Quirky Budapest

new budapest cafés and restaurants
chintz to bauhaus

Café Marvelosa, the mother-daughter project of architect Agnes Balogh and painter Agnes Toth, opened just across the Danube from District V earlier this year. This is as cosy a coffee shop as one could hope to find anywhere; pretty china cups hold sticky elderflower cordial, black coffee with peanut syrup, and hot chocolate so thick you can almost stand a spoon up in it. There are armchairs upholstered in screen-prints and satin, and each table bears the name of a famous artist so that customers can remember their favourite if they want to call ahead to reserve.

For a more formal experience, try Budapest’s new Italian bistro, Donatella’s Kitchen. The gold beams that criss-cross the ceiling bring to mind Italian ‘style bars’ but other fittings – such as the wooden chandeliers made to resemble nests of deer antlers – feel more Scandinavian.

Locals say the food is “better than in Rome”. We’re not sure Romans would agree, but the menu, which ranges from traditional pasta dishes to quail with pumpkin, promises a memorable meal. Continue the fusion theme and wash it down with some Hungarian wine (summer is kind to the vineyards here), before rounding it all off with an espresso.

If you’re only going to be in Budapest for a few days, you may prefer something more Hungarian. The famous 1938 landmark Dunapark Kavehaz was reopened in 2006 as a 21st century luxury hang-out serving ‘new Hungary’ cuisine – a culinary movement which focuses on game and in-season local produce.

The restaurant also has a games room upstairs where patrons can play cards and smoke cigars with old-fashioned gusto. Starters include veal cheek salad and foie gras brûlée, which not everyone will feel at home with, but you could also order a goat’s cheese salad with mange tout or simple gnocchi as a main. The silken tofu on the menu is a real sign of the times.

The Dunapark’s clean, Modernist lines point to the Hungarian capital’s importance as a key centre of avant-garde Bauhaus architecture in the 1930s and a stroll around the surrounding District XIII will reveal many other fine examples. Then, as now, Budapest was not a place to shy away from the shock of the new.

For further information see the Hungarian Tourist Board website, www.hungarytourism.hu
www.helencathcartphotography.co.uk

Fly me there…
Sterling flies to Budapest from Aalborg, Copenhagen, and Stockholm Arlanda. See pages 102-104 or www.sterling.com for more details