At Művész, many things were wrong today.
Every time I expressed my gratitude, the waiter responded with ‘Thank you!’ instead of ‘You’re welcome!’. This left a positive impression at first, but later, after too much repetition, it gave rise to the suspicion that in Hungarian the same phrase could be used for the two expressions and the young waiter simply did not know that this is not the case in English. Or if he did know and still threw in polite expressions in abundance, he was just callowly enthusiastic or rather – enthusiastically callow. His imitation of waiterly politeness was occasionally punctured by a crude ‘yeah’ – a sign of youth or poor upbringing – in situations where he should rather have kept quiet.
At a table next to mine was sitting an elderly couple in whose faces decades-long seriousness had been imprinted – in case of the man, around the eyes, and in case of the woman, around the mouth. The woman asked whether the sandwich she had ordered was made with wheat bread or rye bread. The waiter answered that it was made with wheat bread, allowed the woman to cancel her order, and then paused for a moment before realising that he could ask the chef to prepare the sandwich with rye bread instead. After the waiter had left, the man said something with compressed indignation, which must surely have been a remark about the customer service here.
The front wall of the back room of the café is covered with three large panels of light brown wallpaper with a simple pattern, separated by two white pillars. On the wall there are lights that feel Gothic, some pictures in small frames, and a TV-set – totally incongruous with the interior – showing photos of the cakes offered on the menu: the Dobos torta, the Esterházy torta, the Gerbeaud Cake, and so on. This discrepancy does not, however, ruin my impression of Művész as the best example among the old Budapest cafés of the matchbox style of the 19th-century interiors.
Pop music in piano accompaniment is playing on the background, I can’t remember if Julio Iglesias or Toto Cutugno, once even a song from the Eurovision Song Contest. Under my coffee glass is a flower-shaped piece of paper with the logo of another, unknown café. The napkin is without lettering or decoration. At one point, a confident-looking woman in plain clothes takes two plates with cake triangles from the display case in the front room, places them on a client’s table, walks with a tray of dirty dishes through the back room to the kitchen, then returns from there, adjusting the chairs, brings the sandwiches and coffees to the married couple at the table next to mine, and explains something to the waiter while he is taking care of my bill.
October 2016