Kazinczy Street’s newest eatery, Artusi Pizza & Pasta, is a truly unique spot in Budapest’s party district. This Italian eatery focuses on pizzas and pastas, but even though it is not a street-food place, the service is still faster than at regular restaurants. The pizza dough is thin and crispy, and can be enhanced with all kinds of tasty toppings, while the pastas are not too soft and are scrumptious, while the salads are fresh and filling.
The place was named after Pellegrini Artusi, the descendant of a wealthy northern-Italian merchant family, whose greatest passions were literature and Italian cuisine. His landmark work, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well, is still sought-after, and was translated to various languages. In addition to recipes, the book also contains anecdotes, so that it offers culinary and cultural entertainment at once.
Considering the choice of the restaurant’s name and the enthusiasm for Italian culture felt by owner Miklós Forrai, it is not surprising that this eatery – found in the heart of District VII – is a bistro focusing on Mediterranean flavors. If Budapest has an area where restaurants and food trucks offer the biggest variety of flavors, it is definitely Kazinczy Street and its surrounding neighborhood. However, before the arrival of Artusi, there had not been an Italian eatery and pizzeria around here that offers such high quality for affordable prices.
The interior of this restaurant is breezy yet sophisticated, and it evokes the trends of northern Italian industrial style more than the world of checkered tablecloths in trattorias. If we come with a bigger group the tables can be rearranged and joined, but orders can only be made at the counter. The kitchen is open, thus we can even take a few sneak peeks as our meal is being made.
The menu includes all of the basic courses of Italian cuisine, such as salads, pastas, bruschettas,pizzas, and seasonal soups. The ingredients are fresh, and they strive to make everything possible on the spot. The pastas are not made here, as they would need a significantly bigger kitchen for that, but they are homemade and are prepared one day before arriving at Artusi. Pastas can also be ordered in a gluten-free version, and we can also match them with sauces as we like.
Among the salad selection, we tried the arugula salad (1,590 HUF) that includes regular and dried tomatoes, a seedy sauce, and Parmesan. It was fresh and light, and came in a huge portion, so with some bruschetta (1,290 HUF) it makes up a proper main course. However, if you fancy something even more filling, you can choose a chicken or quail-egg salad as well. Among the assortment of pastas we tried their signature dish, the Artusi pasta (1,590 HUF), which is a tomato-based, basil-zucchini-garlic-dried tomato-olive pasta. The pasta was just perfect, it wasn’t overcooked, and the toppings were also truly tasty. The prices of the pastas stretch between 1,100 and 2,200 forints (the calamari-prawn pasta costs 2,200 HUF).
However, the icing on the cake was definitely the Prosciutto pizza (2,190 HUF). Its dough is thin but crispy, the toppings are generous but not overwhelming, and we think that it is bigger than the standard 32-centimeter size, as it fully covers the plate on all sides. We washed the meals down with a citrus-fruit lemonade (690 HUF), but they also have syrups, alcohol-infused drinks, beers, and wine. The wine assortment mostly boasts Hungarian brands.
We learned from the staff that tourists make up the majority of guests here, but they also have local regulars. Furthermore, they are also planning on offering home delivery in the near future. Opening a restaurant on Kazinczy Street seems like a solid business plan, but it obviously has a few drawbacks as well, as it is not easy to stand out from the already colorful selection of eateries, and it is always likely that on a Friday night a rowdy group may wish to wine and dine here.
On the whole we can say that Artusi does not change our conceptions of Italian cuisine, but it does not try to seem like something bigger than it is, either, which we appreciate. We are happy to finally see an atmospheric Italian eatery in the neighborhood, where the meals are made from high-quality ingredients, the portions are hearty, the prices are friendly, and we do not have to eat sitting on the side of the road.
Artusi Pizza & Pasta
Address: 1075 Budapest, Kazinczy utca 32
Opening Hours: Monday - Wednesday: 11am - 10pm, Thursday and Friday: 11am - midnight, Saturday: noon - midnight, Sunday: noon - 10pm
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