{"id":1990,"date":"2026-04-03T15:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/1990\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T15:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:28:10","slug":"flipping-the-dish-berlins-horvath-and-budapests-salt-restaurants-swap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/1990\/","title":{"rendered":"Flipping the Dish: Berlin’s Horv\u00e0th and Budapest’s Salt restaurants swap"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"Szil\u00e1rd T\u00f3th, chef of Salt restaurant, photo credit: Horpaczi David<\/p>\n

For many chefs, their kitchen feels like home. So what happens if you take a chef out of their element \u2013 and put them in someone else\u2019s? Sebastian Frank, chef of Horv\u00e1th in Berlin, and Szil\u00e1rd T\u00f3th, chef of Salt in Budapest, will find out when they swap restaurants in April. Even hundreds of kilometres apart, the ideas behind the two places are strikingly similar: a rejection of luxury ingredients for their own sake and a return to something closer to home.<\/p>\n

The Chef from Austria in Berlin<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Sebastian Frank, chef of Horv\u00e1th in Berlin, photo credit: Steffen Sinzinger<\/p>\n

Horv\u00e1th sits on Paul-Lincke-Ufer, where it\u2019s lived several lives. In the 1970s, it was Exile, a legendary restaurant where musicians, philosophers and writers gathered; it was a local haunt of David Bowie, too. Later, it became a modest neighbourhood bistro. But that all changed in 2010, when Sebastian Frank arrived from Vienna. With a complete redesign and a radically new approach to the kitchen, he transformed the quiet caf\u00e9 into one of Berlin\u2019s most exciting fine-dining destinations.<\/p>\n

Within a year, Horv\u00e1th received a Michelin star, making Sebastian one of the youngest chefs in Berlin to achieve the honour. A second star followed soon after. In 2015, Sebastian and his wife Jeannine took over the restaurant entirely. But even as it rose through the ranks of haute cuisine, Sebastian was already questioning the rules of the game. By the mid-2010s, he began reducing meat and fish on the menu and gradually removed ingredients that had to be imported from far away. Long supply chains were unpredictable and quality varied. More importantly, he felt there was little creative challenge left in cooking with expensive ingredients. By 2019, he made a radical decision: meat disappeared entirely from the menu. Vegetables became the centrepiece of Horv\u00e1th\u2019s cuisine \u2013 and the guests kept on coming. Then the pandemic arrived.<\/p>\n

The Chef from Szatm\u00e1r in Budapest<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Szil\u00e1rd T\u00f3th, chef of Salt restaurant in Budapest, photo credit: Horpaczi David<\/p>\n

Around the same time in Budapest, another chef was rethinking the future of fine dining. When Covid struck, Szil\u00e1rd T\u00f3th turned his restaurant \u2013 open for barely six months \u2013 into a deli operation, delivering homemade bread, butter and smoked goods to customers. He\u2019d opened Salt in 2019 with his partner M\u00e1t\u00e9 Boldzs\u00e1r, bringing a new idea to Budapest\u2019s more traditional fine-dining scene. The restaurant offered something unusual: an informal atmosphere, dishes partly prepared in front of guests and the option of non-alcoholic drink pairings instead of wine. But the real novelty lay in the inspiration behind the menu. Rather than luxury ingredients, Szil\u00e1rd looked to the traditional cuisine of Szatm\u00e1r, one of Hungary\u2019s poorest regions.<\/p>\n

The approach paid off. Salt earned a Michelin star in 2021 and a Michelin Green Star in 2022. Szil\u00e1rd explained their vision: \u201cFine dining isn\u2019t expensive because we put caviar on everything. It\u2019s expensive because eight people work to bring out the flavour of a single carrot in a way guests have never tasted before. A bluefin tuna can impress almost anyone. A carrot, on the other hand, has to work much harder. Turning something so humble into something extraordinary \u2013 that\u2019s where true culinary mastery begins.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Horv\u00e1th, the same philosophy has become something of a motto: \u2018fuck caviar\u2019. After all, a truly great chef should be able to create fine dining from the vegetables sold at the Maybachufer market.<\/p>\n

Time to Sober Up<\/p>\n

By the middle of the last decade, the golden age of haute cuisine \u2013 defined by lobster, champagne and excess \u2013 was already beginning to fade. In Scandinavia, a paradigm shift was underway at restaurants like Noma, but it would take a few more years, and a few more shocks, for that change to fully register in cities like Budapest and Berlin.<\/p>\n

A bluefin tuna can impress anyone. A carrot, on the other hand, has to work much harder<\/p>\n

The hedonistic decade had left diners and chefs alike with a slight hangover. Then came Covid, shaking faith in long, fragile supply chains and forcing a broader reckoning. Many began to question just how sustainable their previous lifestyles, and the culinary worlds built around them, had really been.<\/p>\n

When Salt opened, it embodied this new sensibility. The focus was not on luxury ingredients but on technique, narrative and a sense of place. After Horv\u00e1th entered a new chapter, its chef, Sebastian, increasingly moved in the same direction.<\/p>\n

Across the world of haute cuisine, similar transformations were taking place. Some restaurants turned dinner into elaborate, immersive performances; others began telling intricate stories through their menus. Szil\u00e1rd and Sebastian, however, chose a different path. Rather than chasing spectacle, they turned inward, toward the landscapes and traditions that had shaped them: their roots.<\/p>\n

\u201cLe radici sono importanti\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"The team at Horv\u00e1th, photo credit: Luis Bompastor<\/p>\n

In one scene of Paolo Sorrentino\u2019s film La Grande Bellezza, an elderly nun is asked why she eats beetroot. Her answer is simple: \u201cLe radici sono importanti.\u201d Roots matter.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sentiment that resonates deeply at Horv\u00e1th. One of the restaurant\u2019s most iconic dishes begins with an ingredient that could hardly be more humble: celery. The vegetable is sealed in salted dough and left to dry for twelve months, transforming the rock-hard \u20ac1 staple into something astonishingly intense in flavour. For chef Sebastian, celery is more than a clever culinary exercise \u2013 it\u2019s personal. In Lower Austria, where he grew up, celery is one of the region\u2019s most beloved seasonings. Horv\u00e1th may not be an \u2018Austrian\u2019 restaurant in any conventional sense, but Sebastian eventually realised that the ingredients he knew best were the ones from which he could create something truly distinctive.<\/p>\n

A similar philosophy guided Szil\u00e1rd when he opened Salt. From the beginning, the restaurant has drawn inspiration from the cooking of the Szatm\u00e1r region in eastern Hungary. Meat does appear on the menu \u2013 smoked goods, for instance, come from the adobe smokehouse run by Szil\u00e1rd and his brother-in-law, where it is prepared using centuries-old techniques \u2013 but it rarely takes centre stage. Fish, vegetables and foraged ingredients play equally important roles, while vegetarian and vegan dishes sit comfortably alongside the rest of the menu. When animal products are used, they come from carefully sourced, ethical producers.<\/p>\n

Central and Eastern Europe offers a natural advantage to chefs working in this direction. Techniques that have recently become fashionable in haute cuisine \u2013 fermentation, pickling, foraging \u2013 have long been everyday practices here. Because urbanisation came relatively late and many rural traditions persisted well into the 20th century, these methods were still part of daily life only a few decades ago. For chefs like Sebastian and Szil\u00e1rd, rediscovering them is not an act of reinvention but of remembering.<\/p>\n

The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"The kitchen team at Salt, photo credit: Horpaczi David<\/p>\n

Berlin\u2019s restaurant scene hasn\u2019t been immune to the economic slowdown that began in 2023. At Horv\u00e1th, too, guest numbers have dipped, prompting the team to look for new ways to bring diners through the door. The restaurant once again turned to its roots. Horv\u00e1th\u2019s wine list already focusses almost exclusively on producers from Central and Eastern Europe, so the team had connections across the region. It felt natural to reach out to restaurants whose philosophy aligned with their own.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how the collaboration with Salt began. The Budapest team first travelled to Berlin in 2024. A year later, Horv\u00e1th returned the visit. What started as a four-hands dinner quickly turned into something more. The partnership proved so successful that the chefs have now taken the idea a step further: for a few days, they\u2019re swapping restaurants. From April 15 to 19, diners in Berlin will be able to experience Salt\u2019s Central and Eastern European take on fine dining at Horv\u00e1th, while at the very same time, Horv\u00e1th will be in Budapest, showing what modern, sustainable haute cuisine looks like from the perspective of Kreuzberg.<\/p>\n

You can follow Salt @salt_budapest and Horv\u00e1th @restauranthorvathberlin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Szil\u00e1rd T\u00f3th, chef of Salt restaurant, photo credit: Horpaczi David For many chefs, their kitchen feels like home.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18,2044,2045,2046,2047,2048,2049],"class_list":["post-1990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-berlin","tag-berlin-restaurants","tag-fine-dining","tag-food","tag-food-beverage","tag-food-drink","tag-restaurant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}