Our Madrid Smashed Eggs are Spanish huevos rotos: crispy potatoes under runny-yolk eggs with leafy greens and chilli flakes, topped with either sautéed shiitake mushrooms or Spanish serrano ham, 4,500 Ft at both Cookie Beacon brunch spots in Budapest.

It is the plate on our brunch in Budapest menu that is not really ours — we brought it back from somewhere else, and only changed it once we had lived with it for years.

Why a Spanish dish is on a Budapest brunch menu

Here is the reason, from the people who put it there:

Before moving to Budapest, Hungary, and opening Cookie Beacon, we lived for many years in Barcelona, Spain. One of our favourite dishes back then were Huevos Estrellados (Smashed Eggs). Those are sunny side up eggs smashed with potato chips. Once we tried in Madrid, these eggs mixed with Iberian Ham as well. That was our favourite version ever. However, later on we decided to offer a more vegetarian friendly version with Shiitake Mushrooms as well. It turned out, that is our guests favourite as well.

Three things worth pulling out of that, because they are the whole dish.

It is a real Spanish dish, not an invention. Huevos rotos — “broken eggs” — is a staple of Spanish bars and casas de comidas: potatoes fried in olive oil, eggs broken over the top, the whole thing folded together so the yolk becomes the sauce. Huevos estrellados, “smashed eggs”, is the same plate under a different name; which word you hear depends where in Spain you are standing. Both names show up in our reviews here, which tells you who is ordering it.

The Madrid part is specific. The Barcelona years are where the dish became a habit; Madrid is where they met the version with Iberian ham through it, and that is the one that stuck. The name on our card records where the recipe was settled, not where it was invented.

The mushroom version was an afterthought that won. Shiitake was added later, to give the plate a version that works for people who do not eat meat. It has since become the one guests order most, which is not what anyone expected of a dish whose best-loved version had ham in it.

What is actually on the plate

Crispy potatoes go down first — not chips from a bag, but potatoes fried until the edges shatter. Then eggs with the yolks still runny, broken over the top. Then leafy greens and chilli flakes.

Then you choose, and the choice is the dish:

  • Sautéed shiitake mushrooms — the vegetarian version, and the one our guests pick most.
  • Spanish serrano ham — the closest thing here to the Madrid plate the owners fell for.

A truffle touch is 200 Ft extra, if you want the whole thing a shade darker and earthier.

Our Budapest card prints the dish with a vegetarian tag and a protein-packed one. Worth being precise about the first: the plate as it arrives has no meat on it, and the serrano is the topping you choose instead of the mushrooms — not something that turns up unasked. Order it with shiitake and it is meat-free.

How to eat it

Do not eat it in neat forkfuls off the top. The point of huevos rotos is in the name: break the yolks and fold everything together first, so the yolk coats the potatoes and the greens wilt slightly into the heat. What you want by the third mouthful is not eggs sitting on potatoes — it is one thing.

This is also why the eggs come with the yolks loose. A firm yolk cannot do the job the recipe needs it to do. If you would rather have them cooked through, say so when you order, but you will be eating a different dish from the one the owners brought back.

Where Madrid Smashed Eggs sit among our eggs

We serve eggs three ways at brunch, and they are not interchangeable:

  • Madrid Smashed Eggs — runny-yolk eggs folded through crispy potatoes. Savoury, hearty, Spanish.
  • Eggs Benedict on Cheddar-Scones — poached eggs and hollandaise on a house-baked cheddar scone. Richer, and the sauce does the work.
  • Shakshuka — eggs cooked into a tomato base.

If you want potatoes and a fork you can dig with, this is the one. If you want a sauce and something bready underneath, the Benedict is.

Eating it in Budapest

Spanish food is not what Budapest is known for, and we are not a Spanish restaurant — this is one plate on a brunch menu, brought back from a decade of living there. It is on the card all day at both brunch spots, so it works as a late breakfast or a two-in-the-afternoon first meal.

Both rooms are walk-in only. Our team happens to include a lot of Spanish speakers, which guests mention more often than we expected — if you order this one in Spanish, someone will almost certainly answer.