24 Hours Budapest: Vegan Food, Cafés & Sightseeing

(This blogpost is also available in German / Auf Deutsch)

We took the train from Serbia back to Berlin and did a short stopover in Budapest. The 24 hours in this beautiful city were amazing! I’m in love! I liked Budapest so much that I really want to go back there as soon as possible. Maybe I can inspire you with my 24 hours Budapest guide as well (Disclaimer, the whole trip was completely paid by ourselves, no sponsoring or anything like that!):

Arrival & Hotel

After a 7 hours train ride through Serbia and Hungary we arrived on time in the evening at the Budapest Keleti railway station. Conveniently, our hotel The Three Corners Anna was only two metro stops away. We liked the hotel a lot, as the location was perfect for us, the room was relatively large and very cheap and the bathroom was very new! We had not booked breakfast, so I cannot comment on that.

After freshening up quickly, we went right back outside to explore:

Napfényes restaurant

Napfényes is a vegan restaurant, very centrally located at the Ferenciek tere subway station. The interior is home-style, on the menu you will find a very good selection of Hungarian simple cuisine and the staff was super friendly! We had the Vegan Lavish Platter for two and it was awesome! But only order it if you are in the mood for deep-fried dishes or soulfood. Otherwise, the Health Platter sounded good as well and generally all dishes on the menu 🙂 Only the dessert, a poppyseed cake, we did not like so much.

Szimpla Kert

Of course we also had to stop by one of the most famous bars in Budapest, the Szimpla Kert! I honestly did not know what to expect in the first place because Jesse had chosen the bar. I also recommend to experience this place in the same way like I did, which is why I will not post any photos here! Just go and let yourself be inspired by the very special atmosphere. The style and interior of scrap artworks and colorful lights may not be for everyone, but definitely worth a look. We were there relatively early, so it was not too crowded and we did not have to wait in line.

The next Morning

Breakfast & coffee

Our hotel location was really wonderful, so we could walk right to the breakfast location. We went to Szimply Breakfast & Lunch, tucked away in a cool backyard that reminds me a lot of Belgrade. It is not a 100% vegan eatery, it’s relatively small and not very cheap, but I recommend it anyway. The interior is cool minimalist, the food is simply heavenly and the bread so delicious! Just think of super crispy bread crust – it was amazing there! Pea spread was also a relatively new thing for me, very yummy. We also had a healthy freshly squeezed juice, I think with ginger, apples, etc. Szimply doesn’t serve coffee, but you get it in the café across. The two places somehow belong together, so you can get the coffee over there and bring it to Szimply.

But as we always try to visit as many places as possible, we decided to have a coffee in the My Little Melbourne Coffee and Brew Bar. According to numerous sources, they apparently serve the best coffee. The coffee was really good, but Jesse and I should have ordered another type of coffee or another roast, as the coffee was too “fruity” tasting for us. Next time! We are still very inexperienced in our Coffee Lover Journey 🙂

Walking around, Shopping & Lunch Break

Well fed for a day full of sightseeing we walked around in the 5th and 7th district. An exciting stop was in the Printa Design Shop – an ethical fashion and zero waste shop with handmade and sustainable products. In the shop itself you can also drink coffee and for environmental reasons, there is no Coffee To Go! I bought a longsleeve made from recycled materials and handmade earrings.

Since we had very good weather, we stopped by the ice cream parlor Gelarto Rosa. Again, not 100% vegan, but with very good vegan options and the scoops are arranged as flower petals on the waffle. They also have vegan waffles.

We had lunch at the Great Bistrot – Vegan Restaurant. Jesse and I both have not had a really good vegan sandwich for a long time, so we each ordered a club sandwich. Very tasty and very good! In addition, we also ordered a kind of potato casserole with vegan mince (I think made out of rice or something similar?) and packed it for the train-return in a lunch box. It was SO good!!!!

Sightseeing

We did not have a lot of time for sightseeing. Usually food and nice cafes are on our priority list. But we wanted to do a small sightseeing tour anyway. An extensive, long walk past some sights such as the St. Stephen’s Basilica took us over the famous chain bridge (Széchenyi lánchíd) to the Fisherman’s Bastion. The fortress offers a beautiful view of the city, as well as a very picturesque architecture. Of course, this picture is disturbed by the tourist crowds, but we were lucky and it was not that busy. The filigree details at the Matthias Church were also super impressive!

The best view points seem to be rented out to cafes and bars, just as an info for you. We did not visit any of them.

Actually, after that I wanted to go to the Tóth Árpád Promenade near the church, to admire the cherry blossoms and shoot some photos. But although the cherry blossoms were blooming everywhere else in the city, they were unfortunately still closed at the promenade. Next time, hopefully 🙂

Afternoon coffee & dinner

By subway we went back into the 7th district to have coffee in the restaurant Mazel Tov. I admit, we went there just because I liked the images from the cafe on Google! The shop is really beautifully green and has a bright, friendly atmosphere! We only had a café latte with almond milk, but it was really, really good!

Actually, we wanted to stay in that area and have dinner around there before we went back to the hotel and then to the night train. But on several blogs we had read that the burger in Vegan Love Street Food was the best vegan burger ever. So we drove there by taxi, otherwise we would have had to rush too much. We ordered the Double Cheezeburger and to be honest, yes, it was good BUT … I have eaten better ones and the taxi ride there has was not worthwhile in hindsight. Perhaps Jesse and I are so spoiled by the vegan burger offers in Berlin that we could not appreciate it enough, but in hindsight I would have rather gone to the Matrjoska Kroshka. Simply because maybe then we might have had more time to stroll around until we had to go back to the hotel and the interior looks a bit nicer. Next time! Oh and the burger was impossible to eat. Jesse titled it “the messiest burger ever” because it completely fell apart while eating haha!

For the train ride, we bought two cakes at 827 Specialty Kitchen – Vegán étterem but they were only ok. 

Then we went back to the hotel, filled up our water bottles (I can recommend the tap water in Budapest haha, somehow it tasted very good!), picked up our luggage and headed back to the Budapest Keleti station to catch our night train to Berlin. For the train journeys I will publish a separate article.

Have you ever been to Budapest? How did you like it? And since we were really only there for a very short time: What tips do you have for Budapest?

Here are some more impressions from this beautiful and very vegan friendly city: