Put fire in your belly at Fuego, home of authentic Spanish chicken

While Budapest is brimming with Italian restaurants, authentic Spanish ones are like hen’s teeth. At Fuego on Kazinczy utca in the heart of the Jewish Quarter, chickens are on constant rotation on the restaurant rôtisserie, meaning that one will arrive on your plate piping hot and succulent within minutes of you ordering it.

You can’t say that Fuego has an exhaustive menu, but what it does, it does damn well. As its name suggests, it’s Spanish and it likes its chicken hot. This is the classic taste of Spain, as the owners would have learned from their grandparents. Staff speak Spanish, English and maybe Hungarian.

The chickens come from a reliable supplier, to be marinated fresh straight away that morning in a special spice mixture. Then lemon and parsley are placed inside, and the chickens are spit-roasted at 180 degrees for two hours to prevent them from drying out.

The resultant bird is tasty, succulent and intensely spiced, similar to the baked potatoes that come with it. Prepared on-site, these patatas are combined with thyme, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper, and blessed with some of the chicken juice released during the roasting process.

Taste sensation

The whole experience is an amazing taste sensation, and the meat is so delicious that it puts hypermarket chicken to shame.

This quality has to be paid for, of course. A chicken leg is 1,350 forints, breast 1,550, half-chicken 2,550 and the whole flambéed kit and caboodle 4,400. Potatoes on the side (HUF 1,200-1,800) may be embellished with optional toppings (HUF 400 each), alioli, mojo picón, chimichurri, blueberry-chili or honey-mustard-and-sour-cream.