Fenyőgyöngye Vendéglő — Restaurant in Budapest

Fenyőgyöngye is an excellent example of how much you can get away with when you have a great location for a restaurant as long as you don't scratch the surface.

We had dinner here and there were a few things which made this a memorable night but for all the wrong reasons. The service was disappointing. Waiters were forgetful and it seemed like we were a nuisance to them which was confirmed by their facial expressions and our time to order. Some of which sadly were forgotten and upon questioning we didn't see the smallest sign of remorse or apology from them. Food was bland and unappealing. Steaks asked as medium were brought well done; roasted fish became deep fried on its way to the table; soup was lukewarm at best. The venue itself reeks of bad 90s nostalgia which is probably OK for the typical customer demographic who come to eat here specifically but really disheartening for everybody else at the time of writing this review, which is 2023.

If you read all of the above you will probably expect this place to be really affordable and you won't be terribly wrong. It's not expensive. However it's not cheap either and for roughly the same price or just a little more you'd get mouthwatering food and great service in many other venues in the city.

But that's where those venues are; further away in the city and if you are just finishing your hike hungry and thirsty you will want something as soon as possible. Your expectations will be a little lowered and if you are lucky enough to get a decent sized meal and a cold pint here at a reasonable rate you'll believe that this is a great restaurant. And it could be with attention being paid to where it's important but until then I can't help but think that the only really good thing about it is...

We went there for a family Birthday party. We ordered everything in advance, weeks ago. They calculated the portion sizes based on the number of people. We were for more than half an hour there, when they started serving the appetizers. The toasts were late, almost every meal got cold by the time we got either the knives or the toasts. The service, was extremely slow and unprofessional, despite the waiters being kind and helpful, we had to ask for every item one by one. The food was large in size but mediocre in taste and quality. None of the 10 dishes were close to the quality we got used to, they were just lacking any taste. The size of the portions was 2-3 times bigger than what we could handle. The chicken soup was a diluted salty dark broth, lacking any quality ingredients. By the end we realised what the main concept of the restaurant could be, and that was something we could actually appreciate. They seem to fight with super dry, overdone, and tasteless meats, and dark burned french fries, against the unhealthy Hungarian meat and grease heavy diet. Despite their premium position and loads of hungry hikers every day, I honestly feel they need a serious reconsideration of their core concept to survive. I personally won't be able to pay a visit in the near future, even though they kindly packed half of the meal that no one could finish,...

Went to the restaurant randomly on a nice Saturday afternoon in October, and despite several empty chairs/tables, we could not get a table for 2 (me and my 2.5 year-old son). At first I was a bit surprised, because they didn't even say "you have to wait". So I asked for an explanation. The waiters were visibly very busy and a bit stressed (or just tired), and said that the restaurant is usually booked full every day, and they can hardly serve random guests. Moreover, they were preparing for a wedding party, hence the many tables they tried to keep free. Th Finally, we waited for about 5 minutes, and got a table. I guess time goes by much slower with a small, talkative and hungry child, but it seemed ages until the waitress came and got our order. After that drinks and food came fast, which was a relief :) We ate aubergine paste and roast duck. Both were phenomenal, especially the duck! Apart from the initial confusion (the waiters were not super friendly at first), the place is nice and cozy. The building is at a very popular hiking intersection, so it would be nice to have a less busy place dedicated to random hikers and...