3 Jewish-Hungarian Restaurants in Budapest

By Tas TóbiásLast updated: Aug. 16, 2025

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Just a hundred years ago, more than twenty percent of Budapest’s residents were Jewish; today, still, 100,000 or so Jewish people live in the city but kosher restaurants are few because hardly any Jewish-Hungarian person keeps kosher. There do exist, though, several Jewish-style establishments that serve Hungarian-inflected Ashkenazi favorites such as cholent, matzo ball soup, and flódni.

#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 Buja Disznó(k) (Buda)

For lunch, I often head to Buja Disznók, a fast casual restaurant on the main deck of the Fény utca market in Buda. The place is known for its delicious offal dishes and schnitzel. Within ten minutes of ordering, I might be chowing down on sour lungs with bread dumplings (beuschel, their signature), tender morsels of roasted pork liver, or crunchy fried duck liver. Pickled veggies on the side, thank you. Friday’s lunch special is cholent and flódni (the latter a wonderful Jewish-Hungarian layered cake).

Buja Disznók, which is overseen by the well-known chef Lajos Bíró, has several locations across the city; the upside of this one is that after your meal, you could dart across Fény utca and continue to celebrate the culinary pleasures of life with a Dobos torte or a krémes at Auguszt, an iconic Budapest pastry shop.

#3 Rosenstein Restaurant

Rosenstein is a well-known Budapest restaurant serving traditional Hungarian and Hungarian-Jewish dishes. It was in 1996 that Tibor Rosenstein, over eighty now, started this family-run operation which is located a bit outside the city center and currently helmed by his son, Róbert (at lunchtime, he can be seen making the rounds through the tables).

Most of the long menu is a hat-tip to Hungarian fare: from goulash soup to beef stew (pörkölt) to paprikash to stuffed cabbage – traditional foods that have changed little over the generations. Not everything is a hit, but most dishes are reliably tasty. The catfish paprikash is a standout, arriving sprinkled with crispy bits of pork fat (Rosenstein isn’t kosher). The veal schnitzel is also delicious and could rival those in Vienna.

Of the Jewish-Hungarian dishes, Friday is dedicated to cholent, the signature sabbath dish of slow-cooked beans and pearl barley topped with brisket. Don't plan on doing much else the rest of the day after this hearty meal. Also here: Judit Vámos's flódni, a traditional Purim cake. With €15-25 mains, Rosenstein is rather pricey by local standards.

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