Anantara New York Palace Budapest

We stayed three nights at this lovely hotel before our river cruise, and staying here may have been the highlight of the entire trip. Without doubt, this is a stunningly beautiful building, especially the breakfast and cafe area. The exterior is also magnificent. Our room was spacious and the bed extremely comfortable. Rooms in the historic old building appear similar to those in the new, but have higher ceilings. Breakfasts were superb (make sure you book breakfast included), with a wide-ranging buffet plus cooked to order. I highly recommend their version of eggs benny. But the best part of all may be how the staff made us feel. I can't say enough about the large serving staff of mostly young people. Genuinely friendly, ever-present without being obtrusive, they certainly made my wife and I feel like very special guests. If I were to be a character written into a novel, who ends living for an extended time in a grand hotel (A Gentleman in Budapest?), this is where I would want to be. It was a joy to stay here.

I’ve already left a review for the Anantara New York Palace Hotel that now presently occupies this building (please see separately), so now I’ll focus on the building/property itself. I’ve left an average rating (matching my rating for the hotel on the other listing), not because the building itself is average…in fact, far from it. But I didn’t want people to confuss by review of the building (which is clearly 5 star) with my review of the hotel (clearly is 3 star)…or worse, have the hotel think that a positive review here offsets less favorable feedback elsewhere. Definitely, this building is worth a pop-in visit. It is over the top in its opulence and, to their credit, Anantara has done an amazing job with maintaining/restoring the hotel while modernizing it across all areas.

VERY very expensive. Food ok. Service wasn't good. Beautiful place, but probably one of the most expensive coffees in the world.