacsinta; chicken, veal, catfish and mushroom paprikash; pörkölt with tarhonya. Pickled veggies (savanyúság) on the side, please.

During a recent meal with my parents, we also enjoyed the bone marrow with toast – the bread is sourced from the excellent arán bakery down the street on Wesselényi utca. The specialty of the house is the túrógombóc: pillowy cottage cheese dumplings buried in sour cream and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Hungarian wines are available for pairing.

"Gettó" refers to the Jewish ghetto which this neighborhood became during the winter of 1944; hence the Jewish-Hungarian dishes such as the “Jewish egg” spread which was traditionally an appetizer during Shabbat meals. Advance reservation is an absolute must; forget about scoring a same-day booking. After your meal, you could grab a drink at Szimpla Kert, the mother of all ruin bars just steps away in Kazinczy utca.

#2 Kiosk

When I'm asked to recommend a fashionable restaurant, something hot and buzzy but also excellent, I often direct people to Kiosk, which specializes in updated Hungarian dishes. Kiosk has remained popular for more than a decade now thanks to a combination of solid food, panoramic location, and not unreasonable price points (the restaurant is also known for its active charitable work of feeding the city's homeless).

Kiosk's outdoor patio overlooks the Danube, the Elisabeth Bridge, and the neighboring Gothic-Baroque church, while the inside has a dramatically high-ceilinged, industrial-chic interior – the former gym of the prestigious high school of the Piarist teaching order that still occupies the rest of this historical building.

Kiosk aims to please all tastes with a diverse menu but the focus is Hungarian food. I especially like the goulash soup; the truffle-infused creamy egg noodles in the chicken paprikash; the seasonal vegetable stew (főzelék) variations; the schnitzel; and the updated mákosguba, a traditional bread pudding dessert soaked in vanilla custard and laced with poppy seeds. The proximity of Babel, a Michelin-starred dining temple next door and run by the same owner, helps ensure that the dishes are on point. €12-16 mains, advance booking a must.

#3 Szaletly

Located a bit outside downtown, near the City Park, Szaletly is a casually elegant restaurant worth trekking out to (reachable in 15 minutes by public transport). At least if you are curious to experience what traditional Hungarian food in 2025 might mean. Overseen by head-chef Dániel Bernát, the whole menu is a celebration of dishes that people in Hungary are used to eating, but hardly what appears on most dining tables at home.

There's of course a bowl of goulash, but also the local fish soup (halászlé), foie gras, fogas (pike-perch), layered potatoes with Mangalica (rakott krumpli), schnitzel, and túrós palacsinta (túró-filled crepes). And Stefánia vagdalt: a “meatloaf” named after Stéphanie, the Habsburg Crown Princess of Austria (1864-1945), whose name is borne by the elegant street along which Szaletly is located. I recommend you not leave without a dessert order of somlói galuska or mákos guba, the latter a traditional poppy seeds bread pudding. Also here: a full wine list of Hungarian options and local craft beers by the bottle. €15-22 mains, reservations recommended.

#4 Menza Restaurant

Few locals would dispute the claim that during the past two decades, Menza has been one of Budapest's most reliably excellent restaurants. This perennially buzzing establishment along Liszt Ferenc tér in District 6 churns out traditional Hungarian dishes with a level of consistency that would make any Hungarian grandmother blush. As the night progresses, the music gets louder, the dining room dimmer, the vibes cooler.

I usually start with the meat broth soup (húsleves), followed by the tender pork schnitzel, or the hearty veal paprikash with egg dumplings. Menza's desserts are famously good, such as the poppy seeds-blanketed mákos guba, the somlói galuska, and the Kaiserschmarrn, the latter a Habsburg-era shredded pancake topped with apricot jam. Mains are €12-18. The service staff is among the best in Budapest – informed, kind, and efficient. Reservations are an absolute must.

#5 Stand25 Bistro

When in 2017 Szabina Szulló and Tamás Széll, the latter a European Bocuse d'Or winner and celebrity-chef in Hungary, announced they were leaving their Michelin-starred restaurant to venture out on their own, one didn’t need a business degree to predict success. The concept of Stand25 was to prove that traditional Hungarian fare can be more than the gut-busting, high-carb, greasy affair this country got used to during the Communist period (1948-1989) and well past that.

Indeed, the restaurant's success was immediate: a well-off local crowd fills Stand25's tables every day for lunch and dinner. Stand25 doesn’t so much reinterpret the classics as it elevates them. The paprika-hued goulash soup arrives with tender cubes of beef nicely crusted through the Maillard reaction. The sharp taste of the paprika is brightened with chopped celery roots, celery leaves, and hints of lemon peel.

The Jókai bean soup, the catfish paprikash, the wild boar stew and the other dishes receive similarly focused attention. Stand’s other claim to fame is the sweet noodle plates that people in Hungary – and the former Habsburg crown lands – eat after a hefty soup or as a dessert. I’m thinking of the túrógombóc, fresh curd cheese dumplings anointed with sour cream and cherry preserves; the diamond-shaped potato dumplings coated in butter and sugary ground walnuts (diós nudli); the rolled palacsinta (crépe) filled with an incredible hazelnut cream. Worth any sugar-induced guilt that might overcome you.

With €20-28 mains, Stand25 is very pricey, especially by local standards, which means the crowd leans corporate, although local families also appear (in 2018, the chef duo opened a fine dining temple on the Pest side, Stand, which boasts two Michelin stars). Stand25’s disciplined professionalism, which can be observed through the open kitchen, has set a new standard in Budapest and other places have since found inspiration in its approach to traditional fare and all-around hospitality.

#6 Kéhli Vendéglő

If you’re feeling nostalgic for or simply interested in visiting a restaurant with gypsy music – Romani musicians performing lighthearted traditional Hungarian melodies – head to Kéhli in Budapest. Located in Óbuda, the restaurant earned its fame as the haunt of Gyula Krúdy (1878-1933), a famous gourmet-writer who lived around the corner in what is now the Museum of Hospitality (with a wonderful collection, consider it a post-meal treat).

Kéhli serves all signature Hungarian dishes, from goulash to catfish paprikash with túrós csusza. Apart from the stuffed cabbage, the winner at my table turned out to be the Gundel palacsinta dessert: a thin crepe filled with ground and sweetened walnuts and dunked in chocolate cream (arriving in flames for visual flourish). Despite the restaurant's fame and steep price points (€15-22 mains), Kéhli is no tourist trap and most tables are filled by local Hungarians. Live music schedule: every evening plus Sunday lunchtime.

#7 Róma Ételbár

In 2020, following the retirement of the original owner, the legendary Cica, a young team decided to revive Róma Ételbár. Róma had been one of the last bastions of Budapest étkezdes: no-frills, affordable, lunch-only eateries once widespread in Hungary. Today, Róma’s dishes once again exclusively revolve around Hungarian classics and they are still pretty solid.

I can recommend the goulash soup, the liver dumpling soup, the goulash variations (pörkölt and paprikash), the layered cabbage, the rice pilaf (bácskai rizses hús), the schnitzels, and the the dessert specials such as the rice pudding (tejberízs) and the cottage cheese dumplings (túrógombóc). In line with étkezde standards, service is quick, the crowd diverse. For a post-meal drink with similar vibes, head to the nearby Bambi Eszpresszó.

#8 Gundel Restaurant

Restaurateur Károly Gundel remains the only person in Hungary to ever earn a profile in the New Yorker Magazine. In 1948, legendary reporter Joseph Wechsberg came to Budapest to feature the owner of Central Europe’s leading restaurant, which Gundel founded in 1910 and named for himself. “Gundel contributed more to the fame of Hungarian cooking than any other man and is ranked by connoisseurs all over the world in a class with Escoffier and Fernand Point,” reads the intro.

It’s a beautiful and heartbreaking story from the twilight years of Gundel, before the restaurant was nationalized and ruined by the Communist regime, forcing Károly Gundel to flee Hungary and die in poverty in 1956.

After the fall of Communism, the restaurant was revived in 1991 by the Hungarian-born American restaurateur, George Láng, and his billionaire business partner, Ronald Lauder. Hiring an army of interior designers, artists, and even an in-house historian, they spent a shocking $22 million on the restoration (Milton Glaser, who did the I love New York sign, designed the new Gundel logo). Soon, high profile guests were back, including Queen Elizabeth.

After Láng’s illness, Gundel changed hands and the restaurant struggled to live up to its reputation. It was seen as a pricey establishment for tourists, trafficking in nostalgia. In 2021, Eventrend, a large hospitality group also in charge of Budapest’s New York Cafe, took over the business to little fanfare.

It remains a commercial machine that capitalizes on the name – Gundel signs appear all over the fancy dishware. But the service is excellent and the dishes surprisingly delicious. Especially good are the Gundel-related classics, such as the palóc soup, the Kárpáti fogas, the Gundel pancake. With €16-22 mains, prices are similar to higher end restaurants in Budapest. It turns out Gundel is more than just a tourist bait!

I visit all places incognito and pay for my own meals and drinks. I rely in large part on readers to support my work. I'm grateful if you make a one-time payment (PayPal, Venmo, Revolut) or subscribe to my weekly newsletter in which I write about Budapest and Vienna.