Babel Budapest

Babel Budapest is a fine-dining restaurant in the old Piarist school building on Piarista köz, in the inner city of Budapest. It holds a Michelin star, and Kornél Kaszás leads the kitchen.

Hubert Hlatky-Schlichter founded Babel in 2008 with the aim of changing high-end dining in the city. He took the name from the Tower of Babel: in his restaurant everyone should speak the same language. Babel later left its first address for the Piarist building on March 15 Square, beside the oldest church of the city centre. The early kitchen was run by István Veres and Gábor Langer, and the first Michelin star came in 2019. After a closure of nearly two years the restaurant reopened with the Swedish chef Daniel Berlin as consultant.

The tasting menus look to the Carpathian Basin and the old Austro-Hungarian kitchen. Most of the ingredients, and many of the furnishings, come from Hungary. The signature egg galuska is finished with a truffle foam. Pommes soufflé comes with Mangalica sausage, bacon and cucumber, and lamb neck is served with whey and homemade cheese under a milk-skin cracker scented with lavender. A savoury dessert combines pumpkin with hay, garlic and cumin. Farm flavours such as whey and hay show how the kitchen turns country cooking into fine dining.

Under Kaszás a small team of chefs cooks each night for the dining room, which has only about a dozen tables. Scandinavian-style furniture and bare brick give it a light, calm look, with white linen on the tables. Every wine on the pairing comes from Hungary, guided by the sommelier Péter Blazsovszky, and the drinks also include local craft beer, plum sake and cider from Normandy. Decanter once named Babel the best international restaurant of the year.