Kristóf Baráti was born in Budapest, but a large part of his childhood was spent in Venezuela. He began his violin studies at the age of five and already from the age of eight he made his first solo performances with the leading Venezuelan orchestras. At the age of eleven he was invited to Montpellier to give a recital at the prestigious "Festival de Radio France".

His studies continued in Budapest with Miklós Szenthelyi and Vilmos Tátrai in the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. Still a student, he won first prize at the Lipizer Competition in Italy and second prize in the Long-Thibaud Competition in Paris. In 1997 he won third prize and the audience prize at the highly prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, being the youngest finalist.

After this success he redefined his violin technique in Paris with Eduard Wulfson, whose knowledge was influenced by great violinists of the 20th century such as Nathan Milstein, Yehudi Menuhin and Henryk Szeryng. In 2010 Baráti won the „Oscar of violinists”, the highly praised Paganini Competition in Moscow.

Kristóf Baráti performs in important concert halls around the world with major orchestras (Deutsches Symphonie Orchester, Russian National Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, NHK Symphony Tokyo, Budapest Festival Orchestra, NDR Symphony Orchestra, etc.) and conductors (Masur, Janowski, Dutoit, Belohlavek, Kocsis,Gilbert Varga, Iván Fischer, Temirkanov, Saraste, Eiji Oue, Pinchas Steinberg, etc.).
His chamber music partners have included Natalia Gutman, Gábor Boldoczki, Evgeniy Koroliov, Enrico Pace, Zoltán Kocsis, Mischa Maisky, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet,Kim Kashkashian, Dénes Várjon, István Várdai, Nikolai Lugansky, Ning Feng, to mention just a few. He performs regularly with Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra both in Russia and on tour around the world including in the US and China. He appears every year at the White Nights Festival and in 2019 made his debut at the Seattle Chamber Music and Aspen Festivals. In 2016 he made a sensational debut at the Verbier Festival when he performed the complete solo Sonatas and Partitas of Bach, and has since been back every year.

In 2009 and 2010 he recorded the first two Paganini concertos and Bach's complete music for solo violin for the Berlin Classics label. His recording of the ten Beethoven violin-piano sonatas with Klára Würtz was released by Brilliant Classics in 2012, the recording of all six solo sonatas of Ysaye in 2013, that of the three Brahms sonatas (also with Klára Würtz) in 2014. His CD with the Korngold Violin Concerto and Violin Sonata was released in 2015, the integral of Mozart works for violin and orchestra (Brilliant Classics) in 2016. His CD "The Soul of Lady Harmsworth" released by the Hungaroton label features famous encores. His latest CD recorded with pianist Klára Würtz features French violin-piano sonatas.

Kristóf Baráti has received several awards, including the Kossuth Prize, the most prestigious award of his native Hungary in the domain of culture. He is, together with the cellist István Várdai, artistic director of the Kaposfest International Chamber Music Festival in Hungary.
Kristóf Baráti plays the 1703 "Lady Harmsworth" made by Antonio Stradivarius, kindly offered by the Stradivarius Society of Chicago.