New wave beach food for the summer

In 2015, the Balaton Circle launched the Beach Food of the Year competition to revitalise our beach food culture, which has been stagnating for decades. The niche-filling competition is a super showcase opportunity for catering establishments operating in the beach buffet sector. It is also a place to create something new and qualitative, to show good practices and directions for development. The event has been capturing the imagination of chefs for years, creating new beach dishes to try when you’re on the shores of Lake Balaton. Here are some dishes to try:

In 2022, the Bundi Bijo beach buffet in Balatonboglár won the Beach Food of the Year competition in the Buffet category with a knockout victory, thanks to its salty chimney cake. Specifically, it was the Hungarian version that blew the judges away, with freshly mixed iceberg lettuce, lamb’s lettuce, ruccola, crackling cubes, smoked sausage cubes, smoked peasant ham, colourful cocktail tomatoes, leek sprouts and a slightly hot paprika sauce. The dish is based on a speciality the likes of which the country has never seen before: an artisan savoury chimney cake, which is nothing like its familiar sweet brother (we recommend erasing all sweet memories before tasting, as this horn cake is neither warm, sweet nor crumbly). We also think the venison and smoked salmon version are delicious, you should give them a try!

Very tasty, very Hungarian and very cool! Pickled cucumber soup has been a conqueror on the shores of Lake Balaton for years, as it is fresh, refreshing and fulfils an unspoken dream that almost every Hungarian has had: is it indecent to drink the juice of pickled cucumber? Of course not! So although it wasn’t the chef at Tiki Beach in Zamárdi who first came up with the idea, still, they took home the 2019 Beach Food of the Year award. What makes Tiki’s soup different are the chunks of pickled cucumber, smoked salmon strips, ruccola and sprouts – which take this delicious soup to a whole new dimension. Even if you can’t make it to Tiki, you should definitely try it this year – you can even make your own variation!

It’s a great idea to take a classic dish from the cuisines of other nations and make it last, using local ingredients and modern technology. Especially if it’s in breadcrumbs! The restaurant Konyhám (“My Kitchen”) in Balatonfenyves is just such a place, which won the 2021 Beach Food of the Year award. The dish is actually a carrot cut in half, souvidated and then fried in rustic crumbs, served with pesto mayonnaise, dried onions, marinated ginger and bacon crumbs. A healthy, crispy and light beach food full of flavours and aromas. We can only encourage the restaurants along the shores of Lake Balaton to take the same courage to use ingredients and prepare their own dishes based on their own ideas, instead of or in addition to the classic American hot dog.

The hake has been a key participant of Hungarian lakeside buffets for nearly 80 years, yet few people know that this bloodthirsty-looking Argentine predator travels more than 10,000 kilometres to end up on our plates. Yet our Hungarian lakes are home to such wonderful and tasty fish that it is high time for the hake to retire. When Paletta in Balatonboglár came up with its pulled carp sandwich, the idea spread like wildfire among the coastal restaurants: finally a beach dish made of Hungarian fish! Since then, there have been an increasing number of places serving burgers made with sturgeon patty or carp patty (the former is also on offer at Paletta Bistro this year).