Readying ourselves for a vegetarian visitor this weekend, I did a quick search for vegetarian restaurants in Nagykanizsa that open on a Sunday.

Why, you say? Surely all restaurants these days have a vegetarian offer? Okay, they might not cater to vegans, but vegetarianism wasn’t born yesterday.

Sadly, the standard Hungarian vegetarian offer, aside from pizza and pasta, seems to be baked camembert in breadcrumbs with a side of chips or deep-fried mushrooms.

Anyway, I was looking for something a little more than a one-meal wonder.

I was looking for a regular Sunday go-to place after doing the rounds of the local bolhapiac (flea market). We used to have a place, but sadly, they stopped opening on Sundays.

Google, in its infinite wisdom, threw up several options, one of which was Lokalista, a new place that opened last November. I had a quick scan of their relatively simple weekend menu, noted that they prided themselves on using local ingredients, and made the call, without consultation.

There’s a sameness about Hungarian fare that gets old. And there’s a heaviness to some of the decor.

Lokalista made a good first impression. Bright and airy with a soft grey-yellow-green palette, it has a variety of seating choices from comfy armchairs/sofa/coffee table arrangements to still comfy tables and chairs.

The service was attentive without being in your face and the staff were ever so tolerant of my poor Hungarian. Having established that we were all Irish and that none of us spoke German, it was Hungarian only. So refreshing, compared to other encounters where no amount of telling would get staff to stop speaking to me in German.

We started off with their excellent homemade lemonade that came with their homemade pogácsa. If done right, this savoury bread can be delicious. It’s difficult to get right though; often it’s too heavy and too dry. Theirs was so good I made a mental note to get some to bring home.

We ordered some sweet potato hummus to share: puréed sweet potato with chopped green onions and toasted pumpkin seeds drizzled with pumpkin oil served with to-die-for homemade pita (we went for seconds on the pita).

Himself went for the breadcrumbed boar served with homemade potato croquettes and green mayonnaise. They take local sourcing very seriously. It was such a change to get real croquettes rather the factory-made out-of-a-bag stuff.

I had to have the dödölle, a local potato dumpling speciality. [Nagykanizsa has a Bor- és Dödölle Fesztivál (Wine and dödölle) every September that I’ve now put in my calendar.] I was curious to see their take on this traditional dish and wasn’t disappointed. Instead of the usual dumpling shapes, these were perfectly fried, non-greasy cubes. They were served with sour cream, pickled red onions, and exquisite home-cured bacon. Can bacon be exquisite?

Yes.

Of course, it can.

This was.

Thankfully, I’d just mastered good-better-best in Hungarian. I shared my appreciation, confident in my pronunciation.

WDS, our visiting vegetarian went for the baked camembert, served with walnuts, a local salad, and pear jam. There wasn’t a synthetic breadcrumb in sight.

We finished with some excellent coffee and shared a slice of their homemade carrot and orange cake.

The recurring theme here: homemade.

They say they’re more than a restaurant. They’re a community space for people in the town who want to feel like locals. Their target audience?

Ez a hely azoknak szól, akik hisznek abban, hogy az élet apró örömei – egy beszélgetés, egy íz, egy pillanat – teszik gazdagabbá a mindennapokat! [This place is for those who believe that the little joys of life – a conversation, a taste, a moment – ​​make everyday life richer!]