Taste Hungary
Ten years ago, Taste Hungary launched Budapest’s first food-themed tours introducing visitors to local cuisine and wine culture while showcasing the city’s amazing architecture. Their signature Culinary Walk begins at downtown’s red-brick Great Market Hall – a huge bazaar providing fresh produce, meats and much more since 1897 – before tour guests feast at a neighbourhood butcher shop, sample traditional cakes at a classic coffeehouse, nibble on gourmet chocolate and enjoy a selection of high-quality Hungarian wine, including delectably sweet Tokaji Aszú. Taste Hungary also hosts a Budapest Dinner Walk (featuring varied courses at a series of excellent eateries) and tasteful day trips to enjoy specialities across Hungary’s countryside.
Secret Food Tour
Eat alongside locals with the friendly team of Budapest’s Secret Food Tour, taking visitors to a new-wave coffee shop, a bustling street-food stand, a high-quality restaurant with its own ruin pub and several other culinary hotspots found beyond the beaten path. After guests gather amid District V’s most sophisticated dining district, the tour progresses through historic Szabadság tér before slipping though a hidden alley to the Downtown Market – where some of Hungary’s best chefs prepare regional delicacies with modern creativity – and heading on to eat fresh lángos fried-dough snacks (pictured), chimney cake and lunch at an esteemed Jewish Quarter eatery. The tour concludes with a wine tasting at a cosy hangout near Gozsdu Courtyard.
Fungarian
Enjoy an authentic Hungarian meal while learning basics of the local language and getting insight into Magyar dining culture at one of Budapest’s most welcoming traditional restaurants. Fungarian’s easygoing guides greet guests by the Rákóczi tér Market Hall – an often-overlooked gastro landmark amid up-and-coming District VIII – before exploring the historic emporium’s stands selling regional ingredients used at the nearby Rákóczi Restaurant, where visitors go for Lunch & Class sessions. While savouring classic goulash soup and other national specialities in a three-course meal, visitors learn how to say crucial Hungarian phrases spoken at every meal, such as “egészségedre” (a toast meaning “to your health”) and “jó étvágyat” (“bon appétit”).
Food Tour Budapest
Offering varied excursions exploring different sides of the city’s dining culture, Food Tour Budapest caters to visitors with specific interests, but every guided outing has one thing in common – when the tours are over, customers won’t be hungry. While the company’s Culinary Walking Tour provides a general overview of Budapest gastro highlights, their unique Coffeehouses Walking Tour explains why many historic Hungarian writers considered the city’s grand cafés as a second home – such as the venerable Centrál coffee palace – before stopping in at a popular new-wave coffee shop to see the modern side of Budapest’s creative caffeine scene. Meanwhile, the Basilica Food Tour showcases notable restaurants around downtown’s biggest church.
Chef Parade
This company specialises in providing English-language cooking classes for Budapest visitors who want to learn how to make classic Hungarian dishes at home. However, Chef Parade also welcomes clients to meet their instructor for breakfast at the Great Market Hall before the cooking class, so that they can shop together at the historic bazaar’s best produce stands and pick the ingredients that they will be preparing while learning hints for finding fine paprika and other regional delicacies. After acquiring everything they need, the instructor and students walk together to a refined cooking studio, where basics of Hungarian cuisine are taught within a fun hands-on atmosphere. After cooking a complete Magyar feast, participants eat their meal on the spot.
Buda Bike
Take a two-wheeled tasting tour with this creative bicycle-based business offering unique guided excursions around Budapest. Buda Bike’s new lunchtime Bike & Bite tour includes a pleasant bicycle ride passing many of downtown’s major landmarks before a stop at the Great Market Hall, where guests enjoy samples of assorted Hungarian specialities. Next the journey continues to a local butcher shop once visited by tragically departed gourmet globetrotter Anthony Bourdain, where participants feast on succulent sausages and other meaty delights along with traditional Hungarian salads. Finally, the tour takes riders to enjoy a special dessert beloved by generations of sweet-toothed Magyars – but at least the biking burns off some of the calories.
