The food legacy of a Holocaust survivor
Driven by his family history, Tibor Rosenstein is preserving Jewish-Hungarian cuisine through his Budapest restaurant, which has become a must-see destination for food lovers.
Just a block from Budapest’s gigantic Keleti train station is Tibor Rosenstein’s restaurant of the same name. The entrance is located in a quiet, unassuming residential corner, away from the traditional culinary centers of the city. But like a temple, Rosenstein restaurant stands alone as a monument to historic Jewish-Hungarian cuisine, attracting Jewish celebrities, TV personalities, and foodie globetrotters eager for a taste of the past.
“My personal cuisine and my dishes are traditional Hungarian-Jewish cuisine,” said Rosenstein. This includes goose sausage and colent, the traditional Jewish Sabbath stew left to cook overnight. Rosenstein’s secret ingredient is ground paprika, perhaps the most loved spice in all of Hungarian cuisine.
It is estimated that around 100,000 Jews remained in Budapest after the Soviet liberation on February 13, 1945. Many families who remained in the country relegated their Jewish heritage as a trivial aspect of their identity, letting the children discover it only later in life. Today the community is growing once again, mainly in the historic Jewish quarter that surrounds the famous Dohány Synagogue, one of the largest synagogues in the world. Since then, Jewish restaurants, mainly kosher, have sprung up in the neighborhood, including the city’s first and only kosher fast food, Kosher MeatUp. Rosenstein’s is unique in the city for its obvious Jewish backbone.
Not that the restaurant is stuck in the past, proposing an old formula without ever adapting. It will soon have its own kosher coffee roaster to match its current selection of kosher beers, whose logo features a stencil of Rosenstein’s charismatic smile topped with a yarmulke (a kippah or skullcap). The pandemic prevented him from publishing a cookbook for the restaurant’s 25th anniversary, but plans are underway to publish one in honor of the 30th anniversary in 2025.
Suffice it to say that Rosenstein won’t slow down anytime soon.
“I keep the fire alive through my dishes, or by welcoming and serving large numbers of Jewish guests from overseas,” he said, something he attributes in part to his appearance in a 2017 episode of Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods.
Tibor Rosenstein’s restaurant of the same name is a monument to Jewish-Hungarian cuisine (Credit: Rosenstein Restaurant)
It’s hard to imagine Rosenstein’s horrifying early years when he basked in the glow of his ear-to-ear smile. Now 79, Rosenstein was a young boy when World War II stormed Budapest and the Soviet Union’s Red Army liberated the city. Tragically, both of his parents were murdered in Auschwitz, leaving him raised by his two surviving grandmothers.
It was a hard and miserable life in those first years after the war. Rosenstein and his family had to make the most of what they had, especially when it came to food.
“I used to help my grandmother cook and I really enjoyed myself,” he said. “He told me I had to become a cook so that I always had something to eat.”
Young Rosenstein quickly became responsible for important tasks in the kitchen. One of these was to bring chickens from the market to the shochet (a person certified under Jewish religious law to slaughter an animal) to perform a kosher slaughter. This is not to say they kept kosher all the time. Rosenstein said their financial situation did not allow them to buy the right ingredients at the time to keep kosher. His family was not particularly religious, however. But she gave birth to her grandmother’s favorite saying: “All good things are kosher!”
Paprikash with homemade Hungarian pasta topped with ricotta (Credit: Rosenstein Restaurant)
It is a feeling that Rosenstein has continued to live throughout his culinary career, from his internship at the Grand Hotel on Budapest’s Margaret Island to serving as Kispipa’s head chef for 10 years starting in 1979.
As much as he liked and appreciated the time spent working in different kitchens, his lifelong dream was to open his own restaurant. He finally did it in 1996, the humble Rosenstein restaurant, tucked away from the fray with an approachable elegance that makes you feel like you’re in your grandfather’s home. Despite his insignificant location, Rosenstein has spent the past two and a half decades cooking Jewish-Hungarian cuisine and earning a reputation for stellar word of mouth. He explains how Rosenstein put his arm around the likes of Robert De Niro and Helen Mirren in the photos adorning the wall. But perhaps more importantly, Rosenstein restaurant has become a must-see destination for Jewish food lovers thanks to the preservation of traditional cuisine.
There are the classic staples, like chicken paprika and matzo ball soup made with coarsely ground matzo sourced from Israel. Then there are the dishes that are usually found only in history books, such as the roasted goose leg, and there is no shortage of offal recipes – such as the sour lung stew with bread dumplings or the marrow cooked on toast with pickle. and fresh garlic – confirming the old adage of Jewish ancestors that they use every last piece of the animal.
Eszter Rubin is a Jewish-Hungarian food writer and writer based in Budapest who feels right at home when dining at Rosenstein’s and is equally drawn to the atmosphere and menu. “Rosenstein’s restaurant makes me feel like I’m in a traditional Jewish setting,” said Rubin. “There is a wonderful mix of modern and innovative cuisine.”
Roasted leg of goose served with braised cabbage and mashed potatoes with onion (Credit: Rosenstein Restaurant)
In 2014, Rosenstein distilled his family recipes and cooking philosophy into The Rosenstein Cookbook, which is sure to become an important marker of Jewish-Hungarian cuisine. The cover, with a plate full of shiny light brown fried goose fat cracklings falling on top of each other, is hardly the colorful, bespoke plate of most cookbook covers and Instagram posts. in these days. But this is not Rosenstein’s story.
“I have included all those recipes in this special cookbook that have accompanied me in my life so far and have been part of my family’s traditions; or are dear to my heart for some reason,” she wrote in the introduction.
Many of the recipes, and much of the menu, are recognizable to anyone who has read about traditional Jewish-Hungarian cuisine or passed it down through their family. But thanks to Rosenstein, restaurant guests and home cooks can savor unique family touches, such as sweet matzo with plums, chopped walnuts and honey. It is not on Rosenstein’s menu but ask and you will receive.
“Yeah, sure,” he said when asked if they’ll make the sweet matzo ball at the restaurant. “If ordered by a guest, we will be happy to prepare it for them.”
András Koerner is a culinary historian and good friend of Rosenstein. His next book, Early Jewish Cookbooks, is a volume of seven essays that examines the history of Hungarian Jewish gastronomy through his cookbooks.
András Koerner (right) is a culinary historian and good friend of Tibor Rosenstein (left) (Credit: Joe Baur)
A couple of decades after surviving the war and the Holocaust, Koerner moved and raised his family in New York City. But he maintained close ties to his native Hungary and eventually became interested in writing about the cultural and culinary traditions of Hungarian Jews, traditions he did not grow up with in his assimilated family.
This intellectual interest eventually led him to Rosenstein. Although Koerner had already dined at Rosenstein, the two first met while cooking at a food show in New York 15 years ago. They quickly bonded to their common passion for remembering the traditions of their ancestors.
Koerner continued to research and write books in the hope of preserving the memory of these traditions. In 2019 he published his award-winning book Jewish Cuisine in Hungary. The book reconstructs the culinary culture of Hungarian Jews before the Holocaust. An example included in the book shows the faded and worn cover of a collection of family recipes from about 1925. The collection comes from a woman named Mrs Ármin Neubauer – or Nádas, to use the Hungarian surname she adopted.
The Neubauer recipe collection is significant, writes Koerner, as it shows the degree to which his family had assimilated into the non-Jewish Hungarian culture with rabbit meat dishes – prohibited by the kashrut (Jewish food laws). He adds that the collection is notable not only for its desserts, the rich choice of soups, appetizers, main courses, vegetable dishes, salads and even homemade ear drops to combat hearing loss, but also for its owner, Neubauer’s nephew, Tibor Rosenstein – the owner and chef of what Koerner calls “one of the best restaurants in Budapest today”.
Koerner said he and Rosenstein enjoy discussing the importance of preserving exceptional caliber for traditional Hungarian cuisine, as well as for Jewish food in general. He complains that many Budapest restaurants ignore their local culinary heritage in favor of chasing the latest craze in modern and international cuisine.
Cholent, a tasty slow cooker stew (Credit: Rosenstein Restaurant)
“For example, few restaurants sell traditional vegetable-based dishes – such as spinach cream, green beans in sweet and sour sauce or stuffed cabbage, which were the mainstays of Hungarian and Jewish-Hungarian cuisine – as they are less profitable for restaurants than fancy, trendy dishes, ”Koerner said. “Some other ‘rustic’ dishes, such as veal lungs or tripe pörkölt (a Hungarian stew with boneless meat, sweet paprika and vegetables), are also hard to find elsewhere. Tibor and I are very interested in preserving carefully prepared versions. of such simple dishes available. “
In this spirit, Rosenstein offers every Monday a traditional vegetable dish as a special dish along with other types of classic dishes, such as veal lungs, tripe pörkölt and stuffed cabbage. Of course, in addition to these homemade recipes, it also offers elegant examples of traditional Hungarian cuisine, such as various courses based on game or fresh porcini. This is why Koerner believes that what Rosenstein offers to the Budapest culinary scene is unlike anything else to be found in the city.
“In my opinion, his main contribution is to keep the traditional Hungarian and Jewish-Hungarian cuisine alive and to keep it very high standards.”
After turning 80, Rosenstein is still a regular in the kitchen even though he slowly hands over the reins to his son, Róbert. Young Rosenstein is inventing his own rounds on the menu, such as goose rillette or stuffed goose neck with barley risotto.
While there may be new faces in the kitchen, including his grandchildren, there is no doubt that Rosenstein will continue to be motivated to preserve the legacy of Jewish-Hungarian cuisine in Budapest.
“It’s the sweet burden of my origins and the everlasting loving memories of my grandmothers,” she said. “I respect them with all my heart.”
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