Our Grilled-Cheese Waffle-Sandwich is mozzarella, cheddar, feta crumble, smashed avocado and crispy bacon between two waffles, served with homemade potato chips, for 4,600 Ft at both Cookie Beacon brunch spots in Budapest.
When guests ask for our signature dish, this is the one we name, because it is the dish we started our brunch with. It is on the all-day card at both of our spots for brunch in Budapest, and neither takes bookings.
Why is a grilled cheese made with waffles?
The idea started with a sandwich from Argentina. Here is the story, from the people who put it on the card:
Andreas’ favorite childhood memory is Tostado Mixto (a traditional Argentinian ham and cheese sandwich made with very thin white bread). We always wanted to bring it to Cookie Beacon. To give the sandwich a thicker body, we made it with waffles. To add texture, we added crispy bacon. To smooth it out, we added creamy Avocado with feta smash. The results, a cheese pull worth living for.
Andreas Kanakis is our CEO. The story gives a reason for each change.
The body. A tostado is thin by design. Waffles make the sandwich thicker, and their deep grid gives the melted cheese pockets to settle into.
The texture. Crispy bacon goes in for crunch inside the soft, melting middle. There is no ham on our card.
The smoothness. Smashed avocado with feta crumble runs through the centre, creamy and a little salty.
The cheese pull. That is where the story ends up. The clip on this page shows it: pull the two halves apart and the cheese stretches into one long strand.
What is in the Grilled Cheese Waffle?
The waffles are in the name. The rest is what our Budapest menu lists, here with the Hungarian names, where the card also adds frissen sült, freshly made:
- Waffles. Two of them, one above and one below, doing the job of the bread.
- Mozzarella (mozzarella). In our photos it is the white cheese running out of the sides.
- Cheddar (cheddar). The golden one, melted in with the mozzarella.
- Feta crumble (feta morzsa).
- Smashed avocado (tört avokádó). The card pairs it with the feta, and our story calls it avocado with feta smash.
- Crispy bacon (ropogós bacon).
On the side comes homemade potato chips (házi burgonya chips): thin, curled slices in a paper-lined gold cup, included in the price. In Britain you’d call them crisps.
That makes three cheeses in one sandwich. Mozzarella brings the stretch, cheddar the colour and the sharper flavour, and feta the salt.
What is a tostado mixto, and where does grilled cheese come from?
A tostado is Argentina’s hot sandwich: pan de miga, a soft, very thin white bread without crusts, filled and toasted in a press. With ham and cheese it is a tostado mixto, or tostado de jamón y queso, a staple of Argentine cafés.
The American grilled cheese is usually traced to the 1920s, when sliced bread and processed cheese became cheap and easy to find, though people were melting cheese on bread long before that.
Ours borrows from both. It started as a tostado mixto and takes its name from the American sandwich.
How is ours different from a tostado mixto?
- Waffles instead of pan de miga. A thicker, crisper body in place of thin, soft bread.
- Crispy bacon, and no ham. The bacon is there for crunch.
- Three cheeses. Mozzarella and cheddar melt together, and feta crumble goes in with the avocado.
- Smashed avocado. It has no place in the Argentine original.
How do you eat it?
In the sandwiches we photographed, it arrives in two halves on white paper, on a wooden board, with the chips in their cup beside it. Pick up a half in both hands. The cheese is at its stretchiest in the first minutes, so eat it while it is hot.
Pull slowly if you want the cheese pull; the clip shows how far it goes. Eat the chips between bites.
Can you order it without bacon?
Yes. The bacon comes as standard, but our team can leave it off, so just ask when you order. That also answers the halal question we get most often. Our dishes and cookies contain no alcohol and no gelatine, but we are not halal-certified, so please check with the team if that matters to you.
Our card tags the sandwich protein-packed and sugar-free at both Budapest spots. It has no gluten-free tag, and everything is made in a shared kitchen, so if you avoid gluten, please confirm with our team when you order.
Where does it sit among our dishes?
Three plates on our Budapest menu are its closest relatives:
- Chicken & Waffles Stack, 4,950 Ft. Our other waffle plate, and a very different one. The waffle sits under panko crispy chicken with beetroot hummus, smoked bacon sauce and honey butter cream: sweet against savoury, where this one is all cheese.
- Eggs Benedict on Cheddar-Scones, 4,600 Ft. The same price, and the same feta crumble and smashed avocado, on freshly baked cheddar scones with poached eggs and hollandaise.
- Breakfast Crunch Pretzelbun-Sandwich, 3,950 Ft. Our other hot sandwich with cheddar, crispy bacon and homemade potato chips, but in a homemade pretzelbun with sunny side up eggs and jalapeño.
What should you know before ordering it in Budapest?
It sits in Hearty Brunch, the first section of our Budapest menu, third from the top. The name stays in English on both halves of the card, so look for Grilled-Cheese Waffle-Sandwich rather than a Hungarian translation.
The price is the same at Basilica on Hercegprímás utca, near St. Stephen’s Basilica, and at 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, and both are walk-in only. The walk between them takes about fifteen minutes.
