by Adrian Phillips, The Daily Telegraph, January 16, 2017
An insider's guide to the most romantic hotels in Budapest, including the best for rooftop bars and pools, rooms with views, sumptuous spas and characterful restaurants, in central locations near to Buda Castle Palace, the opera house and Széchenyi Chain Bridge.
Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace Budapest, Hungary
8 Telegraph expert rating
The Four Seasons sets the benchmark for luxury hotels in Budapest. It oozes quality from every pore – whether you’re approaching its grand exterior from the city’s landmark bridge, entering the lobby with its stained glass and marble, or padding the thick carpets of the corridors. Danube category rooms have balconies and face the Buda Castle Palace on the opposite side of the river. Bathrooms are laid with black and chocolate marble, and have bath and shower. There’s a pool, wellness centre (offering massages and treatments), steam room, fitness room and relaxation room. A small shop offers Herend porcelain and the like, and there’s a limo service. Read expert review From £357per night Check availability Rates provided byBooking.com
Aria Hotel Budapest Budapest, Hungary
8 Telegraph expert rating
A music-themed hotel in the shadow of St Stephen’s Basilica, whose rooftop bar could become the coolest place in Budapest for a cocktail. Other highlights include the soaring garden courtyard, complete with kitsch sofas and a space-age piano, and a seductive underground spa and swimming pool. The Stradivari restaurant has a soothing wall of water, violins hanging from the ceiling and a menu of excellent, well-presented international and Hungarian dishes. It is within walking distance of the city’s opera house, parliament building and Széchenyi Chain Bridge. Read expert review From £225per night Check availability Rates provided byBooking.com
Corinthia Hotel Budapest Budapest, Hungary
8 Telegraph expert rating
The Corinthia carries itself with an effortless grace that no other five-star in Budapest quite matches. It is a genuine beauty, its neo-classical façade opening onto a lobby of creamy marble and a centrepiece staircase that sweeps up to a vast ballroom. The building is divided between two glass-covered atriums that suck in light. The service is impeccable. Facilities include the Spa Royale, which offers a range of massages and treatments, and has not only two Finnish saunas, three whirlpool tubs, a steam room and complimentary juice bar, but a truly stunning pool surrounded by Corinthian columns and topped with a stained-glass ceiling. Read expert review From £130per night Check availability Rates provided byBooking.com
Continental Hotel Budapest Budapest, Hungary
8 Telegraph expert rating
Today, the Continental’s lobby has leather armchairs and an arching glass roof, but an open-air pool once filled this space – this building was previously home to public baths. Since 2010, however, it has operated as arguably the city’s classiest four-star hotel, with top-quality service and facilities. The pick of the bunch is a rooftop swimming pool complete with poolside sun loungers and splendid views to Buda Castle Palace and other city landmarks. There’s also a small indoor infinity pool on the seventh floor, together with a whirlpool, saunas Read expert review From £81per night Check availability Rates provided byBooking.com
Prestige Hotel Budapest Budapest, Hungary
8 Telegraph expert rating
From its classical façade to the sleek glass lifts, this is a hotel with confidence and class. The hotel has a small fitness room plus whirlpool and sauna on the first floor, while just off the lobby is an elegant salon with wood floors and a mock fireplace that makes a relaxing spot to read the newspaper. Hotel catering is provided through a joint venture with Costes, Hungary’s first Michelin-starred restaurant, who have rented the dining room and established Costes Downtown. As you’d expect, this is a fine-dining restaurant that comes with a healthy reputation. Read expert review From £92per night Check availability Rates provided byBooking.com
Baltazár Budapest Budapest, Hungary
7 Telegraph expert rating
This small hotel is owned by the Zsidai family, who have been leading restaurateurs in the city for more than 30 years. As you’d expect, its restaurant is top drawer, and the hotel has a colour, character and attention to design detail that makes it very special. The 11 rooms (including three suites) are each unique in design but share a creative, classy flavour. One has a feature wall showing Vermeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’, another an unusual open bathroom with a shower cubicle overlooking the bedroom; some have parquet flooring while others are carpeted. Grilled dishes at the restaurant are the speciality, as well as variations of Hungarian classics. Read expert review From £94per night Check availability Rates provided byBooking.com
Hotel Moments Budapest Budapest, Hungary
8 Telegraph expert rating
Marrying contemporary design with the original spirit of its 19th-century building, Moments is a place with character and elegance. The building dates to 1880, and real pride has been taken in its renovation – look up, for instance, to the frescoes in the glass-topped atrium lobby, which are faithful to the style of the period, and took several months to paint. Bistro Fine, the hotel’s low-lit restaurant, is a real corker. Hungarian and international dishes are creative, beautifully presented and very reasonably priced. The hotel sits at the lower end of the boutique-lined Andrássy út. Read expert review From £82per night Check availability Rates provided byBooking.com
Kempinski Hotel Corvinus Budapest Budapest, Hungary
9 Telegraph expert rating
Unlike some of Budapest’s other luxury hotels housed in 19th-century mansion buildings, the Kempinski is a modern construction of glass and straight-lined stone. The ground floor has been modelled on a promenade and genuinely brings a flavour of the outside in, sweeping in an arc past little ‘streetside’ establishments like a takeaway deli, a café and a sweetshop. The spa has steam baths, a Finnish sauna, a solarium and an intriguingly named aroma sauna ice well, as well as a solarium and pool with jet stream. There are several restaurants, including Nobu, part of the chain of high-end Japanese fusion restaurants under the direction of Nobuyuki Matsuhisa. Read expert review From £130per night Check availability Rates provided byBooking.com
Gerlóczy Budapest, Hungary
8 Telegraph expert rating
Gerlóczy lacks bells and whistles – indeed, it’s officially categorised a private lodging rather than a hotel – but it oozes a character you’ll find nowhere else in the city. The building itself was constructed in the 1890s, and is believed originally to have housed skilled artisans – stone-carvers and the like – working on the adjacent City Hall. The bustling café-brasserie opened a decade ago with a deliberately last-century Parisian slant to its look and feel. There are 19 rooms, each with polished parquet flooring and the grace of an early-20th-century Parisian apartment. Five rooms have freestanding bathtubs and the rest showers. Read expert review From £68per night Check availability Rates provided byBooking.com
Hotel Parlament Budapest, Hungary
7 Telegraph expert rating
Parlament is small but very pleasingly formed – indeed, it’s one of the best boutique hotels in the city, with more facilities and more imaginative design features than others in this category. The bar has an eclectic collection of brightly upholstered armchairs and cow-hide stools, while the breakfast room has the feel of a rustic food market. It also has a lovely little wellness area, including a whirlpool tub set in a relaxing, green-tiled room, and a sauna. The 65 bedrooms, which have a distinct Art Deco feel, are impressive. Read expert review From £77per night Check availability Rates provided byBooking.com
This article was written by Adrian Phillips from The Daily Telegraph and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.