Fehér Szarvas Vadászétterem

The White Stag is a game-focused restaurant in the tradition that Central European hunting lodges used to define the category. Wood-panelled. Antlers on the wall. A stone fireplace that is actually lit in winter. And a kitchen that has spent three decades taking game cookery seriously in a country that does not always.

The menu reads like a dictionary of the Mátra forests. Venison in several preparations — braised, grilled, in a pörkölt with sour cream. Wild boar with red cabbage and bread dumplings. Pheasant when the season allows. The sauces are dense, the marinades take days, and the portions are unapologetic.

The wine list is the other argument to come here. The cellar holds one of the deepest selections of Egri Bikavér in the city, with bottlings going back fifteen years. The sommelier — long-serving, wine-certified, genuinely excited about the list — will pour a vertical if asked.

The White Stag is not trying to be modern. It is trying to be the best version of a thing that is already a known quantity, and on most nights it succeeds. It is the room for a group of six that wants to drink serious red wine with serious food and not be charged tasting-menu prices for the privilege.

The long wood tables, the game menu that holds up to sharing, and the cellar's depth of aged Bikavér make the White Stag one of the best team-dinner rooms in Hungary outside Budapest. Pass bottles. Carve shared plates. Nobody leaves unconvinced.