Márk Molnár has spent no less than two decades in the world. He has travelled across continents and worked with the most renowned chefs. He has been a creative chef for Michelin-starred restaurants, worked in Paris, London, Tokyo, Miami, Vietnam, Barcelona, Dubai and many more. There are probably few chefs with a thousand years of experience and knowledge to match him In Hungaryn. A lot to be gained for the domestic Gastronomy.
Astonishing life and career
Márk Molnár's career is clearly his father, a well-known gourmet and writer, Tamás B. Molnár has laid the foundations. Of course, he started his career at home in Körmende In the Berki tavern with Zoltán Pilnay, then in Budapest at the Fausto's has strengthened its kitchen. In fact, this is where his world travels began, as in San Sebastian started work on what was originally only supposed to be a one-month project. It turned out that he had a taste for working abroad and saw it as a great opportunity. After that Berasategui Group worked in some of the top Basque restaurants, turned Mallorca and Tenerife. In the meantime, he has been the star of many, including three Michelin-starred Ferran Adriá who is known to be the creator of molecular gastronomy. From there, it's all the way to To Japan where Tokyo worked at Chikara Yamada séffel. After a year he came back to the old continent and Barcelona a Comerc 24 worked in a restaurant from 2005 Paris started working in 3 Michelin-starred restaurants, the Le Taillevent-in the Arpege-in. By then, he had already acquired such considerable professional knowledge that in 2006 he was awarded the creative chef at three Michelin-star Pavillon de Le Doyen in Paris. Then London followed, the Chef at ZUMA contemporary Japanese restaurant was.
In the meantime, he continued his education and did a lot of staging - but not with just anyone. Just to mention the names. At Gastón Arcurio, Heston Blumenthal, Alain Ducasse.
Inside Dubai led to a professional career in the Karma Kafe-which has won the Best Pan-Asian Restaurant award three times. Miami followed, Arcady Novikov worked on the creation of a luxury restaurant for the well-known restaurateur. His work abroad Vietnam, Saigoncompleted the As Culinary Director and innovative Executive Chef at VISE Hospitality. With this career, he has recently moved back to Hungary.
Home after twenty years
Chef Márk Molnár has returned home after a long and distinguished career. He has managed several restaurants around the world and has been involved in several projects as executive chef. He is doing exactly the same here at home. There's no doubt that whatever he does and wherever he is asked, he brings a new approach to home catering that is very much of its time. Basically, it draws on the experience of the last 20 years and does not „think Hungarian” at all. N28 Wine & Kitchen is where we can follow his career and where he is showing himself to a national audience. There is no doubt that both the trade and the gastronomy-savvy public are waiting to taste his dishes and get a feel for the concept he has created.
Márk Molnár is the chef who still runs restaurants in the old school. For him, the kitchen is a place where order must be maintained, because only a well-functioning team can put professional work on the table. By his own admission, everyone who has worked with him knows that he expects the best and that it is difficult to live up to his expectations, but he is fair to everyone on the other side.
N28 Wine & Kitchen
Mark's own style is mostly about accessible cuisine and obviously using the highest quality ingredients. This is no question, given the stages of his career. The restaurant is open all the time, which means that there is an a la carte menu, a comfortable lunch menu, but also a casual meal for young people with good wines. Mark also revealed that they are planning a tasting menu in the future. Visit N28 is actually a wine restaurant. With a concept based on Spanish and French roots, which radiates the humanity and friendly smiles of these people. The menu is basically a trio. There's a distinctive pintxo offering, a more sophisticated form of tapas, then a serious selection of aged meats, cheeses and pâtés, and main courses, which are presented as big tapas. According to Márk Molnár, a very important part of a restaurant like this is to be able to cater for small to large groups. Part of the concept is that the food is placed in the middle of the table and everyone tastes as they like, and this even applies to cured meats. Already, they're finding that the menu's biggest hit is the N28 Pintxo, grilled fattened duck liver, mangalica ham, tiger prawns, Catalan coca bread and balsamic vinegar reduction.
Top Mediterranean and Hungarian ingredients are essential, and very importantly, the bread is of brutally high quality, developed in-house using wholemeal flour from Normandy. Lajos Takács was a great help to Márk.
And to answer the question posed in the title, one of the reasons for Mark's return was homesickness, as he hadn't seen his family for years, and another was the pandemic raging in the world. But the gastronomy of his homeland is only because he has a lot of plans, so we can be sure that we will be hearing a lot about him in the near future.
Author: Tamás Budafoki
Photo by Márk Molnar, N28 Wine & Kitchen
