Irish-inspired arán bakery sets up in Buda

The owners, Kinga and Attila from Pécs, discovered a love of baking bread when they moved to Ireland in 2008. After numerous trips around Europe and the Americas, Attila studied baking and confectionery at the Technological University Dublin. 

The couple came back home in 2019 to open the arán bakery on Wesselényi utca. The store soon became a local favourite and was able to adapt to the changes during the pandemic: a webshop was set up and they also responded quickly to the needs of the changing clientele.

The bakery started to grow gradually. First, it moved into a nearby store, so customers had more space, and now it’s branched out into Buda. However, there is a well-defined framework for growth: for Kinga and Attila, personal presence and direct communication with customers and suppliers are very important, and they would not be able to provide this if they were a chain.

Arán is the Irish word for bread. It should come as no surprise, then, that their products do not fit into the Hungarian canon of cocoa swirls and half-kilos of half-brown loaves. This is why the vendors need specific expertise to introduce the uninitiated to the special world of their breads.

Work here requires practice, as the baking process is not the well-worn traditional one. Visitors not only come here when they’re hungry, but to embark on a journey of discovery, asking for exclusive ingredients, bread-baking tools or a little sample from the bakery’s range of sourdough.

​Although some of their exclusive products remain at Wesselényi utca, the prices are the same. Familiar favourites are complemented by new snacks tailored to the needs of nearby schools and universities or those crossing the busy transport hub of Móricz Zsigmond körtér. Almost certainly, the friendly staff working within this small, simply designed interior, operating mainly on a takeaway basis, will remember their customer’s order after only a couple of visits.

A special offer, available only here, is the healthy, creamy, overnight-softened porridge (490 HUF with one topping), which can also be consumed with Greek yoghurt (590 HUF) and, if hedonism dictates, extra toppings (190 HUF).


For a quick, healthy breakfast refuel of a busy weekday, there can’t be anything better than this dish, with arán’s homemade peanut or almond butter and a little homemade granola for that extra crunch.

If you’ve had a bad morning then the cheese sandwich (1,290 HUF), available between 11am and 2pm, should help you forget your woes. Between two sturdy pieces of rustic bread, four types of cheese – Irish cheddar, French raclette and comté (medium hard, nutty aroma) and Italian Taleggio (slightly pungent yet soft, crystalised-salt crust) – come with just enough homemade kimchi so that warm, creamy flavours offset the tang of the fillings. When matched with the cream soups currently in the pipeline, this heavenly snack should make for the perfect lunch.

Although breads and pastries are made at Wesselényi utca, a larger kitchen has been set up on the upper level of the Buda store to keep the porridge extras and sandwiches as fresh as possible. In most cases, the bakery sticks to Hungarian ingredients, most of the flour supplied by the Garat mill in Mohács, for example.

Among the pastries, the crispy, buttered cinnamon roll (490 HUF) is a favourite, competing with the crispy crème brűlée croissant (750 HUF), filled with soft vanilla cream. One of Kinga's favorites is flódni, made with real Szatmár homemade jam made of 100% plums (890 HUF).


Fans of savoury pastries should try the mushroom pillow (600 HUF), as the texture of the mushrooms is excellent, or the pesto-cheese bar (390 HUF). Instead of traditional croissants and buns, Jerusalem bagels (390 HUF) await.

For fans of the breakfast pastry+coffee combo, One Eleven's lightly roasted coffee made especially for arán is available, with iced versions in summer. And if you’re just popping in for a loaf of bread, you’ll come across the usual high-quality, crispy-crusted, rustic versions. A favourite is miso-sesame (1,000 HUF), but clover-shaped Irish soda bread (590 HUF) goes well with butter or jam. Smooth sourdough (750 HUF) is also delicious.

The community of Szentimreváros in this part of Buda was curious about this new business from the off. And we have no doubt that this great little bakery, with its takeaway services, friendly, well-trained staff and well-priced products, will win the liking of local customers as well as students from the nearby schools and universities.