Restaurant

Running a truly Zero-waste kitchen in a restaurant with a menu and no reservations is hardly feasible - therefore we decided to run a restaurant in 2014 – in a way that allows honest sustainability - instead of the trendy greenwashing.  There is no menu, you can only arrive by reservation and we have different fixed menu every day.

In terms of ingredients and suppliers, a restaurant can be sustainable if it sources seasonal ingredients from Hungarian - local farmers - so that's how we work. Our chef personally checks the farmers. It's a relief that we don't have a fixed menu, but we can vary every day our offer - based on the available ingredients. When you work with small local farmers, you never know what someone can bring in the morning, how many figs or lettuce are ripe, or what kind of mangalitsa pig has been slaughtered, however all these influence what we can offer to our guests that day. If a restaurant decides to start working with truly local and small-scale, backyard partners, one thing is for sure, there will be a change, sometimes in quantity, sometimes in quality. That's why the same raw material from a supplier can be on the plate of a degustation dinner one week and in the dehydrator or fermenter the next. There have been many ways of preserving food since ancient times, and our kitchen is also sing them, in the form of boiling, drying, maturing, drying and fermenting. This is also part of zero waste, using the meat we buy from tail to ears, and we can also use every part of the vegetables, even the peeled skin. It consumes endless hours of labour, therefore we have to admit, that true sustainability – the extra use of energy & investment - really needs an obsessive owner and chef. 😊We are super lucky to have both.

Ad the choice of drinks - we do not stock bottled, factory-made soft drinks or PET bottled water. We have our own water filtration system, which also cools and carbonates the water on demand, and we add to this our own syrups, iced tea and kombucha - this is how we can offer our guests a much tastier and healthier soft drink alternatives with much smaller ecological footprint. Most of the food is also served in plates made by Hungarian artisans. Our winelist consists of a fine selection of Hungarian and biodynamic wines.

We have a huge garden already; herb garden, eatable flowers and half a hectare of lavender plantation to decorate the property and help the kitchen work, our entire 2 hectare area has been certified as organic for 10 years. So our agricultural activities are as sustainable as possible and completely chemical free. For the irrigation of the property, we collect rainwater in a 100m3 (!) tank from all the roof surfaces. We invested in 2023 in a large gardening project - therefore by 2 years 85%of our all fruit and vegetable needs will be sourced by our own garden and also bio eggs from our chickens.

The goal of our family was to live and have guests on a property with the most beautiful panoramic view of the Danube Bend. We found the land, where Natura Hill is now, which happened to be an agricultural field, where there was no road toreach, and no utilities at all. But we took advantage of this situation, which could have been treated as a difficulty or a disadvantage, and in accordance with the objectives of sustainability, we tried to create the necessary resources largely ob our own. The use of materials inside and outside the building, the incorporation of the highest level of engineering available at the time and the minimisation of exposure to utilities were also intended to maximise self-sufficiency. Eight years ago this was a matter of conscience, but now it is having a positive impact on the financial results at today's energy prices.
In designing our accommodation in the middle of nowever and the lap of nature, we have been able to use the lack of utilities as a challenge rather than a difficulty and to build our energy independence. Situated on a two-hectare site, Natura Hill has provided enough space to accommodate four 110-metre-deep boreholes, which provide relatively constant thermal energy from winter to summer for our modern mechanical system - which, combined with surface heating and cooling, provides our guests with an even better thermal experience. The efficiency of this heat pump system is four times better than using electricity alone. Solar panels cover more than 75% of our roof surfaces, providing more than half of our total annual consumption and expansion is limited only by national regulations. All our faucets and shower sets are Hansgrohe's most water-efficient products, so we don't waste any precious water. We are also not willing to build a swimming pool on the property because of water conservation. 
The most advanced automated shutter blinds and the heat recovery unit of our ventilation system are all secondary devices that are less considered by investors in an engineering design. However, both the satisfaction of our guests and the running costs have confirmed their necessity.

Getting here can be also sustainable. As we provide a free shuttle service from the train station for our guests, and we also offer electric car and bicycle charging, powered by our own solar panels in sunny weather.