3 Unmissable Experiences in Budapest For Food and Wine Loving Couples
Welcome to our corner of the internet, where we are all about bonding as a couple through amazing experiences that usually involve food and booze in some capacity. Isn’t that the best part of traveling? Caleb and I think so!
When we lived in the city, we made it our mission to find the most fun, romantic, and FOOD AND WINE packed activities for couples like us who love eating and drinking, to do in the city.
In our short guide to Budapest for foodies, we’ll share our top 3 unique activities that you’ll love as a fellow food and wine-loving couple. These will make your trip to Budapest a little extra special. Let’s get into it!
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Quick Navigation: 🍷 Wine Tasting // 🤤 Cooking Class // 🛥️ Sunset Cruise
for the couple who is ALL about the wine
Caleb and I love wine – I am all about the white wine, and he is all about the red wine…unless it’s in Hungary! As he says, “Hungary made a white wine lover out of me!” The white wines are some of the best we’ve ever tasted across ALL the countries we’ve traveled to.
If you’re wine lovers like us, you MUST do a wine tasting in Budapest. It’s the best way to get to know the unique varieties because we guarantee you’ve never heard of most, if not all, of them because Hungarian wines are not exported. As the Spectator says, Hungarian wine is Europe’s best-kept secret, and we agree!
Our wine-tasting host told us it’s because Hungarians drink it all before they can export it! 😅 It’s also because the Hungarian wine is so hard to understand that exporters don’t want to bother trying to learn how to read it!
So, what is the best wine tasting in Budapest, you ask? Good thing for you, we tried a number of them (it’s a hard job, but someone has to do it!), and we FIRMLY believe the best option is the wine-tasting experience at Wine The Gap. It’s a little outside the main district where tourists usually stay, but it is worth it!
Mickey, the owner, is a wine judge but not in a pretentious way. He’s SO friendly and knowledgeable and will teach you SO much about Hungarian wine and let you try equally as much! I mean, you can see the amount of wine we had in the video and photos on this page.
Plus, you get a HUGE amount of local sausage, cheese, bread, and the most glorious, golden pork-fat spread that tastes like liquid gold mixed with bacon. I’m hungry.
PRO TIP: when you do this tour, just eat a big brunch so you come hungry for all the eats! Maybe grab a delish chimney cake for an afternoon snack to tide you over?
The value for your money is incredible, and you won’t get anything more local than wine tasting! It was one of the best things we spent our money on! Tell him Taylor and Caleb sent you because we were there so often that we became fast friends!
>> Click here to get more info, read reviews, and check prices and availability! <<
For the Couple Who Wants To Make delicious memories
If you want something a little more involved than just sitting and drinking wine (although that’s still happening here), we LOVED this food tour by Foodapest!
We met Joseph, the owner and a local Budapestian (is that a word?) at the Central Market Hall, where he took us on a tour to buy fresh, local ingredients. The tour included some local tastes, and the highlight was the BEST blackberry Palinka (the local spirit that usually tastes like rubbing alcohol) that his family made.
The whole thing is a totally family-run biz – it’s him and his brother. If you want to support a local biz, this is definitely for you.
We then got to go to a local apartment and cook a traditional meal with him and another couple. He taught us some cooking basics but in a fun way, not in a way that felt like Gordon Ramsay was about to yell at us, you know?
There were delicious Huagairan snacks and wine we could help ourselves with, which made the night even more fun.
We all sat down and shared the delicious Chicken Paprikash dumplings family style at the end of the night, and went home with a new recipe, fun memories, and a happy belly full of comfort food and wine.
Oh, and new friends. We even went out to some cocktail bars with everyone after!
If you want a whole experience (and a whole evening planned for you without having to think about what to do or worrying about getting in for dinner), this is the experience for you!
>> Click here to get more info, read reviews, and check prices and availability! <<
If You Want wine and Views
We did not have one but four boat cruises in Budapest because we wanted to feel 100% confident that we were recommending the best one for you guys to do, and we don’t like recommending things we haven’t done!
Our top pick was the Legenda cruise, which we did at sunset, and it came with a glass of wine or beer! Other cruises didn’t let us choose, so we loved having this option. Plus, you could buy more boozy beverages on board to keep you going.
This specific boat was made entirely of glass, so you could have amazing views if you wanted to stay inside. There was even an audio guide option if you wanted to learn. Or, head to a huge open-air top with seats (but no tables) to see Budapest dazzle at night! I know that sounded cheesy, but it’s so beautiful and romantic.
We especially loved that this cruise took a different route than the others – all the way around Margaret Island for extra viewing.
If you want to do something cozy and romantic that still gets your Hungarian wine fix, this is the perfect way to spend an evening. You’ll see Budapest in ways you just cannot see if you don’t take a boat down the Danube!
>> Click here to get more info, read reviews, and check prices and availability! <<
TAYLOR’S TIP: If you’re more of a cocktail couple than a wine couple, we also loved this cocktail boat cruise. You get three cocktails for free in 1.5 hours, so, ya, you’re pounding them back! They’re not strong or fancy like the best cocktails in Budapest, but it’s a more “fun” cruise than a romantic one.
Well, friends, those are our top 3 things to do in Budapest for couples! If you love food and wine and want to do something memorable as a couple that is centered around those things, these three things will absolutely not disappoint. And if they do? Well, you just have to drink more wine. How sad.
After you’ve picked your boozy activity, you need to know where to hole up for the rest of the evening. We’re here to help with our guide to the best restaurants in Budapest for Hungarian food!
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