Café Paulina - Bajna

Café Paulina

The enormous manorial kitchen was popular in the Bajna mansion. The remains of the previous aristocratic kitchen’s surviving furnishings date from the second half of the 19th century.

Princess Pauline inherited the mansion after Móric Sándor died, which she modernised in 1896, and installed gas lighting.

The imprint of the custom-made, tiled wood-fired cookstove standing on a leg base has been retained in the middle of the kitchen, with remnants of the blue tiles and features of the chimney, as well as stumps of the pastry oven in the centre of the cookstove. Tiled, closed-combustion cookstoves were made of brick, were fitted with a fluepipe, and were fuelled with wood. Situated above the oven, there was a cast iron griddle.

The kitchen remnants help to envision and experience life in the mansion: the staff rushing through the spacious kitchen, the fragrance of food, the chatter of damsels drinking tea under the antique images on the walls, while the male guests were spending time in either the card room or billiards room.

In the renovated mansion café, visitors can take a seat at modern tables and chairs. 

Fantasy desserts named after the Metternich family, such as the Devil’s Horseman slice (double-chocolate mixed dough with chocolate pieces, dark chocolate ganache, a layer of sour cherry, and milk chocolate mousse), or the Pauline raspberry fool (an oatmeal cookie base with honey and chocolate, vanilla cream, and raspberry sauce, finished with some mascarpone cream), as well as other handcrafted cakes await visitors at the café, which also serves coffee specialties.

Café Paulina is open to even those entering the mansion without a ticket.

Széchenyi ikon