Where does the name bistro come from? What is a bistro kitchen?

If you think back a few decades and recall the Hungary of the Kádár era, the word bistro conjures up images of a small bakery where the smell of food and frying oil permeated everything and although you could get hot or cold food at low prices, it was not at all of high quality.

A bit of bistro history

Although there is no precise explanation of the exact origin of the word bistro, it is said that the name may have come from the Russian soldiers stationed in Paris during the Napoleonic Wars. It so happened that the uniformed soldiers, always in a hurry, regularly entered small, more modestly furnished places in Paris with a limited choice of food and drink, where they wanted to quench their hunger and thirst as quickly as possible, which they expressed to the French caterers working there by the expression "faster faster", which in Russian means "bustro bustro". So the word bistro may have given rise to the French word 'bistro', which in its usage at the time meant a place where you could get a quick meal.

Whether the story is true or not is not known, but we do know that the name bistro has become synonymous, first in French and then in the world's gastronomic dictionaries, with a restaurant that, although less elegant than a classic restaurant, is cosy and informal, with few dishes, but delicious, tasty, quick to prepare and with a wide choice of drinks. The birthplace of the bistro is therefore clearly France, where, from the 1950s onwards, a growing number of bistros opened their doors to serve the working population, their main audience. This period can therefore be seen as the first heyday of the bistro.

Today, the second flowering

Today, however, bistros and bistro kitchens are back in fashion and are experiencing a second flowering, so to speak, worldwide, but the meaning behind the term bistro has changed somewhat over the decades.

What do we mean by this? Today, the most common terms used to describe bistros are: irregularity (in the good sense), informality, playfulness.

Often, a bistro does not even have a printed menu, but simply a sign on the wall informs you about the specialities and menu the chef has created for his guests on a given day/week. In countless bistro evenings, you can find the story of how the chef (or, if not the chef, one of his or her colleagues) starts each morning at the market, where he or she selects the freshest and most special ingredients from the market to create the dishes for that day.

The food in a bistro is therefore characterised by the daily use of quality, seasonal, fresh ingredients, home-style flavours, simple, quick preparation and often the use of dishes typical of a country/city/region, either traditionally or reinterpreted by the chef.

These are fast-paced times, so speed remains the focus of bistros. Those in the know say that the essence of a bistro meal is to be prepared in at least 30 minutes, to be particularly tasty and to look as good as the big book says it should, because, as the saying goes, "We eat with our eyes first..."

Why KIOSK?

If the above has got you in the mood and you've decided to try a really good bistro in Budapest, you've come to the right place. KIOSK is an iconic spot in downtown Budapest, where you'll find cool bistro dishes alongside the well-known classics. Our weekly changing menu is always dominated by fresh, seasonal dishes and we always try to include some local speciality, often reimagined by our chef!