42 – Esztergom, Hungary (1*)

Hello fine dining,

I recently had the opportunity of visiting 42 in the ex-capital city of Esztergom, Hungary. Some of you may recognise the name as the restaurant owned by YouTuber Alexander the Guest. It has 1 Michelin star and an extensive wine list.

The restaurant itself is very modern (opened officially in 2022 post pandemic), using art and well designed furnishing and has a wonderful conservatory area which I was situated in.

Staff were courteous and not overbearing, striking up good conversations about all sorts of topics, wine/food/hungary and photo shoots they’d done to promote the restaurant.

I chose the wine pairing (choosing as many of the Hungarian wines as possible) and the add-ons to the menu.

I’m not a critic so I’m not going to go into too much detail on each course but I’ll say a bit about them.

Amuse bouche – highlight was a lobster pastry, crunchy and delicious. The perfect introductory bite.

Smoked sturgeon with leek and a champagne sauce. This was delicious, acidic notes with the smoky fish. I was unsure of the jelly but the texture was great and I think it added a lot to the dish.

Caviari Kristal caviar with otoro and fennel – you can’t go wrong with caviar. Salty pops of joy from the caviar and lovely fatty tuna underneath. Glorious.

Duck liver parfait – from the sea to the land with a bang. Deliciously earthy mousse, texture brought in from the pastry.

Potato dish – nice but definitely the low point of the menu. Presentation was difficult with cream on cream, fresh nutmeg was a nice touch and there were nice textures. The bar had been set high and this didn’t breach it.

Danube salmon – perfectly cooked, wrapped in courgette with a butter and caviar sauce. We back baby. Delicious.

Unfortunately at this point an incredibly loud rock/punk band started playing outside. Which completely changed the mood of the setting, honestly I liked the music but not for this moment. The staff were great and moved me inside to somewhere quieter.

Cabbage – stuffed with local Hungarian pork with langoustine. This dish was great, very pretty. It was the sauce that made it though, tying together the (for lack of a better phrase) surf and turf. Smallest criticism was the pork was a little dry in the cabbage, but really fine lines here.

Venison – main dish was Hungarian style with a bread dumpling, deep unctuous sauce and red venison. Amazing. I haven’t talked about the wine pairings yet, but they were really fantastic. This course had the best of the lot, 2019 Konyari pava – a great red wine, strong tannins with deep fruit notes. Perfect.

Into desserts – a nice peach and lemon verbena pre-dessert. Fresh, creamy and not overly sweet.

Raspberry and goat yoghurt – looks as good as it tasted. Texture, temperature and flavour were perfection here. I loved this dessert.

All in all I think this meal was great. The strengths were in the roots to Hungary – local ingredients, local wines. Something you can’t get elsewhere easily.

For wine and food it was around £250 all together. I think this is great value for the quality of meal that was had.