MONIKAS EUROPEAN KITCHEN – Restaurant

A small, warmly run Hungarian and German dining room on East Bay Drive in Largo, opened by Budapest-born Chef Monika and her husband Chad on the site of the old Jaegerstuble. The cooking is proper old-country comfort: chicken paprikas with nokedli dumplings, hearty gulyas, schnitzel, spaetzle, soft Bavarian pretzels with beer cheese, and a sour-cream Hungarian-style cheesecake worth saving room for. Diners return again and again for the generous plates and the owners' unhurried, personal welcome, which turns a weeknight dinner into an occasion. Central Europe, done with real hands, twenty minutes from Clearwater.

Cuisine: Restaurant