Official Review

Written by RuinMyTrip Editorial from published research and official sources, not from a personal trip. It is not a traveler review and is never counted in the community rating. How we research.

restaurant · Budapest

Fifteen Thousand Seven Hundred Forint for Dinner Next to the Zoo

Review of Gundel

★★★★☆ 4/5
by RuinMyTrip Editorial · Aug 16, 2026

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Gundel serves a two-course dinner at 15,700 forint, with a wine pairing at an extra 7,000. Lunch runs 11:30 to 18:00 and dinner every day 18:00 to 22:00, with Sunday lunch from 11:30 to 16:00. It opened in 1894 beside the City Park and spent the twentieth century as the restaurant Hungary showed off to visitors, which is both its appeal and its problem. The dining room is enormous, formal and hung with paintings, and the service is old-school to a degree that has essentially vanished elsewhere in the city. The Gundel palacsinta, a walnut and chocolate pancake invented here, is on every dessert menu in Hungary. This is where it comes from.

What was great

A grand nineteenth-century dining room still working as one. The original Gundel pancake. Two courses for 15,700 forint, which for this room is less than it sounds. Next to the Szechenyi baths and the zoo.

What nearly ruined the trip

Formality that can tip into stiffness. It trades heavily on its own history. The City Park location means a metro ride from the centre, and the immediate surroundings are park rather than city.

Value for money

★★★★☆ Good value

Safety

★★★★★ Felt safe
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