This week, two chefs together prepared a very special dinner for a very special occasion. Kalla Kálmán and Zsolt Litauszki are previous and current heads of Budapest’s most illustrious kitchen, Gundel, now marking its 125th anniversary. For one night, 125 guests were served traditional and contemporary cuisine. We Love Budapest was one of them.
Dressed in aprons made for this 125th anniversary event, the Gundel duo of Kálmán Kalla, head chef between 1992 and 2006, and innovative Zsolt Litauszki, who arrived in 2018, created five dishes for 125 guests.
The appropriate host of the evening was Gábor Takács Gundel, the journalist and presenter whose forebears lived and worked in this very building. Dining was only briefly interrupted by Kalla and Litauszki themselves, who gave brief speeches despite the weight of responsibility in the kitchen.
The whole evening, as at every Gundel dinner these days, was accompanied by the house band of commendable professionalism. They allowed conversation and consumption to continue in harmony.
A highlight of the five dishes was the suitably velvety – and stellar – nettle velouté served with quail egg. Nowadays, nettles are rarely used, although they are tasty and versatile, and the dish conjured up a certain nostalgia.
The roast roe deer, with boiled semolina strudel and rhubarb, was another hit: game at its best, with a side dish to match. The goose liver duo contained sultanas and camomile jam, wonderfully simple in its execution, while the asparagus was tasty enough to be carried off with just a Hollandaise sauce alone, an unpretentious solution for this main seasonal ingredient.
The evening was crowned by Wampetics curd-cheese dumplings, a tribute in honey and strawberry to the Gundel of the Golden Age.
Heritage underlined the whole evening, in fact, and both chefs signed the menus for each of the 125 guests to take home.
Gundel Restaurant District XIV. Gundel Károly út 4
Open: Mon-Thur noon-11pm, Fri-Sat noon-midnight, Sun 11.30am-3pm, 7pm-11pm
