While the ongoing economic crisis does not yet seem to have led to the Hungarian restaurant closing apocalypse some were predicting last year, it clearly has cut into the number of new restaurants opening in Budapest, and even to a few new joints closing before we could even get around to reviewing them. So for the time being I’m going to dispense with our recently-adopted policy of giving new restaurants a few months before reviewing them, and instead start just writing them up as soon as they pop up. I’ll start with the Mák Bistro, whose name means “poppy,” and which popped up the weekend before last in District V.
The restaurant sits in the space formerly occupied by the now-kaput LouLou, and, design-wise, is a radical departure from the latter’s very stiff final incarnation. While the general layout remains much the same, all the smooth plasterwork has been chiseled off, leaving behind rough brick walls and barrel vaults, and the fancy furniture and white tablecloths replaced by simple wood and paper. One hint of the place’s character is the big display case of empty wine bottles with large-print ersatz labels pictured just above, which serves as a sort of ironic wine list. Overall, it seems to neatly conform to the gritty up-market bohemian chic that now seems to be the default among international restaurants in cosmopolitan cities across Europe and beyond.
The owner of the place, Zoltán Benkő, is a quiet and unassuming newcomer to the business, and the head chef is Krisztián Huszár, a veteran of such up-market downtown places as Zsiráf, Papageno (both closed) Manna and Dunapark. According to this interview with Huszár on diningguide.hu, he was briefly the head chef at LouLou before stepping aside to work under Balázs Pethő, now of Csalogány 26 fame. He also worked at Susogó – the highly-rated Pécs restaurant – and did some studying in Spain’s Basque Country under Michelin triple star chef/restaurateur Martin Berasategui. It is perhaps as a result of this that Mák’s regular assortment of “small plate” dishes are referred to on the menu as “pintxo,” which is the Basque equivalent of “tapas.”
The first thing I can say about the food I had on my two visits is that the bread was delicious, and came in cute little wooden boxes refreshed whenever they went empty.
Next up: soup. I tried several, including a cauliflower soup with sour cream and fennel espuma (Ft 800) and a velouté of guinea fowl with egg yolk, which was Ft 100 more. All were excellent. Note, however, that the pictures make the portions look bigger than they are in reality, and that this will be a reoccurring theme in this review.
As with the soups, the selection of non-soup pintxo dishes and mains changes regularly, perhaps even daily. Starting with the first food picture up at the top of this page and working down, we have duck fois gras with morels (Ft 1,800), Mangalica tarja (pork collar) with cabbage noodles (Ft 1,300), Paprika potato with lamb shoulder (Ft 1,100), a main dish of trout with new potato salad (Ft 2,900), another meaty pintxo dish I can’t exactly remember, and a Mangalica ear with vinaigrette (Ft 900) I will remember until the day I die. Before I say any more let’s quickly cruise through dessert.
Unlike the other parts of the menu, the desert section seemed to be pretty static, with “Strawberry and more” (Ft 800), “Csokoládé 4X” (Ft 800) and an (in my opinion) unnecessarily updated version of the classic Mákos guba (Ft 500) the only sweets I remember seeing on it.
All in all, the stuff ranged from good to outstanding, except for that pig ear, and that’s probably just because it turns out I don’t like pig ears. There were a few misfires, such as the over-egged kalács (brioche) that went with the duck liver. But such problems are to be expected, and the place seems receptive to negative feedback. (A few minutes after my companion denounced the kalács to Benkő in rather blunt terms, we saw him erasing it off of the blackboard.) There were also some service booboos – cold milk with the espresso! – but again, nothing that would indicate they can’t get it together with a bit of practice. And you might not be a fan of the music (I recall hearing Beck, among other hipster favorites).
If there is a problem that could end up being big, it’s the smallness of the portions. For one thing, on my first trip the menu did not say what “Pintxo” meant, suggesting that some diners have gotten theirs and said “where’s the rest of it”? Worse, the one main dish I sampled (the trout) really was too small. Overall, if you want to leave feeling full, you may have to empty your wallet; lunch for two without wine ended up costing around Ft 7,000 (€25), which is likely to scare off people now used to enjoying lunch menus in the range of Ft 1,000-Ft 2,000. So it could end up being a hard sell, even discounting the location, which is not nearly as central as it may seem. Benkő should maybe reconsider his decision not to take reservations, and not to even list a phone number on the restaurant’s website. And while I’m complaining about the website, does anyone really care how many Facebook friends a restaurant has? But I digress.
Walking home after my second visit, one of my companions said he thought I was looking for ways to like the restaurant. He was probably right. Mák isn’t brilliant, and shows some signs of amateurism. But it is new and interesting, and seemingly run by people who want to make it brilliant. Furthermore, like LouLou in its prime, Mák is one of the few restaurants I’ve been to that seems to have a genuine feel for “modern Hungarian” cuisine. And that’s enough for me, at least for now. Go check it out.
I went there yesterday.
I fully agree with your negative comments:
1. Portions are too small
2. The menu cannot be clearly understood
3. the music is awful!!
And with the positive ones:
1. Very interesting cuisine
2. Interesting environment
3. Enthusiastic owner
I have some more:
1. I got my bill printed on a post it (I later
heard that the software is still not available)
2. The organization of the wine list is very
unusual and therefore confusing
3. All courses (calf’s neck, fish soup, lamb leg,
and something else I don’t remember, sorry)were
not warm enough
I believe you are right. There is something about
this place. Let’s give them a chance (I’ll go back
within the next two or three weeks and make my
final appreciation of the place). I am optimistic
that they can sort everything out and make it a
good place (and if they did, then I am ready to
pay such crazy prices!)
M
I’ve dined here three times this week and I’m rather delighted.
The portions are indeed small, but the variety and the
inventiveness more than make up for the loss in calories and
forints.
Highlights include asparagus soup, egg soup (broth and egg
yolk with a poached egg and strategically placed capers and bell
pepper cubes for each spoonful), malacfarok (pig’s tail) with
celery purée (a very clever pairing, unless you fear farok), the
coq au vin (with blowtorched, crispy skin on each piece of
chicken), the red mullet with spinach, and the seltzer water at
400 HUF per glass (!) bottle:
http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/1676/img0198p.jpg
I’ve found the mákos guba a fun play on physics, as it takes the
tongue several seconds to register the utter lack of weight of
Mák’s foamed sauce. Like lifting liquid hydrogen at 70 grams
per liter.
Minor teething issues aside, I’m definitely going back for more.
Well I cannot speak for the food but theplace looks amazing!
… two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ‘em says, “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one says, “Yeah, I know; and such small portions.”
(Alvy Singer)
Went there, tried it with my partner. She was enthusiastic, I paid the hefty bill, and came away hungry. Still, I agree, the place has something in the overcrowded 5th district market.
Still 2, the location is so bad that I think that they will be out of business in a few months.
So, enjoy while you can; most of the food was excellent.
I went there yesterday evening with my wife and friends. The food was good (but not amazing), the wine list is interesting and much more international than usual in Budapest and our waiter did a good job. BUT…the music is simply a disaster.
When we asked the manager / chef de rang to change the music we were answered that “it cannot be changed as it is part of the concept” so we left before dessert.
Conclusion: I will not go back but if you like being disturbed by annoying sound while you have your dinner, you might enjoy it.
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