21 years of food, family and tradition at Budapest in Elsternwick Village

For more than two decades, enormous schnitzels, bubbling bowls of goulash and the flavours of Hungary have been served with a generous helping of family hospitality on Glen Huntly Road.

This year, Budapest Schnitzel & Eating House celebrates its 21st birthday in Elsternwick Village – a milestone that tells a story much bigger than what’s on the plate.

Budapest opened in 2005 by second cousins David Buchler and Viktor. Both of their families hail from Budapest, but their paths to Melbourne were very different. David’s family came to Australia following the Second World War and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 as Holocaust survivors, while Viktor’s family remained in Hungary.

The cousins didn’t actually meet until David went backpacking through Hungary in his early twenties. They hit it off immediately, stayed in touch, and when Viktor later came to Australia for a visit, that visit eventually became permanent.

Viktor had been a chef since he was 14, with close to two decades of experience by the time he arrived in Australia. Yet his first local hospitality job was washing dishes for $5 an hour.

“I knew that as soon as I’m in the kitchen, I can prove I’m better than a dishwasher,” Viktor recalls.

He was right. It didn’t take long for his skills to be noticed, and a few years later, he and David began planning a restaurant of their own.

The idea was deeply personal. David had grown up eating at Melbourne’s Central European restaurants, including The Blue Danube and Scheherazade. As those restaurants gradually disappeared, the pair wanted to preserve the Hungarian flavours they knew and loved.

“It’s the food that we grew up with, and it’s still bloody good,” David says.

Elsternwick was a deliberate choice. With its strong European and Jewish heritage, the neighbourhood felt like a natural home for those traditions. But as the area has changed, so too has Budapest’s community. David says it’s now just as rewarding to see a new generation of locals from all backgrounds discovering the food they grew up with.

At the heart of it all is Viktor’s cooking. Family recipes for slow-cooked beef goulash and chicken paprika sit alongside chicken matzoh ball soup and a staggering 18 varieties of schnitzel and parma. Each schnitzel is still cut and tenderised by hand before being crumbed to order, while the restaurant carefully sources premium milk-fed veal for its much-loved veal schnitzel.

Things weren’t quite so refined on opening night.

David and Viktor welcomed around 110 bookings on their very first day—with a 12-page menu of more than 100 dishes, an oven that wasn’t heating properly and, critically, no docket holder. A breeze sent orders flying around the kitchen, and some diners waited hours for their meals.

“We always said that we’ve had no bigger change for this place than between day one and day two,” David laughs.

By day two, the menu had been cut roughly in half and part of the restaurant temporarily closed while they found their feet.

Remarkably, some customers from that chaotic first night still dine at Budapest today.

That loyalty has become one of the defining parts of Budapest’s story. David and Viktor have watched children who once came in with their parents grow up and return with children of their own.

The family story has grown alongside the restaurant too. Viktor’s son Oliver first appeared at Budapest as a baby while his mum worked on the floor; today, he is part of the family business himself.

David and Viktor have also found a meaningful way to share their family history with younger generations through a lunch program for students visiting the nearby Melbourne Holocaust Museum.

Inspired by David’s grandparents, Holocaust survivors, Budapest offers subsidised lunches where visiting school groups can gather after their museum session, experience the flavours of Central Europe, and decompress together over a meal. David also shares some of his family’s story, including a corner of the restaurant dedicated to his grandfather, Leo.
It’s a fitting extension of what has always mattered most to Budapest.

“We love to share our history and what we grew up with,” David says.

After 21 years, David and Viktor are still second cousins, business partners and, perhaps most impressively, friends. Their secret? They learned years ago not to spend too much time working in the same space.

“We started as friends before we became business partners,” David says. “We thought, we don’t wanna lose a friendship.”

Twenty-one years later, they’re still friends, still feeding Elsternwick, and still finding new people to share those cherished flavours with.

The birthday celebrations are also shaping up a little differently than first planned. After a planned short break in September, Budapest plans to reopen on October 6, with David and Viktor exploring a retrospective “Best of Budapest” experience later in the year, bringing back favourite dishes that have disappeared from the menu over the decades, potentially through tasting dinners and rotating specials.

From one spectacularly chaotic opening night to generations of familiar faces around its tables, Budapest remains what it set out to be in 2005: a place to keep cherished flavours, memories and traditions alive.

Keep an eye on @budapestrestaurant on Instagram and the Budapest trader page for the latest 21st birthday celebration details.

📍Visit the restaurant at 273 Glen Huntly Road, Elsternwick.