Al Dente — Restaurant in Budapest

Sadly, experience in Al Dente wasn’t the pleasant one. Staff were super arrogant and unnecessarily sarcastic!

I came the first before my friends and was waiting for them. When one of my friends arrived they asked if we are going to order, we said not yet “waiting for a friend”, Even tho they said ok, they came around 3-4 times asking impatiently if we are going to have something. I had water even tho I didn’t want to because they were acting super demanding and weird.

When third friend joined we finally ordered, and they brought me this burnt Lasangna, which I believe shouldn’t look like this for the price that they offer.

Anyways, I finished somehow, but rest of my friends didn’t. One ate 2/3 of food other only half, and when they came to take my plate the staff (piercing girl) asked “are you still working with pasta?” And wanted to take both plates we said we are still not done yet. I got the feeling that they wanted us to leave as soon as possible and tried to do everything that to make us mad… We couldn’t eat and talk properly because they were coming to our table every 10 mins and bothering… And the end when we were paying I paid first at the counter and went to wait for friends outside, waiter said “ciao” and I said “bye” rudely since I was very pissed at that moment. Waiter was surprised and my friends explained that food was burnt and service was not good to what he offered free tiramisu, but piercing girl said “it’s just lasagna”.

Anyways even tho atmosphere in general looks fine and rest of food looked good Staff were extremely bad. I can tolerate burnt and small portion of Lasagna but not rude and...

Al Dente is everything you want from an Italian restaurant - cozy, welcoming, and serving absolutely excellent food.

We found this place spontaneously around 10 p.m. after seeing the great reviews on google. when we arrived, it was fully packed, and the waiter told us we’d have to wait about half an hour... but as we stood outside in the freezing cold, looking through the windows at the warm atmosphere and the incredible looking dishes, we knew we had to stay. luckily, after about 15 minutes, a table opened up, and it was absolutely worth the wait.

We were a group of four and shared everything- pizzas, pasta, soups, salads alongside beers and wine. the gnocchi with pumpkin cream was perfect, and the ravioli was just as good...rich, flavorful, and cooked to perfection. and for dessert, we had both the tiramisu and the panna cotta, and honestly, we couldn’t decide which one was better. both were incredible.

The atmosphere was warm and inviting, the kind of place you just want to stay in for hours. but the real standout? The Service. Absolutely perfect! attentive, friendly, and genuinely caring. and then came the finale - the bill. we were shocked at how unbelievably low it was for what we got. NO hesitation, we added a well-deserved 20% tip.

An incredible experience from start to finish, so if you're in Budapest and love Italian food, this...

We came to this restaurant to eat some italian food. The food quality was ok (really good if you consider that you are not in Italy and a little bit under the average of the Italian food you can actually find in Italy). However, after having eaten the main dish, it started raining (we were sitting outside), and although there was a curtain over the table, in a few minutes our second courses (as well as us) were literally wet. In the meanwhile one of the waiters was looking at us laughing in amusement. Obviously we had to eat in a hurry to leave and we couldn’t eat with calm what we have ordered (and paid), but the problem in my opinion is not even that. In fact until that moment we were trying to take everything with philosophy. The problem is that once we went in to pay, the waiter continued to look at us laughing. Moreover he didn’t even try to say “hey, would you like a free coffee? A palinka? A sweet?” “There’s a little discount on the check” “we apologize for the inconvenience” etc. Nothing. For God’s sake can’t you see your clients wet from head to toes? So, inconveniences can happen anywhere and to anyone, but the lack of professionalism, politeness and class seen in this restaurant are really sad. Too bad because the food would not...