Caviar & Bull Budapest — Restaurant in Budapest

I truly hate to write negative reviews and almost never do unless something has gone very wrong. Unfortunately my experience at Caviar and Bull was not one I would want to repeat. To the postive, booking was easy and when I had additional questions and emailed the restaurant they were very responsive. I had done a lot of research into various restaurants in the city and Caviar and Bull had good reviews and a great website. We had reservations for 2 at 8pm on a Tuesday and it was a special occasion (thus me spending a lot of time choosing this restaurant). Upon arriving, except for one other couple in a corner, we noticed we were the only diners in the entire (large) restaurant, during prime dining time. I understand it might have been off season (April) but it is rare to go into a nice restaurant and have the place nearly empty, so we were a little concerned. We got seated and hoped for the best. Unfortunately the service was really quite bad. Our waitress barely smiled and even seemed kind of annoyed with us being there. It was definitely not welcoming. She explained the menu and we had the sommelier come over and suggest a bottle of wine. We were served a treat from the chef which was pretty good. Unfortunately the wine that was chosen was on par with 'patio wine' or a lower house wine and we were quite disappointed, given that it was a high priced bottle. We ended up ordering a different wine ourselves. The wine was placed far from the table and out of reach, so that we had to summon someone each time we wanted a refill and here's the worst part of the experience. For us being among the only 2 patrons, it felt near impossible to get anyone's attention to get an order, get more water, or another splash of wine. To say they were 'not attentive' is the understatement of the century. I'm not sure I've ever had quite such poor service and certainly not at a Michelin level restaurant. We practically had to waive our arms to get anyone to look in our general direction or help with anything. We were brought these balls of liquid to start, those looked interesting but upon eating them, it was basically olive juice (!?) in a gelatin ball. It was not good. The server suggested a white caviar which we tried and just found it quite dull and flavorless. Its a sad, sad thing when half a can of caviar is left untouched. We both ordered the Lobster popcorn which is their signature dish and while the presentation was nice, it wasn't very flavorful and tasted pretty dried out. We also left those unfinished, which really killed me. It just seemed like even from us first walking in, the overall feel was that they didn't want us there, like perhaps they would have gotten the night off had we not shown up. There was an 'unfriendliness' and unhelpfulness I have rarely encountered in a nice restaurant and it sort of spoiled what little good parts there were. Certainly as they became aware that we were quite unhappy, the service got worse. Perhaps the staff and chef were having an off night, but overall it was just a really unfortunately experience and I was sad to have wasted the special...

Upon checking into the hotel, we decided to have a quick meal at the adjoining restaurant to save time and head out for a walk. We arrived at 7:00 PM and placed our orders by 7:15 PM. Initially, everything seemed fine; we received starters and complimentary items. However, no one informed us about potential delays in service. As a result, two of us who ordered appetizers received our food, while the other two remained hungry, waiting for their dishes until 8:40 PM. No one inquired about our preferences regarding the order of serving dishes or any related matters. For a place that positions itself as a restaurant and includes a mandatory service charge, this is unacceptable. We were extremely tired and hungry, so arguing felt pointless. Waiting 1.5 hours for dinner is nonsensical. We paid this time, but I urge others not to repeat our mistake and choose a different establishment. If you’re willing to pay just for the concept, go ahead. But if you want a pleasant and peaceful dining experience, look elsewhere.

Additionally, the check was brought within 5 minutes after we requested it when the food was finally served, so we wouldn’t have to wait another hour.

p.s.

Ось розширений варіант відгуку англійською:

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This rating could have been adjusted from 1 to 2 if the response had been adequate. However, the restaurant has clearly shown that it does not care about its guests.

By the way, I am not entirely sure about the quality of your ingredients either. The so-called fast-food establishments that you mentioned in your response undergo strict certification procedures. I do not eat in places that fail to meet such standards.

Furthermore, let me remind you that, according to proper restaurant etiquette, there are standard serving timing rules that must be followed. You completely ignored them.

Your restaurant fails in most key aspects when compared to even the worst fast food places.

Instead of taking responsibility and genuinely improving your service, you chose to justify unacceptable delays by pretending that poor communication and slow service are part of “fine dining.” That is not how it works. A true fine dining experience is about quality, timing, and customer care—none of which you provided.

I would strongly discourage anyone from visiting this place unless they enjoy paying premium prices for a chaotic and...

The place has a great service indeed as other comments are mentioning however it is extremely overpriced for what you get.

We went for the cosmopolitan degustation menu, which is around HUF 25.5K per person (c.€80) and our understanding was that it would be a fine dining experience. Some dishes were nice, but some of them didn’t quite fit.

On the menu itself What I liked: Two small compliments as starters – the consistency of an olive bubble was unusual; the other one (I think it was duck pate) was nice as well. Oysters were okay (however felt like London street market at Sloane’s Square has fresher oysters than a restaurant gave us). Salmon carpaccio and tartar were delicious, very well done. Octopus and lobster were nice however a bit unusual to see deep-fried elements in the fine dining. Presentation of the lobster was great though.

What I didn’t like and why: Foie gras dish, due to: a) strong alcohol taste in the foam; b) the plate material and the cutlery didn’t go well together so you would have this weird sound / scratchy touch when trying to mix the elements of the dish which made me feel extremely uncomfortable. Turkish delight as it was way too sweet, felt as if you were just eating sugar. Prawn / Salmon tortellacci was delicious but a bit strange presentation — due to a size it felt like you were given just one dumpling to try. If there were at least two, it’d feel different.

On the price comparison The price is comparable with Michelin restaurants however it didn’t feel like Michelin due to presentation and taste of some dishes (e.g. too sweet or too deep fried). As we are in our third day of exploring Budapest, I can confirm that there are places that will treat you with the same / better level of service and with the same / better food taste for more reasonable price (two-three times cheaper without compromising the quality!), e.g. we’ve been at Borso Bistro, Pierrot, Bouchon cafe which we really liked, all of them had great selection of dishes and some of them even had live musicians.

I always feel sorry for leaving bad feedbacks but it does feel sad indeed to get €180 (incl. tax) out of you pocket for something where fair price would be...