Extraordinary stories of the Hungarian catering industry

Beside ordinary wealthy people, we can often see celebrities and politicians at five-star hotels. These guests often attract attention with their presence and peculiar requests. In the past few decades, there have been stories we remember happily and incidents we would rather forget. 

One of the unforgettable stories is about Gerhard Schröder, former German chancellor, who ignored the delicious dishes for guests and chose the menu of the staff instead – according to femina.hu. He was looking at the menu, full of delicious and posh specialities, carefully for such a long time, and in the end, he asked:

“Is there any stew?”

It was revealed that as a child, he was in Hungary several times on holiday, and he fell in love with our traditional stew. The headwaiter told him that there was no stew in the menu, but the staff lunch happened to be stew on that day. He brought a large aluminium plate full of stew and Schröder was delighted – said István, director of a luxurious restaurant, to Szabolcs Kordos, author of the Luxushotel Hungary. You can read about experiencing Hungarian food in Budapest here.

István has been in many positions during his career. He started in the kitchen and then became a waiter, headwaiter, manager and finally director – therefore he has a lot of exciting stories. Politicians and world celebrities left a lasting impression on him. 

As István remembers, in the 90s, so many world-famous people came to the restaurant.

“On Monday, Mr Martini came, on Tuesday Mr Rotschild visited, the Hilton-heir turned up at the weekend. Benetton and Pierre Cardin also ate at my restaurant. The new business opportunities and markets attracted these people, and this is the main reason why they found us interesting after the Change of the System.”

– István concluded. 

Not all the experiences were positive and pleasant with celebrities and politicians, for the restaurant director. He found Woody Allen a cold, reticent person at the restaurant who ordered lightly seasoned chicken breast every day for a month, during his stay. He was stolid and impassive, let us just say that he saved his humour and energy for his films.