Face it: Most restaurants have only one or two strong suits. Budapest Bistro on South Pearl Street has five.
One: immorally id-pleasing garlic “bread” appetizers, which are less like bread and more like savory, flaky-stretchy discs of fried dough, at once dainty and robust, meant to be torn into pieces and stuffed down your gullet with hearty washes of Hungarian wine.
Two: classic rib-sticking onomatopoeic Hungarian comfort dishes — think goulash, paprikash, schnitzel, each soft and soothing and rich.
Three: unfussy, relaxed, family-owned atmosphere — warm wall colors, low lighting, quiet classical music, woven cotten tablecloths, kitschy Hungarian bric-a-brac.
Four: lilting Hungarian banter seeping from the kitchen along with the aromas of onions and paprika and meat — the entire family-staff, including mother/cook Anna Hellvig, son Mark and daughter Petra, fled communist Hungary in 1979 to settle with relatives in in Denver.
Five: Petra Hellvig, perhaps Denver’s warmest, smartest, most talented front-of-house professional.
Petra’s got the goods: Easy smile, check. Cheerful demeanor, check. Passion for the food, knowledge of where each dish comes from and what it means, willingness to assist in choosing among unfamiliar dishes or wines, check and check and check.
But it’s her hospitable rhythms, her effortless energy, her innate sense of when to stand and chat, and when to quietly refill a glass.
On the throbbing South Pearl Street strip, especially in the restaurants, this kind of humane, spirited, transparent generosity is in short supply. Sure, those sushi-slingers sure do look great (so does Petra), but they don’t always go out of their way to make the rest of us “feel” great.
And let’s face it, isn’t that why we go out to dinner? Because of how it makes us feel?
Your strategy at Budapest Bistro: First course, garlic bread (Langos) and Paprika goat cheese (Korozott). Next, pork loin “Bugac” style, lightly breaded under a tangy mushroom-wine sauce with spring-loaded spaetzle and braised cabbage, or if you’re going veggie, piquant mushroom paprika. Finish with a floating island (Madartej) of whiskey-spiked custard under a delicate dumpling and whipped cream.
Budapest Bistro
Hungarian.
5 p.m.-10 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 1585 S. Pearl St., Denver, 303-744-2520. Plates, $13.95-$18.95
