Visitors to Budapest often fall in love. With the grandeur of the Castle, the elegance of the Parliament, the majesty of the broad Danube flowing through the heart of the city. Visitors tend to return here, and even set down roots, drawn by the chance to enjoy the city’s splendor, and its contrasts – Buda and Pest, social-realist and Art Nouveau, renovations and ruins, tree-lined boulevards and traffic jams.
One of the city’s paradoxes, born of its efforts to modernize in record time after the fall of communism, is that quality Hungarian cuisine can be difficult to find, as the local specialties are eclipsed by new restaurants with glittering chandeliers or minimalist black leather décor, offering the latest in culinary artistry.
The latter is all well and good, but some, like the owners of Tigris Restaurant in the heart of downtown, are determined to restore Hungarian gastronomy to its former glory. Not in the red-checked-tablecloth, steaming-goulash-pot-served-with-a-generous-helping-of-gypsy-music sense, but with a genteel elegance that Hungarians were accustomed to in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Hence Tigris Restaurant, named after the erstwhile Tigris Hotel, which became a prestigious address soon after the Classicist building was completed in 1840. The restaurant has been meticulously renovated to reflect its history. Upon entering, guests are greeted by a friendly face behind the stunning, but understated, curved oak bar counter. The high-ceilinged space, with its wide windows along the street front, reflects the golden age of turn-of-the-century Budapest, without pretense.
Hungarian cuisine and history are accompanied by a third pillar of the restaurant – excellent wines. Tigris Restaurant showcases wines from Attila Gere of Villány, one of the pioneers of the quality-oriented modern era in Hungarian winemaking. Tigris also offers a full range of wines from other top-notch Hungarian cellars, all classified in the wine list, along with the Gere wines, in a way that helps guests choose the best wine to accompany their meal.
Tigris also offers many wines in a number of vintages, giving guests, for example, the opportunity to taste Gere’s famous Kopár wines from four different years – an experience not easily found elsewhere. Its wines, all Hungarian, needless to say, are kept in a specially designed temperature-controlled space visible to guests, while the champagnes, all French, are kept in a colder cooler opposite.
My dining companion and I were treated to crawfish with tiny shrimp in a piquant sauce of white wine and garlic, with a hint of lemon. It was the local version of lobster, a modest river crustacean that, in terms of taste, holds its own against the big guys.
For my main dish, I chose catfish in paprika sauce, which is normally a thick stew, served with cottage cheese noodles. At Tigris, it was an elegant tower of pasta interspersed with ricotta, surrounded by a modest portion of tangy but smooth paprika sauce; the delicate rolls of catfish with fresh dill were tucked inside set at intervals into the sauce, meaning that the sauce was an accompaniment, rather than something which overwhelmed the fish.
My dining companion chose the roast duck and foie gras, paired with potato strudel and sautéed purple cabbage. It’s another classic dish, here elegantly prepared and presented, with florets of puréed purple cabbage accenting the strudel. Each dish is served on Zsolnay porcelain, the Hungarian manufacturers also known for the tiles that top the Art Nouveau-style Museum of Applied Arts.
We will certainly return to this new incarnation of classic Budapest – finally, a restaurant that brings the visitor back to the golden age of this city and this country, and renews and enhances its rich culinary and vinicultural tradition.
Adri Bruckner
From the menu:
Starter:
Crawfish in Spicy Garlic White Wine Sauce
Main Course:
Roast Duck and Foie Gras with Potato Strudel and Cabbage Duo
Catfish in Paprika Sauce Served with Home Made Pasta
Dessert:
Royal Aszú Essence with Ricotta Pudding and Homemade Peach Jam
Somló Sponge Cake with Chocolate Topping
Tigris Restaurant
1051 Budapest, Mérleg utca 10.
Tel.:
+36.1.317.3715