The 42 universe - Sándor Varga, alias Alexander The Guest, talks about whether fine dining is a good business

First, we wanted to create a sophisticated, high-quality bistro. This happened, but then we closed at the beginning of 2022 to rethink the restaurant. We renovated our interior and we turned to fine dining. We opened in March, and then the Michelin Guide announced that they are now also testing rural restaurants. This was the milestone when we decided with Ádám (Ádám Barna, chef of the 42 - ed.) that we would start towards the star, which arrived in November of the same year.

The 42 universe consists of three units: 42 restaurant, Room42 hotel and the Piac42 bistro. In downtown Esztergom, on the lowest level of a 300-year-old building, the Michelin-starred 42 was placed, and the hotel is above it, on two levels.

Our bistro Piac42, located 200 meters from here, was also included in the Michelin Guide last year, with a Michelin recommendation.

I myself have lived here for years, and my other businesses are also located here. By the way, I did not have an express goal to open a restaurant, but an opportunity came up, the previous operator stopped doing it, and I took it over.

There are more tourists and 5-star hotels in Budapest, so of course there is a difference. Perhaps, it can be said that a fine dining restaurant in Hungary provides a profitable income to very few people in Hungary, but we also have a bistro and a hotel, so not only the restaurant bears all the costs. And one more thing: for me, fine dining is not a business for me, but primarily love.

There is no gap in me. We are currently focusing on the existing units and we are refining them. I can say that we are constantly changing and the way we see the world is changing.

So much so that we will soon be closing to renew again. The inspirations for this come during my travels, which I constantly document on my YouTube channel. (at the time our article was written, the channel had 238 thousand subscribers - ed.).

Of course, it has trickled down, because a lot of our guests came specifically because of Alexander The Guest. My point of view is that the Michelin star alone is not enough for such a restaurant to be fulfilled, especially in the countryside. On the contrary, the story is very important. In the future, I think it will be inevitable for a destination restaurant to have an exciting story. The story of 42 and Alexander The Guest is already intertwined, and after our new transformation, this relationship will be even closer. 

Fine dining is a "multisensory" experience, i.e., it can affect several of the guest's senses at the same time, the quality of the environment, the kindness of the people, the story, the flavours are important. During our continuous renewals, we try to pay attention to all such things, we develop and test them. We want the guest to leave everything behind when they enter our door, at least for the few hours when we host them.

If readers visit the Alexander The Guest YouTube channel, I think they will find the answer to this.