Bringing Down Under closer to Hungary – Grumpy Monkey opens in Budapest

The whole story started back in 2013 and involves two Zoltáns, one who stayed home, the other who went to Australia with his wife, Judit. There the couple opened a little café in Brisbane, Grumpy Monkey.

The concept they came up really took off and now, a decade on, they deal with serious custom, selling a tonne of coffee a month and serving the public from 5am. Now a sister branch of this café has just opened in Budapest, on Taksony utca in District XIII, at the bottom of one of the newly built apartment blocks.

The Budapest outlet was opened by Zoltán Szandai, the one who stayed home. Seeing that he makes all kinds of flaky pastries at his workshop in Mogyoród, mainly of the croissant/cruffin variety (cruffins being the love child of croissants and muffins), it made sense for him to set up a Grumpy Monkey Budapest, the delicacies given a little Magyar twist compared to the ones in Brisbane.


These are the kind of goodies that go well with coffee, either for breakfast, elevenses or early afternoon.

Just like the coffee, the cakes and pastries are also made from quality ingredients, such as Belgian butter and sourdough. There are savoury flavours, too, such as the so-called bear-claw pastry with ramsons, ham and cheese, and various Danish pastries with cheddar and jalapeño pepper or with bacon and feta cheese.

For something sweet, there’s the goats’-cheese-and-walnut Danish, the irresistible all-chocolate pain au chocolat and cruffins in flavours such as pistachio, vanilla and almond.


Look out, too, for the Magyar-friendly Sport szelet-flavoured cruffin, themed after a popular local chocolate bar, underscored with the taste of rum. This was originally made for the Australian Zoltán as a birthday gift but it went down so well they put it on the menu here.

Almost everything from the Australian business has been moved to Budapest. Both cafés have the same interior design, the same glasses, coffee spoons and types of coffee, although the roasting happens in Hungary, at Casino Mocca, one of the best in the country.

This bright, cosy cafe isn’t expensive at all, perhaps even cheaper than its competitors in the city centre. You’ll find it between Dózsa György út and Lehet tér market, where modern offices are slowly filling empty properties.