Budapest: A Welcome Transformation

The facade of the landmark Four Seasons hotel.

PHOTO: Courtesy of the Four Seasons

This is a love letter to a city that is dancing. With its swinging Art Nouveau architecture, lofty palaces and quick-paced river Danube, Budapest seems to pulsate to the one-two-three of a Liszt waltz. At its core this place was always romantic and glamorous, exuding the sweet smell of success associated with favorite son Bernard Schwartz (whose parents came from Hungary and who became Tony Curtis) and the extravagant style of its favorite daughter, Zsa Zsa Gabor. But now that Budapest has been cleaned up and invested in, it has finally risen from a charmingly arcane destination in eastern Europe to a must-go-to city.

In part the transformation can be attributed to the Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace Budapest (5–6 Roosevelt Tér; 011-36-1-268-6000; 800-545-4000; fourseasons.com). The developer spent $110 million renovating an early-20th-century Secessionist showstopper and turning it into a modern property. Gresham Palace is an architectural gem with mosaics and stained glass by Miksa Róth, wrought-iron peacock gates by Gyula Jungfer and ceramic tiles by the Zsolnay Factory (as distinguished as Herend is).

During the renovation, completed in 2004, some 120 workers, including silversmiths, stained-glass maestros, mosaicists and specialists in wrought iron, re-created the past in the present. For this is a sleek hotel with a restored glass cupola crowning the lobby, a top-floor pool and spa, delicious food by chef Abdessattar Zitouni, clutter-free bedrooms and, always, Four Seasons service. The property also has the town's best location, on Roosevelt Square, opposite the Chain Bridge, the first permanent crossing to link the towns of Buda and Pest. (Count István Széchenyi, a 19th-century Hungarian political reformer, initiated the bridge after bad weather forced him to postpone his father's funeral.)

When I first visited Budapest, under Communism, in 1987, all I could find to eat were venomous pickles. Now visit the Grand Market Hall (District IX, Fovám Tér), at the end of Váci Utca (Budapest's Fifth Avenue), and you'll see the food of the gods, including masses of foie gras. Walk to St. Stephen's Basilica, near the Gresham Palace, and on the way there's the Tom-George restaurant (8 Október 6 U.; 011-36-1-266-3525), a slick international-food scene.

Gundel (XIV, 2 Állatkerti Út; 011-36-1-468-4040) pioneered the high romance of Hungarian food. Today the best bets are the restaurant's outdoor tables in the summer and the 1894 Food & Wine Cellar (011-36-1-468-4044), where you can taste promising wines and lángos, baked dough topped with bacon and smoked sausage. Fausto's (VII, 5 Dohány U.; 011-36-1-269-6806) offers elegant Italian, Baraka (V, 12–14 Magyar U.; 011-36-1-483-1355) is French-Asian, and for market-menu French, visit Chez Daniel (VI, 32 Sziv U.; 011-36-1-302-4039) and eat the duck parmentier or monkfish cheek.

So much to do, so little time: walk across Heroes' Square, go to the Museum of Applied Arts (IX, 33–37 Ülloi Út; 011-36-1-217-5222), enjoy the views from the neo-Romanesque Fishermen's Bastion, and visit the extraordinary Gellért Spa baths, at the Gellért Hotel (XI, 4–6 Kelenhegyi Út; 011-36-1-466-6166). New York designer Adam Tihany is helping to restore the New York Café (VII, Erzébet Körút; opening in September), with its bronze and marble frescoes, in the Boscolo New York Palace Hotel. In this fabled coffeehouse, Hollywood moguls met the Hungarian intelligentsia until a Soviet tank rammed the building during the 1956 uprising. When Tihany is done with it, a chic crowd is sure to clink glasses here again. To your very good health, Budapest!