Anantara New York Palace Budapest Hotel

Character and identity

Set inside a restored 19th-century palazzo on the Pest side, this 185-room property channels Italian Renaissance opulence into a Budapest landmark: glass-ceilinged lobby, bronze sculptures, wrought-iron entry, and interiors layered with Murano chandeliers, Italian marble and carved mahogany. The centrepiece is the New York Café, a frescoed, chandelier-hung room that once gathered the city's artistic set and now plates Hungarian cooking with real finesse, from goose liver terrine to butternut squash risotto. A Simone Micheli-designed pool anchors a spa with Turkish-inflected treatments. Service is polished and formal, matching the gilded register of the building.

Who's it for

Bottom line

The draw here is the building itself and the New York Café within it, a piece of Budapest history you essentially live inside. Spend up: the 29 suites are where the design really sings, with the junior suites leaning neoclassic and the Presidential dripping in silk wallpaper and Italian marble. Standard rooms are comfortable but won't deliver the same theatre.