Chef
“My desire towards learning kept me going, I learnt to seize all the given chances and to gain as much knowledge as I could.”CONTACT
I started my studies at Gundel Károly Catering Vocational School in 1998.
It was mere luck I got to do my apprenticeship at the deservedly famous Hilton Hotel Budapest in the Buda Castle district. It was love at first sight, I was pulled in by the atmosphere of catering. I learnt a lot about profession, humbleness, loyalty from István Juhász and Csaba Horváth – they had a great role in forming my ’first love’ to something more lasting…
During my apprenticehip I belonged the ones who preferred learning by practice to sitting at my school desk. After my graduation, I got the opportunity of starting as a cook at Hilton Budapest.
I worked there two more years and during this period I met the second big love of my life, my current wife, Veronika. Since then we established our family and we have two lovely kids.
In 2004 I got a possibility at Pierrot Café in Buda Castle district as well, where I spent almost 5 years working with chef Sándor Csóka from who I learnt a lot.
Like every young cook, I wanted to test myself abroad, and I was given an opportunity from chef Szabolcs Csitári to Ireland where I spent 6 months. In Ireland I became familiar with the high-quality materials – many times the fisherman directly came to us from the sea. The next big chapter in my life is the Eventrend Group, and its flagship, the New York Café.
I worked 11 years with András Wolf which has a huge effect on my whole professional life – he inspired me, motivated me, he taught me and mentored me. He taught me how to think, plan and manage a big kitchen.
During this period I worked at the Salon kitchen, the ’event’ kitchen, which gave me new inspiration thanks to Tamás Kelemen who showed me the ’tricks’ how to manage an event kitchen – and life gave me the chance to be the director of this kitchen for 4 years. I worked at the new York Café’s kitchen where I could learn even more from Zsolt Abrudán about organisation, continuous improvement – I do not know a person more precise than him, so I learnt how to manage a pantry kitchen.
consider my mission to search for the national small-scale producers and farmers – it’s false that we do not have good resources in Hungary, it’s just hard to find, but we are improving in this regard as well. I believe it is possible to create tasty food using Hungarian high-quality resources and recent technologies.
I believe I returned to the Buda Castle, because this place is my past, my present and my future.