About the Magazine:

The Chef Inspiration online magazine was launched in 2019 as the successor to the offline Panorama Magazine, which was published for 12 years. Our main goal is to bring together people in the hospitality industry, especially chefs and restaurateurs, to create content that covers professional news, trends and industry news. Updated daily, our site features exciting interviews, business briefings, educational and entertainment material from all areas of gastronomy.

Our writers are constantly travelling the country to showcase the latest restaurants, to be at the forefront of trade presentations and to finally get a microphone on the well-known names in hospitality, so that we can keep our readers up to date with the latest information.

Our kitchen tips, recipes to try, and seasonal ingredients articles will have something new for everyone from the novice to the experienced chef, because not only good priests but also good cooks are learning to the death.

Always keep your knife sharp, your apron clean and let's get cracking!

The blog is professionally managed by Balázs Matusz, the founder-owner of Matusz-Vad Zrt., a master chef and a renowned patron of the culinary arts.

Members of the editorial board:

Judit Bercely Editor-in-Chief
Ferenc Briák creative chef
Tamás Budafoki gastroblogger
Orsolya Haranghy gastro journalist
Richárd Szabó photographer

From start-up to 20 billion turnover - The Matusz-Vad story

Balázs Matusz has been a chef since he was a child, and his dream of owning his own restaurant goes back just as far. His determination and consistency of purpose is best demonstrated by the fact that at the age of 21 he is Hungary's youngest restaurateur. The owner of Matusz-Vad Zrt, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, has had an exciting journey.

„I was very serious about my goal”

- Balázs Matusz, Chairman and CEO of the company, recalled the early days. “In 1992, I received a loan of 70,000 forints from my parents, which was a lot of money at the time - I created the rest to rent a neglected restaurant in Győr, which I then turned into a very popular French restaurant. It was unprecedented in the city to have people queuing for a table in front of the Pierot every night. I soon realised that I was limited to the thirty-five tables in the restaurant. Try as I might, I couldn't do any better than that. My parents had a wholesaler friend who became a childhood role model. He travelled the world, worked his way around, shared a lot of experiences with us and in the process I got hooked on the opportunity that wholesale gave me.”

From the restaurant to the game processing plant

„I founded my new company in 1994, also in Győr, as a game meat processing sole trader. I chose it because I had previously experienced in the catering business, as a chef and of course as a restaurant owner, that there was a very shortage of game meat. At that time, there was only one game meat processing company on the market and only the cheapest products were available from them. Really good quality and properly processed game meat was not available at all to the catering trade in Győr. It is true that the currency crisis also played a role in the establishment of the company. In 1994, the Swiss franc exchange rate was several times higher, and I was forced by my contract to pay the rent for my restaurant in Swiss francs. So I made a decision and founded Matusz-Vad Zrt.”

Wholesale and cold stores

„The progress has been incredible. We multiplied our turnover year on year, and as the numbers got bigger, the growth slowed down accordingly, but remained decidedly intense. The company has continued to transform and evolve, wholesale has been launched and new products have been added. In the meantime, manufacturing was completely squeezed out of the company. The first cold store was a major milestone, from then on partners started to take us more seriously, and then we reorganised the company, which was already worth 3 billion by then, with an external company and started to work in a large company structure. The different departments were set up and we managed to attract first-class directors. The successes have not stopped there: in 2011, I received a Bold Innovator Award from Ernst and Young on the grounds that I had founded an industry in Hungary. I have also been honoured with many other important awards: the Prestige Award, Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Business Person of the Year Award, among others. It was a big step to start a company in Austria eight years ago and in Slovakia six years ago, and with it the market openings. Finally, five years ago we bought our 26,000 square metre cold store in Budapest, which is now the engine of the business.”

25 years - 20 billion annual turnover

„In 2019, the company celebrated its 25th anniversary at the prestigious Gourmet Festival in Millenáris. Our turnover that year exceeded HUF 20 billion and I employed more than 260 colleagues in the parent company alone! Of course, all this comes with growing problems. Our biggest challenge now is to retain and develop our workforce. I have always valued my staff, but now we are competing not only to attract the best staff, but also, and especially, to retain our physical staff.”

New technologies - premium foods

We are also trying to come up with new things. We target restaurants in the mid-range and above, as well as top gastronomy. For them, and for the labour-scarce catering sector, we have developed a range of „convenience” products that help our partners to produce more efficiently. These are meat products prepared to a higher standard, ready to use quickly and of high quality. For example, our suvided products, where goose legs are prepared at low temperatures in vacuum packs. The meat is completely tender, just brown the skin and you're ready to serve! This finishing operation can be left to an unskilled worker. Further developments are planned for the import of top-quality steaks. We already import and distribute special cut steaks from all over the world - from Argentina to New Zealand. We now also have zebra, camel, llama and bison meat, which can be used to make delicious dishes. We offer camel burgers made from camel meat, and the rest can be used in restaurants to offer unexpected, yet very tasty, surprises to their guests using completely traditional cooking techniques.