Regular readers may have noticed a flurry of recent comments on this site from folks who claim I and my co-authors don’t know anything about food, and are thus unqualified to review restaurants. (You can “enjoy” some of the sniping on this thread.) While I’m a strong believer that anyone with a mouth is entitled to an opinion on what they put in it, all the yelling did get me thinking about whether I should sometimes see what others are writing about restaurants before I throw in my own two forints. So for the following review of the somewhat recently-opened downtown luxury eatery Babel Delikát Étterem, I’ve decided to include the opinions of some well-read Hungarian bloggers who have previously written up the place and, who, interestingly enough, seem to have very different ideas of its merits.
First, we have perhaps the best-known of all of the country’s foodbloggers, Zsófi of Chili és Vanília. Zsófi, whom I have not personally met, has apparently recently returned to Hungary after living some time in Brussels, and likely had lots of exposure to high-end international restaurants like Babel.
And Zsófi just loves the place! In fact, she says that the first time she ate there she wanted to run right home and write about it, and then quickly went back twice. She goes on to write that head chef István Pesti has created dishes which are not too complicated, but show great harmony between taste and texture, and which otherwise indicate that he is really putting his heart into everything that gets served up.
Similarly, the excellent but sadly now Hungarian-only blog Food Police gave Babel 8.5 out of 10 points and a write-up so glowing the blog’s anonymous “commander” may need to recalibrate his rating scale.
Meanwhile, László Szily of Index.hu recently posted on his personal blog a rather different appraisal of the place. (Full disclosure: I was with Szily and one of his colleagues during his dinner; that’s him in the “Blogger” shirt, appropriately enough.) Szily says he thinks Babel is overpriced, that its shiny black interior would fit a luxury car salon better, and that the portions served are “microscopic” – he compares the size of one dish to a hit of LSD – which he says cannot be tolerated under any circumstances.
Among the dishes on the multi-course Hungarian-themed menu he ordered, he singles out for praise a plate of buffalo tenderloin with chanterelles and beef cheeks, as well as his bowl of halászlé, though he then went on to say the latter was only “almost as good” as what he cooks at home down in the fish soup capital of Baja. Overall, he says that the restaurant isn’t bad, but it seems with every dish that they are trying too hard, and that the location on Váci utca is terrible because of the tourist street’s bad associations.
Before adding my opinion to the babble, let me first add a little factual background. Szily, myself and our companion all opted for the restaurant’s seven-course tasting menus – I and diner #3 chose the “international” menu instead of the Hungarian one – each of which come with a plethora of quality domestic and imported wines. There were so many courses I forgot to get a picture of everything, but starting from the top you can see the piglet kocsonya appetizer with tongue that László had, then a libamáj “torte” (not the fleck of gold leaf), a tomato consommé, a trio of scallops topped with slices of black truffles, a saddle of lamb with spinach, a trio of carrot desserts, and a very “nouvelle” somlói galuska. Interestingly – and I would say nicely – our bill itemized all the different items, including the wines. In total, it came to just over Ft 57,000 for the three of us before gratuity – or roughly €72 per head – including three large bottles of (domestic – thanks!) sparkling water.
So what’s my take on Babel? I’d say my opinion lies somewhere in the middle. For sure, some of the dishes we had were remarkably inventive, or just remarkably delicious, and the service throughout was very friendly and professional. But the location is dread-inspiring, the prices somewhat fear-inspiring, and I personally am increasingly less inspired by dishes so aggressively complex in taste and presentation. But then what do I know about restaurants?
Erik,thanks for mentioning my opinion! I honestly loved Babel,I’m glad you actually liked it too. I haven’t been there in the last few weeks but I was there for lunch a couple of times, which is less expensive and slightly more casual then dinner service.And their traditional goulash soup-pörkölt-curd cheese pie menu is actually really good.
you guys must love frozen food…
Folks,
I just visited Babel while on a biz trip to Budapest and walked away from the restuarant completely satisfied.
I thought the dinner was astonishing, I ordered the Hungarian tasting meal and thought each dish was great all the way through.
The wines selected with each part of the meal were quite good too.
While the dishes are definitely on the small side, after finishing every segment of the meal it would be hard to walk away feeling anything less than full.
The number of dishes served add up to a perfect amount including the wine and the finishing cheese and dessert servings.
As for the price, since it is in a tourist area in many respects, people traveling to Budapest from the likes of France, England, or the States will find the price for this type of cuisine more than realistic.
I will definitely visit Babel again my next vist.
It is nice to know that finally I can invite foreign business partners
to a place where traditional Hungarian cuisine is truly reinvented.
They all enjoyed the Hungarian menu and were really sad that I
only showed them this restaurant at the last day of their trip. Well,
I had a good reason for this: I wanted them to experience this as
my last gift:) it worked out perfectly, by the veal paprika everyone
was impressed
and french guests are hard to impress
truly amazing place
We had a really great meal at Babel last week, but wanted to let
the Chew public know that things have changed quite a bit since
the last review. Firstly, we want to say wholeheartedly that the
food was wonderful. We rate the food on a par with the best of
the world’s restaurants.
What is different? The menu on the website is seriously out of
date. When we asked a waitress about the very apparent
differences she said that the website was 2 years out of date.
The current focus seems to be to promote the 5 course tasting
menus, so the offered menu is only about the 5 course options.
You can go ‘a la carte’, but the portions are tasting size – so
there are no more portions anywhere near the size of the ones
in the pictures on Chew. Staff seem to be nervous that patrons
may be disappointed if there are no schnitzels bigger than
plates.
Tables are ‘spot lit’ to show off the food – OK if the night was
cold, but we were there on a mildly balmy evening and even the
staff had sought refuge in the cool of the street – it was so hot
inside. The door was open and the aircon was running – the
staff said that they couldn’t do anything to cool the room
further. Dessert ice-creams melted the minute they hit the
table.
Seems that there are plans to relocate the restaurant – no idea
when and where though. We hope that it remains in the inner
area and that the menu and website come into line – the food
truly is divine and deserves to be it’s own advocate on an ‘up to
date’ website
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