On the Buda side of the city near Krisztina Square, on a neat little street right next to Szilágyi Erzsébet High School, we find a recently opened café that’s just as homey as it is oddly named. With its superb breakfasts, wide selection of coffees, and friendly service, Rojt és Bojt became a neighborhood favorite faster than you could say “rojt” or “bojt” – which is exactly what the owners, Orsi and Gyula, had in mind.

They’ve been so many places, they’ve seen so many faces, but nothing compared to the street they love to live on, so after a year of enduring a daily commute of 50-60 kilometers, Orsi and Gyula finally decided to bring their work closer to home, and opened their café literally next door. Gyula says that Orsi’s intuition led them to the café’s location – which they lovingly refer to as “our coffee snug”...

and they’re spot on with that description; Rojt és Bojt does have a homey feel to it.

Before Orsi and Gyula came here, the place used to be an antiques shop which was evidently on the decline, so convincing the owner to lease the premises was as easy as 1, 2, 3 for the Jackson 5. Based on how it looks right now, maybe it was always meant to be a café.

Next to the counter is a small window where you can scoop up your daily dose of morning booster on-the-go while, say, taking your dog for an early walk. The lamps hanging from the ceiling reminded us of Morocco, while Oriental-style pillows lie by the shop window, and the walls are decorated with early- to mid-20th-century movie and theater posters. The round marble-topped coffee tables, the Thonet chairs, and the antique furniture complement each other beautifully.

As Orsi and Gyula told us, they didn’t want to go overboard with the Oriental vibe. Their main goal was to come up with an interior design that is in harmony with the genius loci – the Art Deco buildings of the neighborhood.

The café’s name – which translates to Tassel and Pompom (for aspiring movie-script writers: perfect title for a buddy-cop flick) – doesn’t really mean anything extraordinary, but still says it all about Rojt és Bojt by emphasizing its predominant features: the painstaking attention to detail and the homey feel. And homey it is, because – save for a couple of family members – there are no employees around, only Orsi, Gyula, and their dog Manci.

From the breakfast selection, we opted for the BLT with Black Forest ham and fried eggs stuffed into a bagel, a healthy-sized croissant sandwich, a banana shake with citrus, and a homemade chocolate-walnut cake. They were as delicious as they look, so if you need any more motivation to give Rojt és Bojt a try, you deserve to be arrested by Tassel and Pompom...