As a Hungarian I think our gastronomy is not really the most underrated but most people only know just a handfull of foods like goulash (gulyás) or lángos etc. meanwhile we have so many other just as good or even better.
And also as I travel I Always try to eat local foods and in many cases they are amazing and I’ve never even heard about them. Like in the Balkans in general the food is amazing wherever you go but it’s not really known in other parts of Europe. But the same goes for a lot of different places.
So what do you think, which country’s cuisine is the most underrated?
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Austria and Switzerland are having delicious dishes.
Romanian! It’s a mix of eastern and central European, and balkan. I think that makes it pretty unique despite having dishes from all the mentioned regions
Polish. And I say that even as a vegan. Pierogi, pyzy, kluski śląskie, płacki ziemnaczane. mizeria, żurek, pickle soup, knedle…
Poland and Lithuania, we visited last year and no one even knows about their cuisine, even though they have great food.
As an outsider who has traveled extensively throughout Europe, I think the Eastern European countries in general go under noticed relative to their uniqueness and quality. I’m always surprised when I travel there.
Part of this low visibility was certainly a result of the Iron Curtain, and following the fall of the USSR it took a while for the quality of ingredients and recipes to re-establish (IMO). I remember being great disappointed at Czech cuisine when I first visited in the mid 90s. But no longer!
Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic offer exceptional cuisine today. The rye based dishes of Latvia, bigos and Gołąbki in Poland and the other countries deserve much greater recognition on the international scene.
Honestly I think British food has some solid stuff
Georgia.
I always try local cuisines, and this is by far the best I experienced.
Also Georgian wines hold up to comparison against Italian and French wines.
British cuisine isn’t my favorite but its reputation relative to its quality is perhaps the most disparate. My favorite restaurant in New York City is British.
I think British people just tend to accept lower quality and so the median restaurant isn’t that great but there’s lots of gems to be had
Definitely Spain. Hugely more varied and in many ways surprising than many people think of it, surely including some who regularly visit the country, especially when always the same region(s). It’s almost a microcosm of all of Europe’s cuisines, but adding in lots of overseas ingredients and characteristics, as well as tricks of its own of course. Rather singular, I find the styles of Northern Spain particularly interesting. Myself I’m a vegetarian, which means you’re losing out on it a bit, since Spanish cuisine, even coastal, is famous for being relatively heavy on meat. But that wasn’t the question and there’s lots in it for vegetarians as well.
The Netherlands, our snacks are next level.
Also our quality is (very) high, especially fruits, veggies, eggs milk etc.
Weird pick maybe, but I think Finnish cuisine is really good!
Irishman here. Not saying our cuisine is better than anywhere else but I prefer our dairy to anywhere else I’ve visited.
I feel like Polish cuisine is often scoffed at because we use a lot of fermented foods or offal and people get disgusted just at the thought xD
Germany. I once visited Munich and went to a small place called kartofelhaus.
You knew what you were getting. They certainly knew potatoes.
Oh and the ice cream in Germany was crazy good.
Underrated where? Do you mean underrated in a specific region, or underrated globally?
Your cuisine, for example, is not really underrated in Central Europe, quite the opposite actually. At least where I’m from, Hungarian cuisine is one of the most popular foreign cuisines.
Norwegian. Everybody, including Norwegians, seem to hate it. It has such a bad reputation. But it can be delicious. The traditional way of preserving food, that is.
Funny enough I thought Hungarian food was pretty damn good I was pleasantly surprised.
Greek food often gets overlooked when talking about the best in Europe
Portugal. In no other country I have eaten better. Especially if you like seafood and fish, I found it the best so far.
Honestly, it’s most cuisines, as each has quite some great dishes of its own, but if people think of “European cuisines” they think of French, Spanish and Greek cuisines as those to love and British and German cuisines as those to hate (although undeserved).
Nobody ever mentions Polish, Finnish, Latvian, Swiss, Georgian, Slovakian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Macedonian, … cuisines (equally undeserved).
Britain. Best most varied food in the world but everything that wasn’t served during food rationing in WW2 is considered, “not really British so doesn’t count”.
I had low expectations for the food in Iceland, but it was delicious. Some of the best fish and lamb dishes I’ve ever had. Their butter and pastries were excellent too.
It has to be Czech, evident by nobody mentioning it so far.
Aside from knedlíky they aren’t super unique for Hungarians, as many are quite similar to our dishes, but still different enough that you don’t encounter the same taste at home.
If you have the chance, try their stews and roast meats, they’re delicious.
I absolutely LOVE Balkan food. Everyone goes on about French and Italian… They’re good but I don’t understand the hype. I have never been disappointed in Balkan food and have went out of my way to find a DAMN good Cevapi while traveling.
Food from the Caucuses is pretty good too, I do love me some Georgian or Armenian food too.
Other than that, I love German food too, but mostly because it was really easy to find wild game being served, and a schweinhaxe is high up on my list for a hearty meal.
Leczo is very popular in Poland, translate “pasta o leczo” from Polish into your language. You will laugh very loud.
I wouldn’t say Spanish is as underrated as other European cuisines but my sense is that it doesn’t get the credit that the likes of France or Italy gets for its cuisine when I think it very much should
You don’t want me to answer, as a Romanian.
For real though, we have some disgusting things ourselves. But some of the cuisine, while it is a mix of multiple countries, is pretty underrated
One thing I don’t see other Eastern European countries to use is “Mămăligă” (similar to polenta, but not quite, look it up).
I think it adds another layer of taste to food in general. It works with Sarmale for example.
Moldova is the only country who seems to eat Mămăligă, but comparing that is like comparing Transilvania to Hungary 🙂 (just jokes ❤️)
I think yours is, I was very surprised how good the food was in Hungary. maybe its because i like Paprikas
Bosnia 100%. It’s better Turkish food (which is already good) mixed with some Balkan bangers.
Sweden, people just think of “IKEA meatballs and surströmming” but we have some of the freshest sea food around.
Romanian cuisine… interesting mix of balkan influences, central European and even Turkish.
hardly any restaurants to find outside of the country
Slovakia – criminally underrated! They have dishes you’d find in other countries too but their twist is always the little bit you needed without knowing it.
And the Slovakian dishes are something I often miss in other places. Halušky bryndzové are my favourite food to a point that my Slovakian friends are calling it an addiction 😂😂
Czech and British. I’m not the most well travelled in Europe but these are my personal picks so far.
I think it varies because some cuisines are more present in some countries versus others. I really enjoyed Hungarian food but I don’t know of a single Hungarian restaurant over here for example, which would thus make that cuisine underrated.
Honestly, I do not think there is any truly underrated cuisine. Most national cuisines have already been explored, appreciated, or at least acknowledged for what they are
I am not including the Caucasian cuisines, because to me they feel more Western Asian than European, not just geographically but in terms of culinary identity. Their food, beyond some slight eastern Mediterranean influences, shows strong Persian elements, which sets them apart. This is similar to Eastern Turkish cuisine which differs from Mediterranean Turkish cuisine. It can also feel heavy and overwhelming if eaten regularly. Tasting something once in a while is not the same as eating it every day. Only by eating it daily do you really understand whether you genuinely enjoy it or not
That said, taste is subjective. I personally find myself enjoying Nordic cuisines. I would not want to eat their dishes every day, but I really appreciate their seafood, pastries, and whole grain breads. The ingredients are simple, but the quality and flavor are excellent
My mother in law was Hungarian. We spent some time visiting family there. I picked up how to cook two meals and still cook them now. One is “Paprikas Krumpli” the other is “Sertes Csulok”. I still cook them quite often so my family in the UK and friends in NL and DE have tried them often.
Irish hands down. Everyone has this stereotypical view in their minds of boiled to death, bland, tasteless food or dishes similar to the British. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Contemporary irish cuisine is actually phenomenonal.
Albania! I was truly blown away and still occasionally dream of eating mazë again (even tried to do it myself but it didn’t go well lol). It was a combination of locally grown high quality produce and fish, both saltwater and freshwater (also meat which I don’t eat though) and really tasty dishes.
Albania hands down. I still dream of everything I ate when I visited two years agao, and it’s the primary reason why I’d love to visit again 😀
North of the Alps: Poland
This has been repeated upthread, but it’s the truth. Zurek is by far Europes best soup and it’s not even close.
South of the Alps: Malta
Anglo-Sicilian with Arabic influences. The distance you can travel on a single plate down there is mind-bending.
Non-EU: English cuisine.
Everyone shits on it all the time – and all of that is directly downstream from American post-WW2 malarkey. Properly made English food made from good quality ingredients is a ten out of ten every time.