A Note on Prices: I tend not to mention prices because as a New Yorker I’m more or less pleasantly surprised everywhere I go in Budapest. Admittedly, it’s not like the dental work or the plastic surgery, where the price difference is enough to finance your trip, but everything is inexpensive enough that you don’t have to pay very much attention to what you order. When I eat here, I tend to have one extra course that I wouldn’t order in New York, and considerably more beer and/or wine, and the prices still wind up being 30-50% less. In general, the restaurants discussed here will cost $20-35/person, everything included, at dinner time. Many, many places (including the etkezdes mentioned and other small places) will cost well under half that, especially when ordering a tourist menu. Some places can cost $50/person or even $75, but it takes work to spend that much on a meal in Budapest. When a restaurant’s prices are especially low or high, I try to mention it, but otherwise I am afraid I’m not much use here. Many have websites, and on those websites many post their menus, so that may be some help.
A Note on Tipping: There’s an old story about the trip by rail from France to Russia on the Orient Express during the soviet era: people from Moscow pulled into the station in Budapest and thought they had reached Paris; those from Paris pulled into the Budapest station and thought they had reached Moscow…
Tipping is sort of the same thing, it depends on where you come from; Budapest captures a little bit of both. If you start from Paris, where service is included in the bill by law and tipping beyond rounding the bill to the nearest Euro is an uncommon recognition of really extraordinary service, Budapest will seem familiar. No one seems to expect a tip, and 10% is often greeted with real appreciation or even surprise (especially when one is away from the tourist areas). The service is often lax, indolent or surly (though less and less frequently so) and customer satisfaction seems a low priority in many places. Cab drivers especially seem not to expect much of a tip.
But if you come from New York City, you’ll recognize that most waiters in Budapest are extremely ill-paid and those in the tourist venues especially so, relying on tips as the bulk of their income. In settings aimed at foreign trade tipping 10-15% seems increasingly to be hoped for if not expected. In general, wages for most jobs are low enough that not tipping is, in fact, an indignity deserved only by those who do a genuinely poor job.
So, I have come to tip 15% for good service in tourist locations, 10-15% in spots that seem really aimed at local trade. But you can get away with almost anything.
