Cafés in Hungary Budapest
The Ottoman 'black soup', Pécs's 1789 cukrászda, the Cake of the Country each 20 August, and Budapest's kávéházak and cake shops.
Photo: Nikolett Emmert, Pexels License
Hungary grows no coffee, and how much it drinks has gone down and back up. By the food balance sheets of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH), coffee available for consumption came to 2.7 kg per person in 2019. That was the same as in 2005, after a low of 2.1 kg in 2013.1 At home, the usual brewer is still the kotyogó, the stovetop moka pot named for the rattle of the weight in its valve. The Italian engineer Alfonso Bialetti invented it in 1933.2
Coffee arrived with the Ottomans, and the language kept a souvenir. Hungarians met it as fekete leves (black soup), a fixture of Turkish meals, and the saying "hátra van még a fekete leves" (the black soup is still to come) still warns that the worst is yet to come.2
Hungary's café cities
Black soup and the Ottoman century
The saying has its own story. In the 1680s, by tradition, the pasha of Várad invited Prince Imre Thököly to lunch, meaning to arrest him. When Thököly tried to leave early, a janissary aga stopped him: the black soup was still to come. Once he had drunk his coffee, he was taken in chains to the Seven Towers prison in Istanbul.2
Géza Gárdonyi moved the line about 140 years earlier. His historical novel Egri csillagok (Eclipse of the Crescent Moon) puts it in 1541, at the capture of Bálint Török during the Ottoman occupation of Buda.2
Coffeehouses after the Compromise
Under Habsburg rule, coffee spread to provincial towns. In Pécs, the first known coffee man was György Scheiber, who from 1800 leased the shop on Király utca later named Caflisch. The town's coffeehouses multiplied after the Compromise of 1867, and in the 20th century many closed or changed into other kinds of places.3 Roasting started outside the capital too: from 1867 the Gratzag family ran a coffee roastery and wholesale business in Paks, before moving it to Budapest in 1924.3
Few of these rooms were literary. Of the hundreds of Budapest coffeehouses known from around the 1896 millennium celebrations, the literary historian Krisztián Nyáry counts only five or six where many writers gathered. His book Itt kávéztak ők (They had coffee here), published in November 2024, follows them from the early 19th century to the mid-20th.5
Pécs and the country cukrászda
The cukrászda (confectioner's shop with tables) is as much a part of Hungarian coffee as the coffeehouse. Caflisch, at Király utca 32 in Pécs, is called the oldest in the country. Ágoston Szibereau opened a confectioner's shop there in 1789, in a building first recorded in 1695.4
Kristóf Caflisch rented the business from 27 April 1869 and bought the building in 1879, which is why it bears his name. It closed in 2009, reopened briefly in 2011 and has been open again since July 2014.4
The Cake of the Country
Each summer the country picks a cake. The national confectioners' guild first created Magyarország tortája (Hungary's cake) for the 20 August 2007 celebrations, at the government's request. Entries are judged in three rounds, starting with an anonymous tasting and ending with finalists baking in front of the jury, and the recipe is published the following 1 January.7 A sugar-free version, with no white flour or added sugar, has run alongside it since 2012.7
The 2026 contest, the 20th, drew a record 60 entries. The winner, Bíborfehér, comes from the Kézműves Cukrászda in Gyula: forest berries, roasted almonds, a sour-cream mousse and rögös túró (crumbly curd cheese). From 20 August it was sold at nearly 500 cukrászdák nationwide.8 The same Gyula shop also won in 2025.7
Budapest
One of Budapest's oldest café rooms belongs to a cake shop. Ruszwurm, on Szentháromság utca in the Castle District, was founded in 1827 by the confectioner Ferenc Schwabl and took its name from Vilmos Ruszwurm, who held the license from 1884 to 1922.6 Its Biedermeier cherry-wood fittings survived the sieges of Buda Castle in 1849 and 1944–1945. The shop was nationalized in February 1951 and reopened after renovation on 20 August 1960.6
The literary coffeehouses had famous guests from abroad as well: Nyáry notes that Hans Christian Andersen sat in the Kávéforrás.5
Sources
- 4.1.28. A rendelkezésre álló élelmiszer és tápanyag egy főre jutó mennyisége (1990–2019), Központi Statisztikai Hivatal (KSH), STADAT, accessed October 2026
- Kávé, Wikipedia (Hungarian), accessed October 2026
- Kávéház, Wikipedia (Hungarian), accessed October 2026
- Caflisch Cukrászda, Wikipedia (Hungarian), accessed October 2026
- Nyáry Krisztián: A felvilágosodás óta tartó világrend a szemünk előtt ér véget (interview by Zsófi Rátkai, 9 February 2025), Telex, accessed October 2026
- Ruszwurm cukrászda, Wikipedia (Hungarian), accessed October 2026
- Az ország tortája, Wikipedia (Hungarian), accessed October 2026
- Idén a Bíborfehér torta lett Magyarország Tortája!, Magyar Cukrász Iparosok Országos Ipartestülete (cukraszat.net), accessed October 2026
Cafés in Hungary: questions
What does fekete leves mean in Hungarian coffee history?
Fekete leves, black soup, was how Hungarians first knew coffee, a fixture of Turkish meals during the Ottoman era. The saying "the black soup is still to come" means the worst is yet to come. Tradition ties it to the 1680s, when Prince Imre Thököly was arrested after a pasha's lunch once he had drunk his coffee.
What is the Cake of the Country in Hungary?
Magyarország tortája is a cake chosen each year by Hungary's national confectioners' guild for the 20 August celebrations, first made in 2007. The 2026 winner, Bíborfehér, came from the Kézműves Cukrászda in Gyula, beat a record 60 entries, and went on sale at nearly 500 cukrászdák from 20 August.
What is the oldest cukrászda in Hungary?
Caflisch, at Király utca 32 in Pécs, is called the oldest confectioner's shop in Hungary. A cukrászda opened there in 1789, and Kristóf Caflisch took it over in 1869. In Budapest, Ruszwurm in the Castle District served cake from 1827, in Biedermeier fittings that survived the sieges of 1849 and 1944–1945.
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