6 of My Favorite Japanese Restaurants In Budapest

Komachi is an unfussy Japanese restaurant in Budapest's old Jewish Quarter specializing in everyday dishes. For a Central Europe-based restaurant, there's a refreshingly wide range of Japanese foods here including ramen, tonkatsu, curry, karaage, and donburi. The ramens are available with three types of broths and come with springy noodles and slow-cooked pork shoulder. The karaage, bits of deep-fried chicken thigh, is crunchy on the outside, delicate on the inside; just like one would find at a Tokyo street vendor. The only letdown is the unremarkable curry.

Japanese beers (Sapporo, Kirin Ichiban, Asahi) and a couple of sakes are also served. Prices are reasonable, although portions are on the small side. Komachi is popular among employees of the local Japanese embassy and most nights at least half of the customers are Asian. Note that the kitchen closes at 9 p.m.

Don't be fooled by the puritan, below-ground space, Ennmann is one of the top Japanese restaurants in Budapest specializing in seafood: besides chirashi, sashimi, and regular sushi (nigiri and maki), they serve a host of maki variations. The shrimp tempura, the rice bowl topped with eggs, onions, and sliced pork cutlet (katsudon), and the yakisoba buckwheat noodles are also good.

Ennmann is located on a beautiful stretch of the Danube's bank, which makes it all the more frustrating that the dining space is subterranean (there's a stunning view of the Hungarian Parliament as you ascend to the street level). Prices, similar to comparable Japanese restaurants, are on the higher end by local standards. Japanese sake and beers are available.

There is something adorable about the fact that one of Budapest’s top sushi restaurants is buried in the basement of a strip mall, doesn’t have a functional Facebook page, and its website looks as if it hasn’t been updated in two decades. Sachi Okuyama, the owner and sushi chef, ran a sushi restaurant inside the Hilton Budapest before venturing out on his own in 2001.

His signature offering is the oversized nigiri sushis, where fresh pieces of salmon, tuna, prawn, sea bass, mackerel, or some other fish sit atop warm and deliciously vinegared mounds of rice. I also love the asari tsukudani, gummy bites of pickled clams seasoned in a rich soy and mirin-based sauce, and the slightly sweet Japanese rolled omelet (tamagoyaki), which is otherwise rarely seen in Budapest. A positively idiosyncratic experience.

Helmed by professional Japanese sushi chef, Yoshihito Hirose, Kicsi Japán is a small Japanese restaurant in an unlikely location: Corvin negyed, a not especially charming part of Budapest facing the highway-like traffic of Üllői út. Treasures of the ocean are the specialty here, featuring maki and nigiri sushi, chirashi bowls, and sashimi. Other Japanese dishes such as rice-bowls (donburi) and fried chicken (karaage) are also available, but they're less convincing than the wonderful sushi. They recently opened "Kicsi Japán Dining," a bigger location on Szent István körút.

Most Japanese restaurants in Budapest specialize in sushi even though local Hungarian tastes and wallets are more compatible with everyday Japanese dishes. Perhaps this is what the Watanabes, a young couple from Tokyo, had in mind when in 2018 they opened Don Doko Don, Budapest’s first donburi restaurant in the city center. It's a small, counter-service space with a few tables upstairs.

Donburis are rice bowls topped with meat, vegetables, and a soy-based sweet and savory broth. In Japan, they're a popular midday meal for busy office workers and also a common hangover cure. Don Doko Don serves gyudon, which is the classic beef bowl with onions; if you kindly request "tsuyudaku," they'll add some extra broth. There's a rotating menu with other options and you can pair your dons with a miso or tonjiro soup. Prices are wallet-friendly as many students lunch here from the neighboring universities.

Japan Okonomiyaki Kincsán is a teeny-tiny restaurant in Budapest's city center specializing in, you guessed it, okonomiyaki, the delicious Japanese savory pancakes. Okonomiyaki is a street food made from grilled cabbage, eggs, and a host of other ingredients packed into a wheat flour-based batter. Just like in Japan, they prepare your order on an electric griddle before you.

The modern version, which reflects the preparation popular in Hiroshima, layers pieces of pork loin, ramen noodles, soy bean sprouts, and arrives cloaked in a tangy brown sauce. Instead of layering, the classic Kansai variety mixes all ingredients together and also includes yam and a lattice-patterned mayo topping. A vegetarian option with tofu is also available. You could and should order either of them with bonito flakes.