Street-food purveyors citywide pour moveable feasts of succulent soups to sip on in to-go cups, creating steamy heat sources to carry and savor during wintertime. Found throughout Hungary’s capital, here are some of our favorite producers of lusciously nutritious liquids – often also proffering hot sandwiches, tasty pastries, and other diverse delights – that provide relief for freezing fingers, as well.
1/8
Bors
Constantly crowded with regular customers from Budapest and around the world, this hotspot on Kazinczy Street is renowned for creatively conceived soups and great paninis. Operating as a highly disciplined team (despite the eatery’s playful motifs of a plastic pig, Darth Vader, and random stuffed animals), the crew proudly presents drinkable delicacies like rustic Tuscan tomato soup with grated cheese, coconut-chili pumpkin soup, and cream of mushroom soup with dill, pasta, chicken, and cheese.
2/8
Finomító Kantin
While reasonably priced high-caliber burgers are the main attraction at this sunshiny central-Buda diner (including a lamb burger, salmon burger, and veggie version), the continually rotating soup selection is also impressive here, with most of them made from seasonal ingredients. Current options include chili-bean tomato soup, rosemary-flavored cream of mushroom soup, borscht with fresh dill, lentil goulash with fresh parsley, and Hungarian-style green-pea soup with buttered galuska dumplings.
Where: 1027 Budapest, Varsányi Irén Street 33.
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3/8
Funky Pho
Serving Budapest’s most authentic Vietnamese pho soup, this cool dining destination earned the 2014 Gault&Millau award for creating Budapest’s “Street Food of the Year”. Here every bowlful of pho is created to order with excellent raw materials, thus it can take a few minutes for this savory specialty to be ready, but it’s worth the wait. Portions are generous, so consider eating the first half on-site before asking one of the friendly servers to pour the rest in a plastic bag for you to take home.
4/8
Hokedli
As a newcomer amid Budapest’s soup-to-go scene, this bijou bistro on downtown Pest’s Nagymező Street is already renowned across town for its uncompromising dedication to quality. With a focus on creating delicious forms of multi-ingredient pottage made with seasonal foodstuffs (such as tomato and black bean, basil and kohlrabi, or lemon, dill, and potato), this place also proffers an ever-changing lineup of soups, all freshly prepared without any additives and tasting like a beloved homemade dish.
5/8
LEVES.
In less than four years, this humble street-food stopover revolutionized Budapest’s takeaway world, leading the way for many of the other dining destinations included in the article that you’re reading – this was the city’s first eatery to open with a business plan revolving around selling cups of soup to go, along with toasted sandwiches and great desserts. Regardless of the weather, a long line forms before this unpretentious place near Kálvin Square every weekday at lunchtime, for good reason.
6/8
Nyakleves
Culinary creativity and delicious diversity give distinction to this spacious soup-and-sandwich haven, where an ever-growing repertoire of seasonal offers can inspire multiple visits each week to see what’s cooking. The soup selection features healthy crossover concoctions like carrot-lentil, curry-pumpkin, tarragon-mushroom, and garlic-parsley, while the daily pasta option is made with just as much imagination and varied market-fresh produce – spinach lovers should look for “Popeye’s favorite”.
Where: 1111 Budapest, Budafoki Street 27.
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7/8
Souper Budapest
Found along a quiet side street not far from Buda’s Millenáris Park, this welcomingly rustic miniature restaurant provides a tempting assortment of healthy-yet-satisfying fare that changes daily. While fresh salads and pastas are popular here, soups are certainly the highlight – cauldrons contain classics like French onion or tomato, but pleasant surprises include cream of potato with ginger, Toulouse-style four-cheese cream of broccoli, and bean goulash with beef and corn-flour galuska dumplings.
Where: 1024 Budapest, Petrezselyem Street 11.
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