Cortez Restaurante&Bar — Restaurant in Budapest

This time I got tricked by very good photography photos of plates that weren’t as good as the pics themselves. I was torn between a great photo of their hamburger or a burrito or quesadillas plate. I don’t know why I opted for the burger, I came to a Mexican restaurant and should have stuck with that motif.

Regardless, the burger came out raw because of a poorly structured European cooking pyramid for hamburgers. Basically, Europeans cook ground meat more thoroughly with extra cooking time but undercook at the opposite end of the scale

So when you are an American and you order a medium-rare in the states that will be a medium in Europe or when you order a medium in the states, that will be a medium-to-well but more likely it will be a well-done in Europe.

But then it works the opposite on the lower end of the cooking scale; when you order a medium-rare in Europe that is literally a very raw burger, and a medium is a raw “not” cooked burger. So basically it will be a lose-lose situation when ordering a hamburger anywhere in Europe unless they know how to cook it.

What makes Hungary even worse is that they don’t even serve real ground meat anywhere, at ANY restaurant. You will always and only get ground chuck 80/20. So as an American you are going to be severely disappointed with any hamburger that you order in Europe and especially in Hungary.

I went through 3 burger places and were very disappointed in all of them. One of them being an “American” restaurant which will be in a later review.

So I had to send back my raw hamburger here for a reheat which they did, but I just couldn’t force myself to power through this ground chuck patty. The french fries were excellent though, it’s those crispy halfpipe cut fries which are kind of like fresh cut fries, but I forgot to ask.

The waiter on his 2nd day of the job tried to see if the owner would give me a discount because I did not eat my hamburger patty like at all. I ate maybe 20% of the meat and just tore it apart into pieces examining the meat structure for the rest of the meal as I just ate the bun and fries.

But he owner was too cheap to give me a discount on the abomination that they call a hamburger and he gave me a free lager beer instead, a small one! 250ml now that’s cheapola man. So I won’t be coming back to Cortez. It’s a shame, I really like that Neil Young song. And I don’t recommend the burger here to anyone. If you go, definitely go for a Mexican dish instead.

The service was the only good thing about the experience, the woman waitress was funny and cracked alot of jokes, and my waiter was a super funny guy too.

(Reply Edit: I'm American, I grew up on hamburgers, I had a hamburger before my momma's milk, that is why I know everything about them, also by being a chef myself. Lángos is not my thing, I don't eat junk food, peasant...

I visited Cortez on July 3rd with my two friends. The food was good; I ordered BBQ ribs and they tasted just like what I can get in the US. However, the reason I am giving one star despite the great food is the service.

From the start, the waiter had a borderline attitude. When he came to our table, I greeted him with a short “Hi” and started ordering, but he cut me off, saying, “First of all, do you need anything to drink?” I found this a bit unusual for a restaurant. Although I didn't feel bad or find it particularly rude, when we requested three cups of tap water, he gave us a weird look that felt slightly passive-aggressive.

Despite this, we enjoyed our food and had a good time. However, when we went to the cashier and asked to split the bill, the situation worsened. The waiter responded with “Look at the menu.” When I asked for clarification, he repeated, “Look at the menu.” It turned out that Cortez does not allow bill splitting.

I understand that some restaurants don't split bills, but if they follow this policy, they should kindly inform customers instead of responding dismissively. Additionally, I observed the waiter almost shouting at a father and son discussing a reservation. Such behavior is completely unacceptable. A waiter's job is to greet customers kindly and professionally. If he fails at this, I question why he was hired in the first place.

Although the food was great, every interaction with the waiter made me regret visiting Cortez. His behavior significantly affected my mood. Before leaving, I suggested he could kindly inform customers about the bill policy rather than directing them to the menu. I expected an apology, but he simply said, “Okay, have a nice day,” and tapped my shoulder.

To the manager, boss, and chef: you have lost a customer due to the service, not the food. I strongly recommend retraining this waiter or hiring someone else to ensure the future success of your restaurant. No matter how good the food is, poor service will drive customers away.

The waiter had beard and looked around 40s. He was around 175 cm. I hope this helps identifying which waiter I am...

We visited on the 21st of February at about 20:00-20:30 and stayed until about 22:00. We came here for our anniversary dinner, as a same sex couple. We don’t expect anything special in this country and were not being loud about our relationship, just holding hands. The server that seated us was really rude, rolling her eyes and talking about us in Hungarian to the other server as if we could not understand her. So rude. We got the nachos appetiser and when we asked for silverware we were told “you dont need a fork for this”. Its really none of their business what we need cutlery for, its a restaurant, and the attitude was not needed? The food was okay, the appetiser was melted cheese on chips without much else (ok, fine), i had the fajitas and my partner had the fish, both of our dishes were overcooked and under-seasoned, no salt and pepper on any tables or offered as an option. It was fine, not good or bad. Drinks were great, i had the pina colada and my partner had a corona, they were nice. The restaurant played strange music, and the server let the table next to us (that was a high table for 2 people), bring in their friends and at one point there were 6 people crammed around a 2 person table and sitting touching me??? Super bizarre. Overall the food was fine and drinks good, the atmosphere was weird and the restaurant a bit cold, and the service was terrible- the servers we had were rude and unpleasant. There is a mandatory tip on the bill of 15%, and they added 2 service charges to our bill (one for each server is what our receipt read) that totalled to about 25% mandatory tip on top of the total bill. Really weird bill format. We will...