Now that the chilly season is officially here, we generally like to ensconce ourselves inside, abandoning airy gardens for warm indoor spaces. However, there is a historic restaurant on the city’s Buda side where we can enjoy the beauty of nature from up-close, despite the cold weather. Jardinette not only has a stunning garden lined with chestnut trees, but also a glass-walled winter garden that is open throughout the whole year.
In the past, Buda’s Németvölgyi Road was crowded with restaurants, and the eateries here each had a unique atmosphere.
Jardinette aims to evoke this part of the past; they define themselves as a “Hungarian restaurant”, but the name slightly contradicts the fact, as jardin means “garden” in French, while Jardinette refers to the charming garden here that is impressively enhanced with tree-ferns, spotted laurels, hydrangeas, and photinias.
The restaurant also has an exciting history – a hundred years ago, the Szürke Csacsi (meaning “Gray Donkey”) eatery stood in its place, and back in those days fresh water had to be collected from the Danube down below, and carried all the way up to this hillside location. After World War II, a simple pub called Búfelejtő operated here until 1999, when the property was bought and renovated in 2001 by the current owner, Dr. Péter Kálmán.
A few months ago, the owner’s son, Zoltán Kálmán, quit his 22-year-long career at a multinational company to take over the family business. He says that at Jardinette the meals evoke old traditions, while the interior is sophisticated and modern; the motifs of the trees appear on the walls. Nonetheless, a special feature of the garden is a carved sideboard that evokes a turn-of-the-century atmosphere.The menu features mouthwatering Hungarian meals – as demanded by guests. Chef István Csánki’s choice varies weekly; when we visited back in the beginning of autumn, the menu was inspired by the harvest season. For starters, we tried roasted goose liver with buckwheat and grape ragout, as well as a dense and filling paprika cream soup with cottage-cheese dumplings.
As a main course we had ginger-lime zander, which was just as salty as we like it – unlike at some other restaurants. From the à la carte menu we tried confit duck leg with roasted apples, rose-hip jam, and buttery caramelized kohlrabi; which harmonized with the meat and the fruits just fine.Jardinette is famous for the delicious desserts of Ágota, who the guests wanted to meet several times after tasting her sweets. We tried “Ágota’s wonderful fruity-yogurt cake” from the chef’s choice, which was filled with a flavorful cream containing blueberries and grapes, and was enhanced with fig slices. We also tried a gluten-free chocolate cakewith sour cherry jam, which is wonderfully sweet and slightly bitter at the same time.
Even the menu suggests that Jardinette is often frequented by a more conservative group of guests. Among the regulars of the restaurant there used to be a couple who had been coming here every single Sunday for lunch since the opening – for 15 years. The husband sadly passed away this year, but his widow still keeps coming back on Sundays.
Couples preparing for their wedding day really like Jardinette for its special atmosphere, and the management plans to hold various events here in the near future, such as wine tastings and other exciting culinary adventures.
