Where do our favorite Budapest restaurants and shops get their foods? For most of them, the answer is the largest fruit and vegetable market in Hungary – and in the Central-European region – found on Budapest’s Nagykőrösi Road. Operations continue around the clock at the 32-hectare bazaar, which operates almost like a little town with its own rules and society. ‘Marketing’ is a lifestyle fueled with colorful and fragrant routines, but behind the scenes it seems to be action-packed and stressful, demanding hard work and sacrifices. We took a tour around the market on its 25th birthday.

“This is organized chaos,” said numerous market regulars during our visit.

While crisscrossing all over Nagybani Market, we had the chance to visit the banana-maturing facility, taste exotic fruits, and experience the exciting atmosphere of this constantly buzzing wholesale center firsthand. Being the market’s 25th anniversary, it was also a special day for employees and vendors, as during the evening, forklifts could dance around to music, and fireworks were shot from the potato and pumpkin stands.

We have always been curious about what a banana-maturingfacility would look like in Budapest. Well, the 5,500-square-meter area does not employ girls dressed in raffia palm skirts and conga players, but the banana master showed us how these imported treats can change color dramatically in only a few days.

We tasted mini hairless kiwis, luscious tomatoes that evoke the Tuscan sunshine, downy blue Italian grapes, and delicate physalis at a vendor’s stand that specializes in providing the world’s most treasured produce to satisfy the demands of Budapest’s high-class restaurants.

Among the vendors and traders, there are some who have been working at this seemingly chaotic bazaar for a long time, diligently providing the ammunition for Budapest’s ongoing gastro revolution – which in turn makes the Nagybani Market more successful and innovative with each passing year. We wish you a happy birthday, Nagybani, and hope that you will continue to prosper fruitfully for another quarter century and beyond!