Our Cape Cod Shrimp Roll is a buttered and toasted homemade brioche topped with butter shrimp, celery, lemon aioli, chili paprika and lemon zest, served with a side of homemade potato chips, for 5,100 Ft at both Cookie Beacon brunch spots in Budapest.

It is our shrimp version of the New England lobster roll. Nothing else we serve for brunch in Budapest has shellfish in it. Both spots serve it all day, and neither takes bookings.

Why a New England lobster roll became a shrimp roll in Budapest

Here is the reason, from the people who put it on the card:

New England staple made locally. On our trip to Newport and Cape Cod, we loved Lobster rolls served everywhere. We even bought a New England recipes cookbook to be able to relive the experience. However, Cookie Beacon being a relaxed brunch spot, we reimagined the traditional roll by serving it with shrimps that are friendlier for daily experience in Central and Eastern Europe.

Newport and Cape Cod are where it started. Newport sits on Aquidneck Island in Rhode Island, and Cape Cod is the peninsula that reaches into the Atlantic from the southeastern corner of Massachusetts; both are in New England. On that trip the owners found lobster rolls served everywhere, and loved them. They even bought a New England recipes cookbook, to be able to relive the experience. The Cape Cod in the roll’s name comes from that trip.

Shrimp is the reimagining. Cookie Beacon is a relaxed brunch spot, so the owners reimagined the traditional roll with shrimp, which they call “friendlier for daily experience in Central and Eastern Europe”. The swap has company: recipe writers such as America’s Test Kitchen publish New England-style shrimp rolls too.

The card adds details the story doesn’t mention: the roll is a thick homemade brioche, buttered and toasted, and chili paprika brings some heat.

What is in the roll

Our Budapest menu lists seven things. Here they are with the words the Hungarian side of the card uses:

  • Buttered and toasted homemade brioche (vajas & pirított házi készítésű brioche). One thick roll with a glossy, golden top.
  • Butter shrimp (vajas garnélarák). The Hungarian says buttered shrimp. Garnélarák covers what Americans call shrimp and the British often call prawns, so either word gets you the same roll.
  • Celery (zeller). In Hungarian, zeller often means celeriac, the root. On this roll it is the pale green stalk, diced small for crunch.
  • Lemon aioli (citromos aioli). Like every sauce on our menu, our kitchen makes it by hand. It coats the shrimp.
  • Chili paprika (csípős paprika, hot paprika). In our photos it shows as red flakes over the shrimp, and it is the only heat on the list.
  • Lemon zest (citromhéj).
  • Homemade potato chips (házi készítésű burgonya chips). Thin golden slices with the skin on at the edges. They come with the roll, so there is no side to order.

Both cafés’ cards also tag the roll protein-packed and print no add-ons for it. In the plates we photographed, a citrus wedge sits on the side and a pale green garnish stands on top; neither is listed on the card.

How to eat it

In the rolls we photographed, the shrimp is heaped along the top of the brioche, so a knife and fork is the tidy way. You can pick it up too, if you keep it level and don’t mind some aioli on your fingers.

Use the chips for crunch between bites, and for any aioli that ends up on the plate.

If the chili paprika is more heat than you want, ask us to hold the spice when you order.

Where the lobster roll comes from

The origin story food writers repeat puts the first lobster roll in Connecticut, at Harry Perry’s restaurant in Milford in the 1920s, often dated to 1929, though it reaches us as local lore rather than a record. New England serves it two main ways. Connecticut’s comes warm with melted butter. Maine’s is cold and dressed with mayonnaise, and cold rolls often carry a little diced celery. Both usually arrive in a New England split-top bun, toasted in butter on its flat sides; the Maine bakery J.J. Nissen made that bun in the 1940s for Howard Johnson’s fried-clam rolls.

Ours borrows from both: butter shrimp from the Connecticut side, then celery and a lemon aioli where Maine would use mayonnaise, on a toasted brioche instead of the split-top bun.

Where it sits among our dishes

Three other plates on our Budapest menu share something with this roll:

  • Avo Smashed Big Cheeseburger. The same 5,100 Ft, also a bun with an aioli and homemade potato chips. The bun is our homemade pretzel bun, the aioli is mango-mustard, and the filling is two smashed beef patties.
  • Crème Brûlée French Toast. The other brioche on the card, served as a sweet plate with pastry cream and salted caramel.
  • Eggs Benedict on Cheddar-Scones. The plate to pick if you want fish at brunch. Our kitchen adds salmon to it as an add-on, for 2,000 Ft extra.

Eating it in Budapest

The roll sits in Hearty Brunch with the rest of our brunch plates. The Hungarian side of the card keeps the English name, Cape Cod Shrimp Roll.

Our card uses the American word for the side, so chips here are the thin kind that British English calls crisps. The Hungarian side of the card spells it out as burgonya chips, potato chips, so don’t expect fries.

You’ll find it at both rooms: Basilica on Hercegprímás utca, and Ferenciek tere at the Váci utca end of the square. Both open 08:00 to 17:00 on weekdays and 09:00 to 17:00 at weekends.