Trattoria Gusto - Felicitá on the Liszt Ferenc Square

I love Italy, the Italian food, the Italian wine, the Italian beaches and the Italian atmosphere. If it was possible I would go every week to this spectacular country for a dinner. But unfortunately, it has to stay as a lovely dream. Apart from this sad reality, luckily there are good news also: if you go to the Trattoria Gusto on the Liszt Ferenc Square you can find yourself in at Italian atmosphere with some fabulous Italian food. It can be considered also as an advantage of this trattoria, that you can communicate in English and for sure the waiters will understand you.

Regarding the wine, we trusted the opinion of the waiter, so the pasta and the pizza were accompanied by a glass of Casteltorre Chardonnay from Veneto region. What I like the most with the wines is that feeling, when you try it for the first time and you are thinking it's great. Afterwards it's perfectly matching with the food you ordered, and then you know that the food itself is making it even better. Now it happened exactly on that way.

For the main course my choice felt on the Thyme tagliatelle with flap mushrooms and garlic prawns. One of the best pasta I have ever tried! With the thyme and the mushroom it's a splendid dish for a rainy, cold autumn day of Budapest. 

From a menu of an Italian trattoria usually the pizzas are not left out. Neither in the Trattoria Gusto! The pizza Salsicca e porcini trifolati contains tomato sauce, loin sausage and garlic flap mushrooms. The loin sausage with the mushroom gave an extraordinary taste to this thin, oven-baked pizza.

Dessert: Tiramisu and Home made profiteroles. About the tiramisu there is nothing to criticize: creamy, well-balanced, not too sweet, ideal dessert. Regarding the profiteroles: the chocolate sauce was really tasteful but I would have liked it more and it would have made better combination, if instead of the filling of the whipped cream, it had have a more elegant pastry cream inside. 

In summery, the Trattoria Gusto is an Italian restaurant which stands out with its high quality from the many other which you can find in Budapest. I will definitely return and try some other dishes from the menu, even if it will be really difficult not to order again the thyme tagliatelle with flap mushrooms and prawns. 

Amber's French Bakery & Cafe

My ideal Saturday seem like this: sleeping until late, having a late breakfast in a cozy cafe, going to a market for fresh meat and vegetables and cooking the marvelous lunch I was thinking of during the week. Not every Saturday happens this way, but luckily the last one was exactly as I wanted. And I definitely can't complain: the Amber's French Bakery ensured the good start of the day.

The location is perfect, it's just in front of the Great Market Hall, on the Fővám tér. You can choose between croissants, pastries, sandwiches, tarts and of course from eclairs which can't be missing from a French cafe.

We would have liked to try the croissant with almond or the puff pastry with pistachios but unfortunately at 11 o'clock they already ran out from it. Looks like it's worth it to wake up earlier and try one of those! ;)

But we were not disappointed neither with the croissant with ham and the baguette with sour cream, ham and cabbage. They were tasty, warm and freshly prepared. The combination of the cabbage and sour cream was surprisingly very delicious. 

Warm croissant with ham

Warm baguette with sour cream, cabbage and ham

A Saturday breakfast can't be finished here, so it was followed by a chocolate eclair and a brioche with chocolate. The eclair fulfilled all my need for chocolate for that day with it creamy and light texture.

For home we bought also a baguette for 420 Ft which was definitely worth to buy it. The only thing I regretted is that we bought only one for the weekend.

The Amber's French Bakery & Cafe is a perfect place for a breakfast with affordable prices. So far the only things needs to be improved is the service. The stuff is nice and helpful, and they speak great English too but they chose to have the self-service system which is still a little chaotic and slow. They opened only this summer, so I hope they will improve it and I can go back and try the croissant with almond also.

A sweet jaunt to Vác: Mihályi Pastry Shop

There is a little city, called Vác, located in the heart of the Danube bend 30 kms to the north from Budapest. This baroque-style town deserves an article on my gastro blog, not only because it's my hometown but because of its wonderful pastry shop. 

Mihályi László, well-known pastry chef, opened his shop in Vác, in 2008 after working in such an illustrious hotels as Four Seasons and Sofitel. In the cakes of Mihályi you can find everything what makes them unforgettable: modernism, new shapes, individual style, high quality and surprises. This doesn't mean that he rejects the traditions. On the contrary; he creates such a well-balanced cakes, that they will make you return and order other ones from his assortment.

Rákóczi túrós

Vác desszert

You can't go wrong with choosing your cake. They look wonderful and they taste wonderful! Even though, the prices of the desserts can be higher than in most of the pastry shops of Budapest. But if you feel that you need to pamper your taste buds a little bit, get on the train or on the bike and make a little trip to Vác. After having a cake on the main square, don't miss the sunset from the Danube promenade!