Head to Újbuda and you’ll see people waiting outside the popular bakery Megszegett Ígéret. It’s worth the queue – this tiny shop offers beautiful sourdough breads and other high-quality baked goods which keep customers coming back time and again.
It all started a few years back when Balázs Makkai's wife, Réka, brought home a loaf of sourdough bread from Pékműhely in Buda. As he puts it, it was instant love. How could something be so delicious, and why would anyone choose store breads over this? He began experimenting at home, making his own sourdough loaves, until the idea began to form to quit his job and start a bakery of his own. This was realised as the Megszegett Ígéret, located in Újbuda, next to Csonka János tér.
The name translates to Broken Promise, and it refers to two things. The first is how bakers break their promise somewhere by making in-store breads, and the second is that sourdough bread itself is a promise – and the customer must break the bread at home.
The bakery has been extremely successful in Újbuda, offering delicious sourdough breads and pastries. The stock is not large – usually 10-15 types of baked products available each day – but the waiting customers in front of the store are always present as locals all want some of that baked goodness. And luckily, the queue moves quickly, so you should only wait a few minutes for your turn.
Currently, two bakers work alongside Balázs, including Réka Hanzi, who worked at the Scando-Hungarian artisanal bakery nor/ma and helped develop the concept of Megszegett Ígéret. Each day there are three regular baked goods, alongside a daily bread (850 HUF). On the counter, you might be tempted by sweet cocoa rolls (390-500 HUF), with other flavours including cinnamon, poppy-plum jam and pistachio. Also on the menu you can enjoy pies, quiches, savoury scones, baguettes and buns. The flour used in all the products comes from the Kukutyin Workshop, paired with high-quality butter to ensure light and airy bread.
Check out the bukta, a Hungarian sweetbread often filled with jam, and the selection of cakes, which are sinfully good. The bakers here spent a long time perfecting their bukta dough, finally bringing a light but hearty blend to perfection, and opting for blueberry, plum or forest-fruit fillings.
Nothing complements baked goods better than a nice coffee, and the Megszegett Ígéret doesn’t disappoint on this front. Guest coffees are offered alongside the Italian regular, which is of a medium, light roast. They can be taken away or sipped while you sit on a small bench in front of the store.
In addition to baked goods and coffee, some small-scale accessories are also available, including domestic flavoured waters and cordials, products by Tunki-Tunki and Mislenyi Ízműhely, and even bottles of wine. As the quote says on their window, “Without bread and wine, lust freezes!”
