They have been equally affected by the global crisis, labour shortages and shortages of raw materials, yet they have opened a new place recently. I'll show you what the brother and sister duo do so well. The story of the restaurant and its creators is known to everyone in the industry. That being said, I'm writing this as a reminder of what we must remember about them: where they came from and how they got here.
“Szabolcs and Szilárd Dudás worked as chefs and waiters in Italy in the 1990s, at the beginning of their careers. After a two-year tour in New York, they came back home and, with an everlasting Italian love, opened a small buffet in their hometown of Ense. This later became a corner pizzeria, and eventually they set up My mother said a gourmet restaurant that the Dining Guide has not been able to recommend to us foodies more and more over the last 10 years. They say go and taste what they cook here, no matter how far you are from Enns. Everyone bows down to the creativity, hospitality, joie de vivre and professionalism of these two gastronomes. Together with their wives Barbara and Viktoria - the queens of home baking - they have conquered Miskolc, Debrecen and then the whole country with their visits to Encs.”
I spoke to Szabolcs Dudás, one of the owners and chef of the restaurants, who answered all my questions with his usual good humour and honesty.
-Why do you never get tired, what are you hiding?
-We love what we do, it inspires us, it interests us. We don't see the problem, we see the solution to the problem, so we move on. (laughs) Encs is really the first place of love that we opened and I think it will stay that way. It was followed by Miskolc, and now we're putting together all the details of our Pizza, Coffee, World Peace restaurant in Debrecen, but we're going to stop for a bit. We'd like to see the city of the new place, clear things up, sort things out a bit. It's been a big drive so far, but we like to run a restaurant when we can see it and open as many as we can run. That's why we had restaurants in Ense first and then in nearby towns. We also have a little brother, Brumrum, so there is someone there to look after us, but we still feel a responsibility towards that as well. We learn a lot, what we don't know, we see and investigate, and that was the case with pizza, by the way, with pizza makers, because our other big addiction is good pizza.
-Instead of the popular Neapolitan pizza, you offer the Romani. Where did you get your famous pizza recipe?
-During a shopping trip to Italy with Szili (Szilárd Dudás, the restaurant chain's manager and co-owner), we heard that one of our favourite Italian chefs, Gianni Dodaj, had opened a pizzeria in town and we went to check it out, which is where the inspiration really came from. The way he set up the system - prep in the restaurant, bake in the new place, serve out - worked really well. That's what's happening here. And to make the pizza perfectly, I've been on a couple of courses to learn the real Roman style and, the process and recipe for it. Here, Neapolitan pizza is still the thing, but it doesn't take much time and everyone realises that Roman pizza dough is even better. So, we travel a lot, we learn, we watch and we put our own tastes and ideas together to make it happen. It's instinctive and businesslike at the same time, because let's face it, pizza is the most popular food in the world, but it's also an incredibly good and beautiful food with its own inexhaustible variety.
-There are always whispers about the big ones, including about you: why aren't you in Budapest yet and when will you franchise?
-We will prepare for Pest, but we don't have the capacity yet. We need to grow into a company, because the four of us are too few. But we will also have to learn how the company works. That being said, we have a lot of requests and opportunities to open in Budapest, but we have to say no. We are setting up, we are travelling around the country in a caravan, as my mother said, so we can meet people who are not yet in Borsod County. It could be a franchise, we are not shying away from that either, but that is the same problem here. We have three shops and a little brother, Brumbrum - we can give them our full attention, we can be there in person and solve any problems. That's the way we like it, but franchising would also be on a whole other level and category, maybe our kids will do it (laughs).
-What is your business ars poetic? How do you think, what principles do you follow and where does this excellent business sense come from?
- Thank you for saying that, but yes, fortunately we do see things working, which is not just a happy coincidence of course. We sit down, we think, we plan, we solve - that's how we run places. We have survived during the epidemic period, but we have had and continue to have difficulties. The labour shortage found us, and when the waiter went to New York, the chef to Austria and the kitchen maid to I don't know where, we sat down and had to figure something out. The reason, of course, was the lack of more time off and more pay, which is why they moved. We came to the conclusion that we would reduce the number of opening days and increase the salaries as much as we could. But to do that, in order to be able to operate, we also had to find a way of doing it, because there was not enough income to keep it going. We realised that the solution to this was another place, a ’fast’ pizza place, which would quasi-sustain our ‘Mum said’ place in Ensch, or at least supplement it. That's how, for example, our staff who started here as trainees are still working here today, and we now have 60 of them. Also, we loved the way staff were treated in Italy and the sense of togetherness.
We have a tradition: we meet in the restaurant an hour before opening. We eat lunch, have coffee, maybe play ping-pong, chat, and then start the shift. We all have a good time, that's the secret and I think that's why our colleagues are loyal to us. We've also been lucky in many other ways, like the fact that we've been lucky enough to work with a great architect called Alíz Matísz, or our graphic designer Géza Ipacs, who is a great help. They are incredible professionals and we owe them a lot. Finally, there is no denying that we work in a family, which has its difficulties and we do not always agree on everything, but we trust each other and everyone does their best and it works. We are not bored, we do not get on each other's nerves, so much so that we even go on holiday together, Szilárd, Viktória, Barbara, myself and our children.
The raw materials come from Italy and the surrounding area, a great chain has been established, both with the Italian suppliers and from the Abaúj, Tokaj area, because there are so many delicacies growing around us. This is also the aim, to promote the region, to show our values, that is to say, what we have.
- -The public now has maximum confidence in you. When Sabi announces that Cappuccino with toad - we believe it will be good for us.
Szabolcs: This is good news! We had a lot of toadflax, a lot of it grew in the countryside and I invented this one among many others. Yes, I like to experiment, but there is a demand for it. But I can't take a lot of dishes off the menu, like pacal for example, but we are always innovating. Apart from that, we ourselves love the classic chicken with paprika at home, scrambled eggs on Sundays, the girls love all sweets, we just focus on one thing, but without exception: good and quality ingredients not only on the table of our family, but also in front of the guest, every time!
