"Art auctioneer Beatrix Mélykuti and her husband are regulars at Italian Restaurant Millennium Da Pippo on Andrássy út. “We were looking for a restaurant which is small, quiet, and friendly, not like the popular places in the city around Liszt Ferenc square, and we found a relatively new place, Da Pippo,” she said.The small place used to be called Millennium Restaurant under its previous management and was a typical tourist trap, with so-called traditional Hungarian cuisine: This meant goulash, Wiener schnitzel, and noodles with cottage cheese.
It seems that that kind of tourist attraction is quite out of fashion now, and we do not regret it. The restaurant on the corner of Rózsa street and Andrássy was taken over by an Italian man and his Hungarian wife. The new restaurant, Da Pippo, is a bit at odds with the aristocratic grandeur of Andrássy street, and is more like an Italian small-town trattoria on the main street, with a Palermo soccer dress in the shop window and five small tables on the sidewalk. But we do not mean this as a criticism, rather take it as a sign of authenticity of Italian food.
“The Italian owner, who came from southern Italy, cooks himself, makes really homemade dishes, and the taste and quality exceeds what I experienced in most restaurants in Italy,” Mélykuti said. “Pippo’s pizza cannot be compared to several so-called ‘Italian restaurants’ in Hungary, where Hungarians try to cook Italian.”
Beatrix Mélykuti likes to travel in her spare time and in her professional life has spent 15 years in the art and antiquity business.
“Even as a child I knew that I was interested in creative arts, design, fashion, and paintings, and spent my free time in museums and galleries, so I knew that I would like to work in some profession related to these,” she remembers. “But I was not conscious enough to choose art history at the faculty of fine arts.”
Instead she studied at the art and design management faculty of the University of Arts and Design. After graduation she started work at BÁV Zrt, the first Hungarian antiquity auction house and pawnshop, and worked in many of the antiquity shops of the company.
While working at BÁV, she attended a two-year internal course for art appraisers and then became the head of Fairy Tale Gallery, where contemporary story-book illustrations were exhibited and sold.
Unfortunately, when a new owner took over BÁV, Fairy Tale Gallery was closed down, just like the contemporary gallery of the company, so Mélykuti started working for the auction department of BÁV, editing auction catalogues.
“When Judit Virág – before she started her own gallery – was asked to lead BÁV auctions at that time, she was looking for a second auctioneer to help her watching the hands and call out items. I was sent by the company. Judit Virág is a dynamic auctioneer and I had to learn quickly to keep up with her, while learning a lot from her too about building up the suspense and maintaining the excitement until the end of the auction.”
Later, Mélykuti became the lead auctioneer of BÁV and now she also works in antique book auctions. She is attending the business communication faculty of Budapest College of Communication and Business (BKF).
We talked comfortably while taking our Bruschettas with fresh tomato and basil on bread, freshly baked by the restaurant owner with cheese, and ate our buffalo mozzarella with tomato as an appetizer. No one was pushing us.
As a main course Melykuti chose a “finger-burning” lamb cutlet that was exactly the way it should be: crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. We suspected it was the pizza oven that made it so perfect.
We also tasted the wine of the house, both the light tasty white Montepulciano and the red Pinot Grigio.
As for the service, the Hungarian waiters are not the strongest assets of Da Pippo, but since the author of this article visited another Italian restaurant, Da Lello, she is much more forgiving of the shortcomings of others. Unlike Da Lello, which is for those who want to demonstrate to their guests that they are not showing up, Da Pippo is suitable to invite friends for informal dining out at a relaxed place.
The prices were between Ft 2000 and Ft 3500 a main course, acceptable for a small family trattoria. The receipt says, “Arrivederci e Grazie.”
From the menu
Antipasti
Vitello Tonnato (Slice of beef with tuna sauce) Ft 1550
Pizza
Siciliana
(Spinach and garlic) Ft1550
Comoranesi (Italian sausage, garlic, onion, pepperoni) Ft 1750
Main courses
Orata Alla Sicula 4100
Filetto di Manzo
al Pepe Verde 3500
Crostata di Ricotta
(Italian cheesecake) 800
Millefogile
(Italian cream cake) 800"
Source:
BBJ
07.09.2007