Konyv: where literature meets food

Have you ever tried to cook a book?

Although Bookpride, the fair dedicated entirely to independent publishing ended in Milan a few days ago, walking through the streets of the city center you still have the feeling of breathing the unmistakable scent of paper and ink.

You know, books, when they are of a certain importance, they enter into us and stay there for a long time, even forever... But have you ever wondered what it would be like to eat a story? Is it possible to taste a novel, to identify special dishes that bring to mind the same sensations as reading?

In Hungary, a bistro restaurant has accepted this challenge: it's KonyvBar & Restaurant, where the great masterpieces of world literature come to life as delicious, original and refined dishes.

It is located in the center of Budapest, surrounded by the Jewish Quarter, a few meters from Klauzal Square, which was once the beating heart of the economy of the city and of all Hungary. The name of the restaurant is a kind of pun: Kony in Hungarian means kitchen while konyv book.

During the day it is a bookshop, but in the evening it turns into a restaurant ready to make a magical and unrepeatable experience: taste books, while you are surrounded by books. Once a week, in fact, the chef elaborates and proposes a whole menu dedicated to a famous novel: it is a unique experience, that you can live for only seven days before he choose another title.

An example is the menu specially designed for The Martian by Andy Weir, a great classic of science fiction literature from which a film was made in 2015. Zoltàn Decreceni is not only a cook, but an artist, who transforms refined ingredients into exquisite and original preparations, to be enjoyed with the eyes and mouth.

The red planet is an appetizer of duck pate enriched with pumpkin, pecans and tangerine rind that simulates the unmistakable red planet; it is accompanied by The first sprout, a bisque of parsnip, olives and dried tomatoes, which in turn reminds the first plant that Mark Watney, the protagonist of the novel, manages to grow once he is stuck on Mars. The main course is called The astronaut’s food and consists of a wild boar cheek accompanied by an incredible variety of potatoes suitably reworked in a rectangular shape because they remember the protein bars that astronauts consume in space.

Konyv is an innovative idea, which combines two seemingly irreconcilable elements such as literature and food towards an evocative and unrepeatable experience.