Index – Culture – Jardinette Garden restaurant, where the buffalo could run rampant, but only a thin slice

As if bourgeois good manners, the traditional bourgeois outlook on life, ethos somehow sounded better in French, seemed more original, more authentic. It may be so, in any case, the Jardinette Garden Restaurant in Farkasrét seems to be following this line of thought or a similar one in the mountain restaurant offer.

Apart from the name of Jardinette, there is not much to suggest that it is at all committed to traditional French gastronomy. Unless we take into account the passionate French culinary commitment of the former Petrus owner-chef, Feke Zoli, who has been collaborating with them lately, and the apartment restaurant cooperations that have been created as a result. But this is not noticeable during daily operation.

The garden restaurant’s food offer tries to recall the kitchen of a high-quality, well-managed bourgeois family, who cooks from demanding recipes and fresh market raw materials. It may be true that in the kitchens of peaceful aristocratic families, not just anything and not just any recipes were cooked in the pots.

Art against obsolescence!

Even in this way, the indoor furniture is reminiscent of the living rooms of bourgeois apartments. On the wall opposite the entrance, you can see framed photos documenting the visits of celebrities, the kind of people we are proud of. A popular restaurant obviously can’t choose its guests, it’s not even its job, it would even be missing, but who it boasts of is another matter, especially if they are politicians. But that’s not a problem either, I’ve seen it elsewhere, abroad, and I wasn’t surprised there either, even if the sight of some faces didn’t exactly evoke the kindest thoughts in me. Well, not even up to the bottom here, I’m not sure I’d show one or the other, I’d rather forget them.

Although, sticking to the analogy of the bourgeois home, it also often happens that the black sheep of the family finds a place in an undecorated frame, somewhere on the barely visible bottom shelf of the photo wall, anyone who wants to can notice it, because family is family.

But to make the picture complete, there is another version, perhaps not coincidentally the most common, when the walls of the restaurant are packed with autographed photos of actors, singers, and artists, most of which were taken in the restaurant. I see the most sense in this, the chance of obsolescence is the smallest here. The Kádár canteen in Klauzál tér was like that.

Pleasure compass

In addition to the interior reminiscent of a bourgeois salon, a spacious garden with ancient trees and a glass conservatory are also available. All three guest rooms exude a different atmosphere. In the midst of harsher weather conditions, it is worth sitting in the glass pavilion, the view of the trees that have lost their leaves in a sheltered vicinity promises the promise of the upcoming budding spring; in summer, the garden is covered in dense green, it becomes a peaceful garden restaurant, the corresponding trills of buzzing bees and birds are linked with the discreet clinking of cutlery, giving way to the quiet hum of the tram approaching from afar.

I’m looking forward to high-flying, yet homely, personalized dishes that suit this idyllic and imaginary bourgeois world. The dishes listed on the menu roughly confirm this expectation. In any case, I envision a determined individual who not only leads, but is also the proud owner of his kitchen with a glowing face, who incorporates his mature taste and culinary convictions into the dishes.

Tasting a few typical dishes is perhaps not enough to form a comprehensive opinion on the performance of a restaurant, but there are no great miracles if you try two soups that can be said to be emblematic of this bourgeois Hungarian cuisine, the beef soup and the goulash soup, then their enjoyment value is probably valid can be classified as a compass.

Bread basket

But before all of this: we would not even imagine how decisive the kind of bread slices the kitchen starts with can be. I wouldn’t say that every restaurant has an obligation to bake its own bread, but the imaginary bourgeois tradition assumes the existence of homemade bread as a matter of course.

Locally baked bread – in addition to the gesture – also reveals the taste and style of the kitchen. In this case, the bread comes from an external source, I would say its quality is average. If the kitchen had offered at least salted butter, but it didn’t, the bread would have been left alone. Perhaps I should have ordered from the selection of homemade cakes, which is listed as a separate tasting on the menu.

Buffalo, but not soup

Native buffaloes are bred on 250 hectares in Zalaköveskút. They live there like their wild ancestors. And sure enough, Jardinette’s spice-crusted carpaccio is made from the aged tenderloin of this buffalo. It’s interesting that I can’t find any other buffalo items on the menu, although I would think that if they are already working with raw materials with a large “footprint”, then buffalo meat could also be included in the broth.

The carpaccio with peppered strawberries and parmesan shavings is a particularly witty creation – if it weren’t cold. The spice bark evokes distant green flavor memories, however, the uniform coldness of the refrigerator, which climatically integrates the ingredients, does not favor the independent development of the flavors of the raw materials.

The beef soup is richly similar to its family-style, generously portioned ancestor, but apart from the optical similarity, it has little to do with the freshly golden, deep, intense, hearty home-made soups. The slightly overcooked soup vegetables cut into regular cubes, creating an industrial feel, slightly over-sweeten the meal, the generously portioned meat cubes are more reminiscent of the systematic taste of a vigorous chef, and the quality of the semolina dumplings is also convincing.

The goulash soup seems to have presented the kitchen with a kind of mandatory “I don’t like task”. However, if it is already on the menu, it would be more worthwhile using the skills of the Jardinette kitchen to make a fresher, more saturated, medium-flavored, high-end version, which has become established in many places these days. Buffalo would be great here.

Grilled onion and walnut cake

The onion-grilled evergreen is a classic, real hit. It was even when the meat was, to put it mildly, on the verge of being enjoyable, it was chewy, tender, but the heaps of crispy fried onions made up for everything. There is no mention of that here. The meat is a very tasty cut of beef, a kind of steak substitute: onglet or hanger steak, in Hungarian we could say diaphragm. If it is prepared well, which means that when cut into thin slices like a steak, against its fibers, it surpasses the best meats in terms of taste and texture, it has a definite liver flavor, which gives it an additional juicy and soft feeling.

In this case, it is placed on the plate in a shapeless thick cut, slightly overcooked, but still a juicy and tasty dish. The charred potatoes are what they should be, a rustic side dish, the mound of onions covers everything, it’s good just the way it is. The dish is severely lacking in steak juice, and the lack is noticeable because it is tasty anyway.

Slow-roasted BBQ pork loin, grilled potatoes, coleslaw. Not a small portion, two thick slices of meat, crumbly, not too fatty, which I have a hard time making friends with, because ribs, despise them for that, I like them for their outrageous amount of fat. The high-end version of this, if the ribs are of mangalica origin, is unbeatable.

I don’t consider myself a hard-nosed traditionalist, but when I read coleslaw, I naturally expect the traditionally known version, I admit, it’s not very imaginative. The purple cabbage isn’t bad either, in fact, if the carrot strips had appeared, as they provided in the case of a coleslaw at idle, I might even have liked it. I also have a hard time forgiving the lack of celery seed sprinkles.

Grandma’s nut cake. Family recipes are either good or nothing, because how am I going to get involved in something that is old and has caused the delight of several generations. I would just like to note that the inedible dried orange cut that is present as a decoration, no matter how attractive it looks, is not very attractive, but it could have served well in any other processing.

(Pierre Vajda, published by Index Könyvek Pierre’s book Tastes – and Believe It or Not, Satisfied can be purchased here.)

Pierre is a gastroesthete.

What is described does not necessarily reflect the position of the Index editors. We like exciting, smart, argumentative conversation. We are also waiting for your opinion.

If you missed last week’s Pierre article, you can read it here.