Apartment restaurant. Perfume chef. Scented dinner - we savor the strange words while we head towards the Béterv Lakásétterem . The restaurant is located on the lower floor of an apartment building, surrounded by neighbors who live in the greatest tranquility. There are no quarrels, no complaints, because the apartment restaurant - which can host only 14 people at a time - operates quietly and discreetly. Interview.
However, it is very popular, as chef Biró Botond Boldizsár, originally from Marosvásárhely, cooks aromatic dinners in his kitchen. That is, five-course dinners inspired by a perfume. He is a trader by profession, selling bio-cosmetics, so it is no wonder that the experience of smell and taste is everything, and it seems that the people of Budapest are too, since he does not have any free appointments until October. Although many people now wonder about his profession, his existence in Hungary did not start smoothly:
he fled from military service in Romania to the capital to live a harmless and creative life there.
When entering Boldizsár Biró Botond's restaurant, we have the feeling of stepping into someone's home: an entrance hall, bathroom, kitchen and living room unfold before us, we almost take off our shoes when we notice that the living room is more reminiscent of the interior of an exclusive restaurant than an apartment. , as it is beautified by chairs, tables and design elements in a clean layout. The chef is currently stirring a salad on the kitchen counter because, as he says, he hosts both group and private events, this time an airport event is waiting for him, because the taste and smell experience is not only suitable for quenching hunger, but also for forging a community. If he is invited to a smaller community, he works alone, but he also has help in the restaurant, he adds, and then seats us at a table.
He explains, the tradition of apartment restaurants originates from the Cuba of the 1950s and 60s.
Since during communism an individual could not own private property - he could not even operate a restaurant - Cubans were satisfied that their entertainment was in the hands of the state, and despite the prohibitions, they started visiting each other, some with a drink, some with a bite to eat, while slowly they created a new type of hospitality system .
The new catering system has also infiltrated Hungary, but the fact is that not many people operate apartment restaurants in the country today. In the beginning, his neighbors were surprised by his idea.
It took some time for them to understand that the apartment building will not be a pub or a ruin pub, but a restaurant in its restraint, explains the chef, and then adds,
"Eleven years ago, Béterv was launched. Two years passed, it was already very popular when I ran into one of my neighbors in the yard. He inquired about what happened to the restaurant because he could not hear any noise. I reassured him that it works well, that the people who are interested put the door handle in each other's hands, but the apartment restaurant is special because they go there to eat, recharge and relax, it doesn't have to be noisy".
As an explanation, he adds that since the opening hours are unusual, those interested can sign up for announced events, or families, work communities, and groups of friends can participate in team-building events, sometimes in company events.
If this is plan B, was there an A?
When asked about the special choice of name, Boldizsár Biró Botond proudly states that the name Béterv, on the one hand, derives from the many letters b, and on the other hand, symbolizes the existence of the A-plan.
"This is actually what fate intended for us, we cannot change it. We start, we are born, and then all of a sudden we walk through the gate, it's over. Plan B, on the other hand, is also a bit of a prank for the reaper, that we will say how we want to live our lives and dare to make detours. And my diversion is cooking"
- formulates his creed, then admits that he has not studied the profession of a chef, he cooks out of passion, which is perhaps why he places great emphasis on aromas and flavors.
At the same time, he is also an "ordinary" trader - as he puts it - he personally selects the products from all over Europe for his small shop that distributes natural and organic cosmetics. It brings body lotions, shower gels, soaps, face care products and perfumes from enthusiastic and lesser known family businesses in Bologna, Milan, Berlin, Denmark. He believes that perfume and food, although described in this way seem very far from each other, are actually complementary to each other.
If we only mention perfumes, among their basic ingredients, in addition to floral scents, we immediately find raw materials in the form of thick essential oils that are more commonly used in the kitchen. There are rosemary, basil, cinnamon, words with which we primarily associate not a scent, but a food, for example roast lamb, duck, pesto or apple cake.
Biró Botond Boldizsár therefore presents the diversity of the raw materials while offering his guests a triple experience of smell, taste and wine, because he is convinced that if we don't smell something, we won't taste it either. And if, according to him, food is defined by smell, olfactory dinner is a more expressive collective term for his activity than anything else. In this way, Béterve already relies on its A-plan.
At the same time, his dinners are enlightening, as the participants can get to know the short history of perfume making and gain insight into its science. All this in an interactive way, so they have the opportunity to ask questions, answer the chef's questions and gain experience.
The chef, originally from Marosvásárhely, prepares a quick snack for us when we are there, guiding us into the shared world of scents and flavors – perfumes and food. According to him, fragrances are extracted from plants, roots, fruits, flowers and spices, and the distillate made from them is used in the form of essential oils. "The perfumer has nothing else to do but mix these essential oils. A finished fragrance can contain 60-70-80 ingredients. Resin is another important component, in my case only raw materials extracted from nature can be considered, I do not use synthetic ones. In fact, neither products of animal origin nor products tested on animals".
As it turns out, the resin binds the scent on the skin, and the alcohol helps to dissolve the essential oil and make the perfume blowable. The lower the alcohol content of the perfume, the more valuable it is, it is called eau de parfum, and the higher alcohol content is called eau de toilette. He intersperses what he says with a series of interesting facts: "when you blow out a perfume, you can smell the heady scent of the 78 ingredients in the first 10 minutes, and that's when the citrus notes come to the surface. In the next four hours, the heart notes, i.e. the fresh and less intense floral scents, come to the fore - this is the real face of the perfume. After the fourth hour, the base notes, i.e. woody, balsamic, deep scents emerge.
"Fragrance therefore plays, it constantly changes, and what is a spice for an ordinary mortal is a raw material in the form of a thick scent for a perfumer".
Printer-turned-trader, trader-turned-chef: where is the connection?
Although he is basically an omnivore, his passion for cooking stems from the fact that he primarily likes to eat food that he has prepared himself - he introduces and then emphasizes that he decided to open a restaurant when it became clear to him that his friends also liked his cooking. So much so that the joint events could not pass without tasting something special from Boldizsár Biró Botond's dishes, but the conversations slowly fell behind, and the place of everything was taken over by the meal. "I started working in the garden at six in the morning, if there was a garden party, they arrived, I fed them and gave them water, but when I was ready in the evening and sat down among them, everyone had to go. That's when I realized that if they like my food and the atmosphere I create, the apartment restaurant can be functional and I can even make money with my passion. To their credit, they have been coming and paying for my dinners ever since," he adds humorously.
Then it suddenly became serious when it came to leaving the homeland. It makes a simple and telling statement:
"there was only one sure thing in my life, that there is no army in the world where I would serve".
He managed to delay the date of his enlistment for a relatively long time, he tried to study as long as possible, because it involved his exemption. He trained as a printer and traveled all the way to Bucharest to learn how to work in the printing industry. He would have finished his higher education at the School of Drama, but he did not make it through to admission, so his only path remained the military. To prevent this, he moved to Budapest. He started his new life with a backpack, where the world opened up so much in front of him that there was no "escape" from it: he met his wife, managed to get a job in the printing industry, worked as a shredder, in the computer industry, then as an actor, later as a trader, and for 11 years he has been working as a chef - lists the events of his life.
According to him, a person can try his luck anywhere, success depends on the individual and the habitus, those who have an entrepreneurial spirit can stand their ground anywhere and at any time. What he always kept in mind was that whatever he did, he should not bring shame to his native country and hometown.
"It is so much more difficult for us, the separated ones, that we have to work extra, because we were not born here, and that is why society does not accept us from the beginning, we have to prove ourselves, mainly because the entire Transylvanian Hungarians are judged based on our behavior by those who have not been to Transylvania ".
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Featured image: beterv.hu
