When I went to this restaurant for lunch recently I found the place empty and bottles of Evian on the tables. Didn't seem promising.

This is the restaurant that we most often recommend to visitors to Budapest. It features well-prepared Hungarian food from a varied menu. The atmosphere is traditional without being too cute and there is live music most evenings. The food is a bit “toned down” from the true Hungarian tradition of lots of fat and heavy sauces which makes it more acceptable to American palettes without destroying its essential character. It is a bit pricey by Hungarian standards – a recent dinner for four ran about 30,000 huf (about $140 US) but this is still quite reasonable for its quality. It is probably best to make a reservation and, if you want music, find out what time it starts, and ask for that room.

Along with Kisbuda Gyöngye, Kéhli is the restaurant that sometimes makes it seem like out-of-the-way Óbuda has more Top 33-worthy traditional Hungarian restaurants than the rest of Buda and Pest combined. It offers a long but not suspicious menu of time-honored favorites, along with Gypsy music from 8:00 p.m. daily. In addition to its normal dining room there is a pub room, a garden, a covered garden, two cellars each capable of hosting a small wedding party, and a "nostalgia" room, which is somewhat odd, given the entire place is pretty old-fashioned looking. If you have the stomach for it, make sure to try the signature mastodon-sized veal bones, which you eat spread on toast and topped off with a sprinkling of minced garlic. Nouvelle cuisine it ain't.