Search
Brazil
Argentina
Bolivia
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Guyana
French Guiana
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
Paraguay
Peru
Suriname
Uruguay
Venezuela
Germany
Austria
Belgium
Croatia
Denmark
Spain
Finland
France
Greece
the NetherlandsHungary
Ireland
Iceland
Italy
Luxembourg
Norway
Poland
Portugal
the United Kingdom
the Czech Republic
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Canada
the United States
Mexico
the Dominican RepublicTurkey
South Africa
Australia
Fiji
New Zealand
Papua New GuineaFlavors · Budapest
Crepe folded and filled with walnuts, raisins and candied orange peel, flavored with rum and topped with chocolate sauce. It is named after the Gundel restaurant in Budapest’s City Park, which put it on the menu; the recipe is attributed to Ilona Matzner, wife of the writer Sándor Márai.
Traditional sweet from Budapest, Budapest
Also known as: Gundel-palacsinta, Márai-palacsinta
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
Click a photo to enlarge it.
Gundel palacsinta — Budapest, Hungary
Palacsinta is the thin crepe of Hungarian cuisine, served sweet or savory. The Gundel version is filled with a paste of walnuts, raisins and candied orange peel, flavored with rum, folded into a triangle and topped with chocolate sauce. At some tables it is flambéed in front of the guest.
The name comes from the Gundel restaurant in Budapest’s City Park (Városliget), run by the Gundel family since 1910. Károly Gundel, the owner, is one of the central figures of 20th-century Hungarian gastronomy. His and the restaurant’s heritage was inscribed in 2014 in the Hungarikum Collection, the official list of Hungary’s national values.
The history told by the restaurant itself attributes the recipe to Ilona Matzner, called Lola, wife of the writer Sándor Márai. According to that account, she prepared the crepe for the banquet following the premiere of a play by Márai in 1940 at the Gundel. Károly Gundel liked the dessert, asked for the recipe and put it on the menu as palacsinta Márai. After the writer emigrated and the restaurant was nationalized in 1949, the name changed to Gundel palacsinta.
The crepe moved from the Gundel’s salons to the menus of restaurants and pastry shops across the country. It is one of the most ordered desserts in Hungarian restaurants.
Budapest , Budapest
The crepe is named after the Gundel restaurant in Budapest’s City Park, where it entered the menu in the 1940s.
Crepe batter made from flour, eggs and milk; filling of ground walnuts, raisins, candied orange peel, sugar and rum; dark chocolate sauce.
Served hot, folded into a triangle, with chocolate sauce on top. In some places it is flambéed at the table.
Restaurant dessert and typical Sunday lunch dessert, no fixed date.
Your questions
A crepe filled with walnuts, raisins and candied orange peel, with rum, served with chocolate sauce. It is one of Hungary’s best-known desserts.
Because of the Gundel restaurant in Budapest, which put it on the menu. According to the restaurant itself, it was called palacsinta Márai and changed its name after the writer Sándor Márai emigrated and the establishment was nationalized.
It can be. The basic recipe uses only chocolate sauce, but some places flambé the crepe at the table.
Flavors of Hungary
Wine mixed with sparkling water (szóda), in proportions that have their own names, such as kisfröccs, hosszúlépés and házmester. White, rosé or red, it is the summer drink of Hungary’s bars, cellars and terraces.
Beef soup with plenty of broth, onion, paprika, diced potato and csipetke, a pinched noodle that cooks in the pot. It is made without thickening with flour. The name comes from the gulyás, the herdsmen of the Great Plain.
Sweet yeast dough rolled into a strip on a wooden spindle, baked while turned over embers and coated with caramelized sugar. It comes off the spindle in the shape of a hollow cylinder. It originated in the Land of the Székely in Transylvania and is sold at fairs and Christmas markets throughout Hungary.
Yeast dough hand-opened and fried until golden, crunchy on the outside and soft inside. The classic topping is sour cream, grated cheese and, if you like, garlic. A street food found at fairs, markets and beaches across the country.
Fruit brandy distilled in Hungary from plum, apricot, pear, apple, cherry and many others. By law the fruit must be grown in Hungary, and all stages from fermentation to bottling must take place in the country. It is a protected geographical indication of the European Union.
Christmas bonbon, usually a fondant candy covered in chocolate, wrapped in shiny colored foil and hung on the branches of the Christmas tree. The most common fillings are fruit jelly, marzipan, coconut and caramel.
Baja fish soup from the banks of the Danube, made with carp, onion and ground paprika cooked together in a cauldron, without straining the broth. It’s served over a thin noodle, gyufatészta, with the fish on the side and hot pepper.
Layered sponge cake with thin layers of sponge alternated with chocolate buttercream and topped with a sheet of caramel. It was created by pastry chef József C. Dobos, owner of a delicatessen in Budapest, and presented at the 1885 National General Exhibition.
Bitter herbal liqueur, dark, produced by the Zwack family in Budapest with a secret recipe of more than 40 herbs and spices, aged in oak casks. The round bottle with a cross on the label is recognised throughout the country.
Szeged river fish soup, red from paprika, made with a thick broth of several fish, carp heads and bones, and onion, passed through a sieve. Carp pieces cook in that broth, and the soup is served with bread and hot pepper on the side.
Sweet wine from the Tokaj wine region in northeastern Hungary, made from grapes affected by noble rot and harvested berry by berry. The aszú berries are crushed and macerated in must or wine, and the wine ages in oak barrels in underground cellars.
White wine from the kéknyelű grape, grown almost exclusively in the Badacsony wine region on the northern shore of Lake Balaton. The grape’s name means “blue stem.” The wines are usually dry with marked acidity, and there are also sparkling and sweet versions.
