Hungary's Entrepreneurs Flock to London

When Istvan Bozo first moved to London in 2010, he craved the flavorful pancakes he’d loved as a child in Hungary. After sampling some at more than a dozen restaurants and tasting only disappointment, he resolved to open his own establishment. It took just two weeks to line up the permits and financing for Crepe Fun-Tastic, a pink-and-green-fronted shop near Victoria station. “It’s much easier to work here,” says Bozo. “At home—even if you’re very, very good at what you’re doing—if you don’t have friends to help you along, you’re never going to get ahead.”

London has long been a magnet for entrepreneurs and job seekers from all over the world, as the city’s high concentration of ethnic eateries, from curry houses to kebab shops, attests. Now the British capital has become home to a growing community of Hungarian immigrants. The U.K. last year displaced Austria as the No. 2 destination for Hungarian migrants, after Germany, according to Seemig, a European Union-sponsored program for managing migration. In 2012 there were 47,000 Hungarians residing in Britain, up from 5,000 in 2001. The community is large enough to support its own magazine—named 6:3, after the score of a seminal 1953 soccer match in which Hungary’s national team beat England’s.