Restaurants across the capital city offer numerous holiday menus, so grab the opportunity to experience and test Hungarian customs. 

Pigs will bring you luck 

They say that because pigs root moving their snout forward, they dig up luck for you, and help you have everything you need in the next year. Eat some pork in the form of a roast, blood, liver or meat sausages, or even as frankfurters.  

And if you are looking specifically for pork dishes, you can also try the special holiday food of Hungarians, meat aspic: the cooking water is poured over cooked vegetables, pork and seasonings, then it is cooled down to get a jelly-like consistency. The more daring will also add some trotters, ears, tongue or tail to their masterpiece.

Eat lentils to get rich 

The key to wealth according to Hungarians: New Year’s lentils. And who wouldn’t want to enjoy abundant fortune throughout the year? Lentils symbolise coins, so Hungarians tend to eat a lot of them on 1st January. Lentil stew and lentil soup are typical New Year’s dishes, but other legumes bring luck too, so a big bowl of bean soup will not be out of place on the table either.

The key to longevity: strudel 

Strudels stretched long and stuffed well can also make your life longer according to superstition, while holding the promise of wealth too. So get to a cake shop in the city centre, visit Városliget Café or the First Strudel House of Pest, and try their divine strudels. 

Városliget Café: Budapest, Október 6. u. 22, 1051

Budapest, Olof Palme stny. 6, 1146

You’d better leave the chicken for another day 

One should avoid eating fowl at New Year, as they “scratch away” your luck, so leave everything made of chicken, turkey or other poultry for another day of the year to be on the safe side.  

And here’s one more useful tip for the first day of the new year: whatever you eat, always leave some leftovers on your plate, as this could help you have something new and fresh in your life all the time in the months ahead of you. 

Budapest is a true paradise of culinary pleasures: you will find holiday menus and traditional Hungarian New Year’s dishes in many restaurants and cafés of the city centre.

Make a reservation at Gundel Restaurant, Fakanál Restaurant, New York Café or Párisi Passage Restaurant for example, and start the year with a delicious lunch.

Source: Budapestinfo.hu