Before we arrived in Budapest, we hadn’t really made much of a plan for eating and drinking. We had three full days in the city and we knew that we wanted to try out some traditional Hungarian food. Luckily, over the three days I think we definitely managed to find the best food and drink spots in Budapest.

What is Budapest and Hungary famous for?

If you’ve ever been to Budapest, then you will have noticed how much paprika is in the souvenir shops. When I went last year, I was a bit confused as I hadn’t really done a lot of research on the city or country. However, this time around I knew that paprika is the symbol of the Hungarian cuisine.

Budapest itself is famous for its ruin bars. These bars can be found in the city’s seventh district and were typically founded in abandoned buildings. While we were there, we visited two of them.

The best food and drink spots in Budapest

Mr Funk

The one place that I knew that I wanted to visit was Mr Funk’s. I had seen these colourful doughnuts on Instagram last year and knew I had to go. Mr Funk’s is just off Szabadság tér (Liberty Square) and not far from St Stephen’s Basilica. They offer a wide selection of doughnuts and sandwiches.

I went for a pistachio donut and an iced coffee, while Leigh had a bacon bagel. The cost of my doughnut and coffee was only 1,600 HUF which is about £4.40. I enjoyed the coffee but the doughnut was a bit too sweet for my taste, I think the cream may have been white chocolate flavour which I’m not a fan of. I also managed to pick the most boring looking one available!

Kék Rózsa (Blue Rose)

After our walking tour, we had a list of a local’s opinion of the best food and drink spots in Budapest. We both wanted to get dinner somewhere that was a traditional Hungarian restaurant and only served Hungarian cuisine. After looking at Zoltan’s recommendations, we decided to go for Kék Rózsa which is in the Jewish district.

If we had just been walking past, we never would have given Blue Rose a second glance. The exterior is very plain and uninteresting, which is great because we weren’t looking for a typical tourist trap. There were five tables downstairs and when we arrived, there was a group of English men seated at another table. We think that they had probably been on one of the earlier tours.

I had the ‘Fried pork chop in Piquant style’ which was pork chop with mustard, garlic, hot paprika and cheese. This was served with chips and cost a grand total of 1,500 HUF (approximately £4.14) .Leigh had the Beef Goulash which was served with potatoes and garlic costing 2,500 HUF (approximately £6.90).

We both really enjoyed our meals, Leigh polished his off while I struggled with mine as it was a really big portion. I would definitely recommend Blue Rose if you are looking for traditional Hungarian cuisine.

Cat Café Budapest

On my last visit to Budapest, I spent a couple of hours in a cat café. As we are both cat lovers, Leigh and I decided to find the cat café so we could have a drink and enjoy some feline company. The cat café that Google Maps led me to was not the one that I had been to before. It turns out that that one has closed and this new one is now the only one in the city.

We spent around an hour in there with the cats and enjoying being out of the heat. We didn’t eat there, just had cokes which were around 800 HUF (approximately £2.20). It was a nice chilled out atmosphere, there was no welfare charge and no time limits. We could have spent a lot longer there if we hadn’t had plans.

Pizza Me

These little pizza joints were dotted all over the city. We popped into on on our way back from the cat café, just for a bite to eat. Here, you can order pizza by the slice which makes for a great snack. All of the pizza is cooked and ready to serve, so it’s a great place to get a quick snack if you are in a rush.

We went for two slices of pepperoni pizza and a can of Pepsi and it came to 1,550 HUF which is around £4.28. It’s not the fanciest food and drink spot in Budapest, but it’s cheap and cheerful. I’d say going in there is a bit like popping into Greggs for a pasty when you’re in town.

Retró Lángos Büfe

While we were on our free walking tour of Budapest, our tour guide Zoltán told us all about Lángos. Lángos are a typical Hungarian cuisine and they consist of a piece of flattened, fried dough topped with garlic, sour cream and cheese. There were a lot of places selling Langos, however we decided to go for the one that was recommended to us.

It turns out that this was just a street-food style van at the side of a road next to one of the metro stations. It is somewhere that we would have overlooked had we just walked past it. They had a very extensive menu and I wasn’t sure what to choose. In the end, I went for one which had dill and ewe’s cheese on top. Leigh went for the Rustic which had sour cream, cheese, sausage and red onion on. These were both 1,000 HUF each (around £2.75).

Both of the Lángos were delicious, however they were quite hard to eat. It would have been a lot better (and less messy) if we were able to eat them at a table. We ended up perching on a window ledge outside a bank trying to eat them whilst fighting off pigeons.

Szimpla Kert – Ruin Bar

If you ask anyone for recommendations of the best food and drink spots in Budapest, they’re going to tell you to go to a ruin bar. Ruin bars are a big hit with the tourists, however the locals tend to avoid the larger ones. The biggest and most famous ruin bar is Szimpla Kert which is located inside an old, disused factory in the Jewish Quarter. It was the first ruin bar to open in 2002 and is very popular today. When I was looking for recommendations for Budapest, Szimpla Kert was suggested by a lot of different people.

We had a couple of drinks in there while we explored the many different rooms and quirky nooks and crannies. There was even a live band playing on the ground floor, a cd vending machine and a souvenir shop. A round of drinks cost 2,020 HUF (around £5.50). Leigh had a cider and I had a glass of Beary’s Hard Juice, which is fermented fruit juices with a 15% alcohol content.

Ellátó Kert – Ruin Bar

The second ruin bar that we went to was Ellátó Kert. Just a short walk away from Szimpla Kert, Ellátó Kert is housed in an old meat processing facility. There are football tables to play on, mismatched furniture and different lamps hanging from the ceiling.

This one was a lot quieter than Szimpla Kert, with less tourists, but it still had a great atmosphere. A round of drinks (a cider and a Jack Daniels and coke) cost around £5. They were also serving Mexican food here, which we would have tried if we hadn’t already eaten. Even the toilets are really eccentric and covered in graffiti. I found an ode to Wolverhampton Wanderers FC (my local team) in one of the cubicles. It’s also dog friendly, which gets a thumbs up from me!

Rumpus Tiki Bar

Although we enjoyed both of the ruin bars that we went to, we wanted to go somewhere fun for drinks. We found the Rumpus Tiki Bar when we were wandering around during the day. So we went back on our third night when it was open. It is not too far away from Szimpla Kert.

Nestled in the heart of the Budapest’s Jewish Quarter alongside the ruin bars, Rumpus is the perfect place to go for cocktails. Especially if you are after something out of the ordinary. If you are bored of the ruin bars and want something a bit more exciting, then Rumpus is the place for you.

The bar was quite busy when we arrived at around 10pm. We were shown to a table and given one of their extensive menus to browse. The whole bar is decorated like a tropical island beach hut. It is like you’ve left Europe behind. With tiki masks, palm tree decorations and the odd skeleton, there’s so much to look at. The lights are dimmed and the atmosphere in there is perfect after the lively ruin bars.

Drinks in Rumpus are on the pricier side for Budapest due to this being a themed bar. However it is definitely worth spending a little extra for the cocktails. We both had two cocktails each. I had a Bahama Mama and a Funky Monkey which were 1,950 HUF (around £5.40) and 1,550 HUF (around £4.28) respectively. As you can see, this is still a lot less than you would expect to pay in the UK.

Our favourite foods in Budapest

Despite not planning where we went, I think we definitely found the best food and drink spots in Budapest. Next time I visit the city I will definitely be trying lángos again and some more Hungarian food. I’m a big fan of spicy food and paprika so it’s no surprise that I love the Hungarian cuisine. We were both really impressed with the prices of food and drink in the city. Budapest is a great place to go if you are on a budget. Obviously there are the more expensive chain restaurants, but if you know where to look you can get by on £20-£30 a day each on food and drink. There are also a few bars that we didn’t have time to go to.

Have you been to Budapest before? Where would you recommend?