Tag Archives: cafe

Budapest – the wonderful New York Kávéház & Etterem

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It seems fitting to finish this (long) series of posts on our trip to central Europe with a theme that emerged and to our surprise persisted through the entire trip: the search for the most beautiful coffee house.

You may remember that this search began with an exploration of the Art Nouveau cafes in Prague. And then continued with the discovery of the delightful Cafe Central in Vienna. And so now, behold, I am pleased to share with you the magnificent New York Cafe in Budapest.

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The name comes from the name of the building: It was originally the New York Life Insurance Company’s Budapest office.

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Now it is owned by the luxurious Boscolo Budapest Hotel, which has restored the building to its original splendor.

Here are some more pictures of the interior.

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Vienna – Cafe Central

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Having ended the section on Prague with a lovely, historic cafe, I think it’s only appropriate to begin the section on Vienna with one. Continuity, and all that. So…

Welcome to the Cafe Central!

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This appears to be a place favored by its regular habitues. This gentleman, for example, probably hasn’t left his seat for months.

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In fact, Dan and I were seated at a table normally occupied by a regular. We had to assure the maitre d’ that we would be leaving well before 1pm (easy, since it was only 10am at the time).

The coffee was excellent–a quality we’d come to expect in this region–and the pastries were exquisite.

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And–what we loved as much as anything–the physical space was magnificent.

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It turned out that they also serve lunch in an intimate and charming courtyard that was part of the same building–at the very end of an arcade we’d walked the day before.

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More about this arcade in the next post…

 

Prague — Art Nouveau Cafes

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We were looking for the most beautiful cafe in Prague. This is hard work, since so many of Prague’s cafes might, in one respect or another, lay claim to this title. Besides, there’s no way we could check them all out in only three days in the city, not to mention the harmful effects of the caffeine overdose.

Fortunately, we had a tip from one of our guidebooks–Obecni Dum is an Art Nouveau gem. Located on the ground floor of the Prague Municipal House on Republic Square, the cafe looks out over the vibrant street scene. And it is elegant in its grace and proportions, and in its understated Art Nouveau ornamentation.

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We also came upon the nearby Cafe Imperial, a much more wildly decorated Art Nouveau gem. Alas, we were by then all “coffee”d out. The scowling waiters did not seem to take kindly to tourists coming in to photograph their establishment without partaking of its fare–but I was able to get in a few apologetic shots.

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