Kéhli Vendéglő — Restaurant in Budapest

A diamond in the rough...this restaurant left an unforgettable memory during my short trip to Budapest. Fine dining at its best, it extrudes class and humility at the same time.

An old structure, lovingly maintained and simply but tastefully decorated in pleasant cream and dark wood tones, character wood floors, cobbled patio with lush vines surrounding it, flickering candles and crisp tablecloths bring together the cosy and the serene. A live band of strings and oboe (I think it is an oboe?) add to the refinement of the ambiance, without cheesy-ness. If that was not enough, the bells from a nearby church chime every once in awhile as if to transport you into a surreal, movie-like fairytale scene.

Friendly smiles greeted me at the door, followed by a table service that was incredibly personal, passionate and undeniably proud of the long history of its establishment and what the menu has to offer. I felt the staff was genuinely eager to make my evening a total blast! My waiter —an epitome of Hungarian friendliness and gallantry— helped with the dish and wine selection.

I ended up with a small order of broth with a chicken liver dumpling and a an appetizer of marrow bone on garlic-smeared rustic croûtes. Right there was an incredible meal in itself. With a dollop of Erős Pista and and appropriately accompanied by a robust Egri borvidék red, it nearly made me groan in its deliciousness (I did groan quietly a few times for the record). Regrettably, I was full after all that and could not even try anything else on the menu!

This place is very special, romantic (however cliché that sounds) and I noted people were a bit dressed up and most patrons were Hungarian. Don’t be scared by the distance from the city center, it only took 10 min to get back home by taxi.

If you find this review helpful, please, click on...

As a true hungarian who knows and loves hungarian cuisine I have to admit that Kéhli is one of the best hungarian restaurants in Budapest, not a scam or fake authentic and not overpriced like so many other "authentic" hungarian restaurants scattered in the city center and around. My brother ate Brassói aprópecsenye, a dish consisting of garlicy juicy almost stew-like meat with fried potato cubes which absorb the delicious sauce, it was very nice. My mother ate Cigánypecsenye ( it has a different name on the menu but if you ask specifically for Cigánypecsenye they will know what you want), a slice of meat, typically pork butt marinated in minced garlic and high quality plain or smoked paprika. There was a ton of diversity on her plate, the meat, the fries, the fermented cabbage and vegetables, the fried smoked hungarian bacon all played very well together. Finally, I ate Hagymás Rostélyos, a very flavourful slice of beef marinated in mustard then fried quickly in a hot pan and a mountain of onions thinly sliced and dredged in flour then deep fried of a perfect crisp and golden brown color, and the fried potatoes were fried whole for a crispy outside and a fluffy inside. The only thing that I can criticize out of our 3 dishes is the amount of meat my dish had, I expected a slice of beef either twice as thick or twice as more to the amount of fried onions and potatoes on my plate. Nonetheless, I highly recommend visiting Kéhli for some real authentic hungarian cuisine if you're a tourist or a fellow...

We reserved a table for nine at 20:30 for our last dinner in Budapest, needless to say (you already guessed it), the kitchen is closing at 21:10, there is literally no chance for a little delay (the allowed delay everywhere is of about 15 min and we arrived within those minutes).

The waiters were embarassingly rude, and constantly on our necks to speed up our orders. If you are going to close your kitchen in 30 minutes, tell me about the issues i’m going to face beforehand when i’m reserving my table, don’t expect us to rush a dinner (and ask us to leave when we are still EATING and DRINKING !) That’s not how you treat customers, and no, we ate at three different hungarian restaurants (Paprika Vendeglo and Hungarikum Bisztro, extremely more pleasant eating there and they are really caring of their customers) and we left each restaurant at around 23:25, with coffee and slices of cake, something that didn’t happen at Kehli where waiters answered rudely saying that they could’t serve coffee or another bottle of wine because “the kitchen is closed” or “it’s finished”.

How can you finish coffee ? Are you cooking the wine ?

The only thing that saves this place is the building, and nothing more, the food was not great and i thought I was eating Fisherman’s soup and not Fishbone’s soup.

They also tried to sneak into the final bill a large Dreher that we didn’t order.

To all the tourists, try to avoid this place at late hours and try other restaurants in the...