ave you stayed at New York Palace Budapest? Gazing at the grand facade of the New York Palace Budapest, with its Italianate spires and carved figures, you might be forgiven for thinking the 107-room hotel was once actually a palace. In fact, it once housed insurance offices, which is not to say it was never glamorous. When it opened in 1894, it was home to a coffeehouse reputed to be “the most beautiful cafe in the world” and a renowned literary center. Fast-forward a century or so, and the building was a sorry sight, done in by war and Communism. But after a five-year $105 million restoration effort – overseen by Maurizio Papiri, Adam Tihany and the lighting designer Ingo Maurer – Boscolo, a small Italian hotel chain, reopened the “palace” as Budapest’s latest luxury lodgings: a clear attempt at unseating the five-star monarch, the Four Seasons Gresham Palace.Built by the New York Life Insurance Company as a local head office, its Café in the ground floor named New York Café was a longtime center for Hungarian literature and poetry, almost from its opening on October 23, 1894 to its closure in 2001, to reconstruct it into a luxury hotel, as it is now.
The café was also reopened on May 5, 2006 in its original pomp, as was the whole building. The New York Life Insurance Company assigned architect Alajos Hauszmann, to plan the company’s hall building in Budapest. Hauszmann, with Flóris Korb and Kálmán Giergl planned a four story eclectic palace, with a café on its ground floor. The building and the café opened on October 23, 1894. The statues and other ornaments on the front side of the building, as well as the ground floor café’s 16 imposing devilish fauns, each one beside the café’s sixteen windows, are the works of Károly Senyey. The building was nationalized during the communist era. After the collapse of socialism, the palace was bought by Italian Boscolo Hotels in February 2001. The building was totally renovated, and reopened on May 5, 2006 as a 107 room luxury hotel, with the Café, also totally renovated, on its ground floor.
Tourists and locals wander the lobby, gaping at the arcaded atrium, the vibrant ceiling frescoes, the elaborate glass chandeliers and corkscrew marble columns, the gilt edges and the cherrywood paneling. Meanwhile, well-to-do Budapest families dine on Italian and Hungarian concoctions (insalata Caprese, veal goulash) from the sunny confines of the recreated New York Cafe. The hotel sits on the Pest side of the city, on a broad but ho-hum boulevard called Erzsebet Korut. The location is fairly central, but offers little in the way of views of the gorgeous city: you look at this hotel, not out from it. Very Italian: beautifully refined – but nothing seems to work. A wavy golden pattern covered the walls of my enormous classic room, and a whimsical chandelier, resembling a tangle of flowers and leaves, dangled over the plush bed. But the Wi-Fi was on the fritz, the climate controls failed to make the room less stuffy, and a big cathode-ray-tube TV occupied a third of the Deco-accented walnut desk.
At least the white-marble bathroom, with monstrous soaking tub, monsoon shower, Etro shampoos and lotions, was problem-free.The staff is enthusiastic, but not always capable. Their solution to the Wi-Fi problem: use an ethernet cable (why then have Wi-Fi?). And although I’d arranged for a 4 p.m. checkout, my keycard stopped working at noon. Chalk it up to freshman-year woes. Concerning the room service, again, there’s a disconnect between what’s presented and what’s available. The room-service menu listed three breakfasts, but when I phoned for the Little Italy, the person who took my call seemed mystified. I settled for the (unlisted) Continental, which took 20 minutes to arrive and was quite good: yogurt, very fresh pastries and fruit, and a well-frothed cappuccino. For other meals, the menu features items from the fancy Deepwater restaurant – Sicilian tuna tartare, tagliolini with sweetbreads, roasted goose liver with nut crust – but little from the far more popular New York Cafe, whose casual offerings seem more appropriate to in-room dining.
The décor in the basement spa and gym are the antithesis of the public spaces: futuristic, biomorphic, a bit freaky – imagine a cave sheathed in artificial mother-of-pearl and illuminated with blue LEDs. Treatments include the standards, along with specials like “The Gift of Life,” whose exfoliation and herbs-and-spices application allegedly creates “a perfect balance between human being and nature.” Rooms start at about 170 euros, or $230 at $1.38 to the euro, plus tax; the “Art and Culture” package (from 694 euros for two nights, double occupancy) includes dinner at Deepwater, a private tour of the city, and a card that gives you free access to museums and public transportation. (By Matt Gross)
New York Palace Budapest, 9-11 Erzsebet Korut, Budapest; (36-1) 8866-111;
