- Written by: Chefluencer Editorial Team
For over a decade, ONYX defined what fine dining could look like in Hungary. Then it stepped away - not for renovation, not to ride out the pandemic, but to dismantle itself completely. In March 2025, it returned with something far more ambitious than a reopening.
The restaurant returned with a new structure, a new menu, and a different understanding of how culinary experiences could be shaped - not just by chefs, but by systems, teams, and design. The space had changed. So had the purpose. Nothing from the old ONYX was carried forward by default. The team had spent years dismantling assumptions, testing structures, and shaping a system that operated without hierarchy or nostalgia. The result is one of the most conceptually ambitious restaurants operating in Europe today.
A Decade at the Top
ONYX opened in 2007 and helped shape Budapest’s modern fine dining identity. Under the direction of Szabina Szulló and Tamás Széll, it earned its first Michelin star in 2011 and its second in 2018 - becoming the first restaurant in East-Central Europe to hold two. For over a decade, ONYX has stood as a symbol of precision and prestige in the region.
In 2020, the team made a decision that few expected: they closed the restaurant by choice. Not as a response to crisis, but as an opening for change. What followed was a multi-year process called Metamorphosis, a full-scale rethinking of what ONYX should become.
ONYX Műhely: The Workshop Years
During the development period, the team launched Onyx Műhely - a hybrid concept lab, test kitchen, and collaborative space designed to explore new formats for service, creativity, and sustainability. Not a placeholder. It became the backbone of the new model.
In 2022, Műhely received a Green Michelin Star for its environmentally conscious operations. The recognition reflected not just ingredient sourcing, but circular design systems, waste minimisation, and embedded regionalism in both food and process. Every dish was built with local products. Every workflow was restructured for minimal impact.
At Műhely, the focus shifted from outcome to method. Teams prototyped governance models, restructured how authority worked in the kitchen, and tested what collaboration could look like at scale. This wasn’t a waiting room for ONYX. It was its redesign lab.
The ÆTHER Experience: Where Dinner Becomes Timeline
The new ONYX experience isn’t built around a seasonal menu or a conventional tasting structure. Instead, it presents a narrative: the ÆTHER Experience, in which 11 courses are structured like a work of speculative fiction moving through imagined timelines: the age of steam, the present day, and a distant future still undefined.
The fully immersive, multisensory experience plays out across three dimensions: space, time, and perception. It begins in Műhely, where the first course is served in full light and full view of the kitchen - a kind of introduction by way of exposure. From there, the group walks to the main dining room, a sculpted space where the atmosphere begins to tighten. Lighting softens. Sound narrows. The table, long, glowing and continuous, becomes the centre of gravity.
Each course adjusts the room. One is plated on cold metal and arrives in silence. Another breaks the pattern with steam, hands-only eating, or sudden colour. Some dishes resemble geological artefacts. Others land with theatrical contrast, dark food on pale ceramic, structured crunch followed by stillness.
The sculptural, communal table seats sixteen. At first, the silence is almost theatrical - eyes adjusting to darkness, strangers adjusting to proximity. But the menu is built to create rupture, not just rhythm. One dish triggers laughter. Another invites shared confusion. By the end, the table is no longer private. It’s collective.
The environment was created in collaboration with leading Hungarian design studios. Interior architecture was developed by URBA, interactive installations by EJTECH, lighting by LUMO Concept, custom felt elements by Multifelt Factory, and botanical design by Viaplant. Every material was chosen not for luxury, but for narrative function.
A Kitchen Without a Centre
The culinary structure at ONYX no longer revolves around a single chef. Instead, today, four chefs lead the kitchen: Bence Domoszlai, Simon Molnárka, Ákos Horváth, and Péter Várvizi. The system is democratic. All major creative decisions are made by vote.
This structure has functional implications. Recipes are refined through iteration. Dishes pass through multiple rounds of critique. No single hand defines the menu. The result is not a compromise, but a process-driven composition, sharpened through repetition and internal review.
In 2025, Dining Guide Hungary awarded ONYX the “Innovative Kitchen of the Year” distinction. The recognition reflected not just the food, but the governance behind it.
Two Spaces, One System
Today, ONYX and Onyx Műhely operate as two parts of one integrated system. Műhely continues to function as an R&D space, while ONYX serves the public-facing experience. Staff rotate between the two, contributing across kitchen, service, design, and operations.
The team comprises roughly 30 people, forming what they call the ONYX Creative Community. Roles are non-hierarchical. Designers, chefs, strategists, and service professionals collaborate across disciplines. A dish might begin in a sketch session with a ceramicist. A change in lighting might come from a conversation with a server. The guest experience is the sum of these exchanges.
The project’s mission, “to shape the future through the power of gastronomy”, is not presented as branding. It is baked into how time, power, and collaboration are structured.
A Different Kind of Signal
Hungary lies at a crossroads - historically caught between East and West, culturally enriched yet economically strained, with a fine dining scene still fighting for recognition beyond its own borders and numerous internal challenges. Budapest now hosts 34 restaurants recommended by the Michelin Guide, a remarkable density for this region. But star ratings there do not always translate into sustained influence or meaningful change in how restaurants are built, run or prosper.
With ONYX, we see something deeper: a kitchen redesign not imported from Paris or Copenhagen, but assembled in Hungary, rooted in Hungarian collaborations. The communal table, four‑chef vote, narrative menu, and hybrid lab-kitchen model all reflect a logic of decentralisation — a kind of gastronomic structure suited to a place often told it must conform to outside standards.
This matters because Central and Eastern Europe still struggle to be seen as laboratories, not late adapters. ONYX now offers a working case of what architectural ambition, institutional reinvention, and culinary authorship can look like from “here.” Its return is not a gesture toward place — it is a new proposition from place.
Onyx Snapshot
Location: Vörösmarty tér 7–8, Budapest, Hungary
Open: Thu - Sun (Dinner only: 18:30-22:00)
Experience: The ÆTHER Experience — 11-course immersive menu, communal table, single seating
Chefs: Simon Molnárka, Bence Domoszlai, Péter Várvizi, Ákos Horváth
Sister venue: Onyx Műhely – R&D space and creative lab
Reservations: onyxrestaurant.hu
Sources:
- ONYX Budapest official press release and photo materials (2025)
- Michelin Guide archives (2011, 2018, 2022)
- Dining Guide Hungary awards (2022–2025)
- Public documentation from Onyx Műhely and ONYX Creative Community
- Chefluencer editorial field research, Budapest (Q1–Q3 2025)