Bodor Ferenc: Coffee-Houses - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1992)

Májas (liverwürst)

At the intersection of Kiss János altábornagy utca and Tartsay Vilmos utca, an old tenement house erected in the fifties closes off a singular little square. Beneath the arcades is hidden a bistro—its name evokes memories of the butchering trade. At the close of the fifties it was still called Budai Bistro, but in the course of time it slowly changed into a café. The interior is lit by lamps that shed a mellow, diffuse light. On the walls are examples of those dried flower compositions that at one point in time spread like the plague. Climbing the bar- stools is like mounting a throne: you need steps. The back walls are covered with coarse plastering.

There are chairs but also a couple of imitation leather stools. On the counter, beneath plastic bell-jars, bread-rolls caught in mid-flight, slices of meat in their half-open mouths. The terrace is full of atmosphere in the summer; in winter, the lattice girders of the awning rust, fallen out of time, like the posts Slovak revolutionary slogans were affixed to, along the bends of the Tátra roads.

4 TARTSAY VILMOS (JTCA, XII.

MÁJAS beneath, the arcades

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