A thin paprika-and-beef soup with cubed potatoes, onion, caraway and a knob of bacon fat to start it, ladled from a kettle. Hungary's civic dish, the thing the rest of the world miscalls goulash.
Gulyás is the herdsmen's soup of the Hungarian Great Plain, named after the gulyás (cattle drover). The paprika version dates to the late 19th century when Szeged paprika industrialised. The thick-stew goulash known abroad is a Habsburg court adaptation; in Budapest gulyás is always a soup, not a stew.
4 editor picks for Gulyás in Budapest, ranked by editorial score. All Budapest signature dishes · Gulyás across every city.
Hungarikum Bisztró ★ 4.5
lipotvaros · Steindl Imre utca 13, 1051 Budapest
Hungarikum Bisztro on Steindl Imre near Parliament cooks the canonical Hungarian classics, with gulyás, chicken paprikash and stuffed cabbage in a tiny old-school room, Budapest.
Kispiac Bisztró ★ 4.5
lipotvaros · Hold utca 13, 1054 Budapest
Kispiac Bisztro next to the Hold utca market in the 5th district is a six-table Hungarian room cooking veal liver, pork belly and roast duck right by the open kitchen, Budapest.
Gettó Gulyás ★ 4.4
erzsebetvaros · Wesselényi utca 18, 1077 Budapest
Getto Gulyas on Wesselenyi in the Jewish Quarter cooks 14 varieties of Hungarian stews and goulashes alongside Jewish-Hungarian classics, Budapest.
Menza Étterem ★ 4.1
terezvaros · Liszt Ferenc tér 2, 1061 Budapest
Menza on Liszt Ferenc ter is a retro-70s Budapest bistro just off Andrassy boulevard, cooking modern takes on the Hungarian canteen canon at a steady boulevard pace.