Oregon Culture Keepers Roster Menu

Novak's is a Hungarian Restaurant in Albany, Oregon, which Matilda "Mama" and Joseph Novak founded in 1984. Matilda Novak learned how to cook from her family in Hungary. After she fled Hungary’s communist government and came to the United States, she first worked in a buffet restaurant where she learned how to operate a business. Today, Novak’s restaurant is a family business, which daughter Karen Novak runs with support from her sisters. Novak's serves traditional Hungarian dishes such as chicken paprikas served over homemade spaetzle (pearl noodles), szekely toltott kaposzta(cabbage rolls), beef porkolt (beef and mushrooms with wine sauce) served over spaetzle, langos (fried bread), goulash, and more. A glass case full of rich European-style homemade cakes and pastries is a feast for the eye. The restaurant also serves traditional Hungarian drinks, which include malna, a raspberry syrup mixed with seltzer water, and Pálinka, a traditional Hungarian brandy. Mama says, "when we opened, we started with our family's favorite dishes." While the menu has changed over the years, they've kept the fundamentals. The Novaks make their own bread and salad dressing, and grind their own meat for the restaurant’s specialty dishes. “Mama” Novak says that the food is the same as what she has at home but in larger quantities. Daughter Matilde says while that's true, some things like the goulash soup are much fattier at home—probably a little too much so for the restaurant. "It's basic, simple home cooking," says Mama, "but our signature spice is paprika. And it has a lot of flavor, but mostly it's used for color. We use all kinds of spices!" As of 2017, National Restaurant Association listed Novak’s as one of fewer that twenty traditional Hungarian restaurants in America. In 2010, the National Restaurant Association honored Novak’s Hungarian Restaurant with its "Faces of Diversity" Award.