Anantara New York Palace Budapest

There’s something to be said for the grand gesture: it’s not quickly forgotten. It’s been well over a century since Budapest’s New York Café first opened its doors — the day the noted Hungarian writer Ferenc Molnár reportedly grabbed the keys and threw them into the Danube so that the café could never close. Housed on the ground level of an ornate palace off the Grand Boulevard, the place remained a landmark on the literary scene for more than a hundred years. Today, still decorated with its original frescoes and Venetian chandeliers, the beautifully restored New York Café is the main attraction at the New York Palace, The Dedica Anthology, Autograph Collection, the hotel now occupying most of the building.

Like the café, the hotel is pure classic elegance. Guest rooms and suites are tastefully spacious and elegant. The floor-to-ceiling drapery is silk, the chandeliers are made with Murano glass, the bathrooms are marble and mahogany. It’s exactly, in other words, the kind of place you’d like to be in a city filled with charmingly unpronounceable side streets and and imposing palaces and castles — you can save the minimalist sixteen-room boutique hotels for another time and place, this is a city where old-fashioned glamour is appropriate. True, it’s technically a Marriott, part of the Autograph Collection, but that doesn’t diminish the New York Palace’s character. It just means highly professional service, and business-friendly amenities like conference space and a reliable wi-fi signal.

There’s a breakfast room, a classy cocktail bar, and a spa decked out with natural stone and Swarovski crystals, but you’re mostly here, like everyone else, for the café. With soaring ceilings, sixteen windows, twisting columns covered in golden stucco, whimsical sculptures of devilish fauns, and “El Ashmodai,” an ancient symbol of coffee and meditation, the historic landmark doesn’t disappoint. Have a potent espresso, like the poets of yesteryear; don’t forget to look down at your key card and ponder an era when people threw keys into the river to prove their devotion.