Apacuka Étterem — Restaurant in Budapest

As I always do, I look at photos of plates before I walk into any restaurant and yet I could not find any photo of the Chicken Kiev here, but their ingredients description is what grabbed me in thinking this could be the best Chicken Kiev that I’ve ever had and I was right in that assumption.

I haven’t had Chicken Kiev or many years, maybe 5, so it was an opportunity to have a very good example of. The portion sizes were plenty, I was 80% full, the presentation was very colorful, a nice sweet balance of the caramelized nectarines countering the vanilla potato cream which was very light, delicate yet composed.

Blue cheese stuffing with walnuts is a good combo, the black forest ham wrap was crispy on the outside instead of the usual raw wrapping which is a bad sign of a terrible cooking. Overall, the main entrée was fantastic. The best Chicken Kiev you can find perhaps.

The only bad part of the meal was the worst cheesecake that I have eaten for as long as I could remember, probably the absolute worst. I expected what was pictured in the Google photos which was an old photo of a thick, soft, creamy cheesecake with caramel spread and pistachios crumbs is what it looked like.

I told the host that they should fire their dessert distributor and find a new one since this is an embarrassment on the reputation of their fine restaurant. It clearly wasn’t homemade, but not everything needs to be homemade anyways and I understand that. If you have a good dessert supplier then why not outsource it if its fresh daily. But this abomination of a cheesecake was like days old, expired, store bought, a solid brick with a gritty, dirt, coarse, crud texture. I should have sent it back, I regret that I didn’t. Even my idea of Amaretto complimenting the caramel drizzle with cappuccino didn’t help it.

Martin the host is the epitome of positivity and energy. A very funny guy who immediately is your friend to any stranger walking into the restaurant. His sense of humor contributes to the fine dining experience inside their trendy designed rear patio. Some chill lounge music like Thievery Corporation playing low volume in the background would be an excellent addition.

Thus, I highly recommend Apacuka Étterem, especially for larger parties since they can accommodate big groups with ease. Martin is the man to welcome everyone into a great time and meal at Apacuka. Just choose a homemade dessert at the end, and obviously not the cheesecake. Big thumbs up, keep up...

A restaurant with a lovely garden. We enjoyed our meal, specifically the pork cheek confit, mussels and tuna. We also ordered dips. However, were disappointed with them. In our opinion, both lacked flavour. In particular, the smoked eggplant dip that did not have a smokey flavour at all, not even a sprinkle of paprika. A good drink and wine list. The service was friendly. The atmosphere was a little loud due to a large table celebrating a birthday, including people standing up from that table to take phone calls and moving directly next to our table to do so. This lack of consideration for other patrons is of course not the fault of the restaurant. However, the restaurant manager could perhaps have observed this and politely asked those on the phone to take their call in a corner of the garden so as not to disturb others. In any case, we provided direct feedback to the phone...

I definetly recommend this place! Great atmosphere in the garden, nice choice of food and we were very happy and lucky with the waiter. And by lucky I mean it, because there were more than one waiter! E.g. waiter who helped to bring the food to main waiter brought me burger supossed without onions, I see many onions coming out of the burger and ask, are they onion, he smiles and says no, no, and goes away (definetly did listen at all), and then came the main waiter, I ask the same question, he apalogized and brought the right burger within a few minutes, so that I mean by lucky! And yeah in Hungary- Budapest, many places they charge mandatory service fee, so the service is often not on the bright side, but in this place the service was very pleasant and professional for a change! :) the prices were also very good, as well for drinks, if you come to sit with friends and drink...