Budapest hotels

This Belle Epoque palace sits in a prime location near Elisabeth Bridge. Today, this UNESCO World Heritage site is one of the best hotels in Budapest, blending Art Nouveau features with modern amenities.

Many rooms overlook the river, including the one I stayed in, a rooftop-level former artist’s studio with slanting floor-to-ceiling windows. Other top rooms include the Crown Tower suite, spread over three floors in an actual 48-meter-high tower, and the Maria Klotild suite. Designed like the Princess’s original private apartment, this opulent room features crystal chandeliers, Hungarian art, parquet floors, Art Deco furniture and turquoise mosaics in the bathroom.

Eat at Spago, Wolfgang Puck’s European outpost of his Michelin-starred Californian restaurant. My favourite dish is the smoked salmon pizza with creme fraiche, while goulash with beef cheeks offers a great introduction to Hungarian specialities.

One of Budapest’s best art hotels, the Kempinski Hotel Corvinus features 353 rooms and 38 suites, each decorated with paintings from the hotel’s 1,500-piece in-house art collection. As a keen art lover, I was thrilled to discover local talent in the regular temporary exhibitions at the Kempinski Art Gallery.

As one of the best hotels in Budapest, you won’t go hungry here with two restaurants – including a Nobu – two bars, a cafe and a deli. To work off the calories, there’s an excellent gym, sauna, steam room and swimming pool overlooking the park.

This is one of the best hotels in Budapest for its location, right beside Erzsébet Park in the heart of tourist areas such as the famous Vörösmarty Square, where you’ll find one of the city’s oldest cafes, Gerbeaud Coffee House. Try the Dobos torta, a traditional seven-layer chocolate cream cake topped with caramel.

This 5-star boutique hotel was once a 19th-century tenement house for artists, philosophers and politicians, and I love the artistic vibe it still has. Nearby, the imposing St Stephen’s Basilica – named after Stephen, the first King of Hungary – is said to house a valuable, if somewhat ghoulish, relic: the right hand of the King.

The 50 tasteful rooms and suites come in three categories, with the more expensive rooms on higher floors overlooking a pretty park. Premium amenities in guestrooms include Nespresso coffee machines, pillow menus, and Marshall speakers.

Flava Kitchen serves an extensive breakfast and an eclectic evening menu of North African, Latin American and Middle Eastern dishes with live entertainment. As one of the best hotels in Budapest, you’ll also find a glittering, blue-tiled wellness space in the basement that features a Finnish sauna, steam room, whirlpool, and small gym.

Once called the Grand Hotel Royal, the inspiration for the famous Oscar-winning film is one of the larger luxury hotels in Budapest, with 414 guestrooms. There are four restaurants to cater to the hotel’s many well-heeled guests. The atrium brasserie serves Hungarian and international dishes, Le Bar offers small bites and Caviar and Bull serves beef and caviar, while a secret door in the latter takes you to dine in Uncensored.

Good food aside, the 1,000-metre Art Deco-style Royal Spa, with its glorious stained-glass ceiling and Corinthian columns, is the main reason I return here time and again. Body Ritual, my favourite spa treatment, is a divine mud body wrap and massage in one.

Undoubtedly one of the best hotels in Budapest for wellness lovers, it was a worthy winner of Hungary’s Best Hotel Spa in the 2023 World Spa Awards.

Three historical buildings were combined to create one of Budapest’s swankiest hotels, just a block from the river and the bridge to the castle. Here, a bank built in 1873, the head office of a shipping company from 1913 and a 1930s Modernist building have been cleverly redesigned by Italian architect Piero Lissoni.

The hotel’s vast, verdant glass-covered atrium houses Pavilion, an all-day restaurant and evening bar. Even in colder months, the atrium has a wonderfully tropical feel. Elsewhere, Anton’s Bar & Deli is one of my favourite spots to relax with the city’s best DJs spinning the decks.

There are two styles of guestrooms: contemporary ones overlooking the internal courtyard (meaning they’re a little dark) or my preference, heritage rooms because they have four poster beds and views over the street. As you’d expect from one of the best hotels in Budapest, there’s also a pool and a gym.

Located on the Buda side near Buda Castle and the Hungarian National Gallery, this is a great little independent hotel for adults. Hotel Clark is named after Scottish engineer Adam Clark, who designed the adjacent Széchenyi Chain Bridge in 1849, considered a feat of modern engineering.

The minimalist design of the 86 rooms features nice vintage touches from the 60s and 70s, with courtyard, river, or castle views.

Meanwhile, the top suites on the seventh floor have terraces and free-standing bathtubs. The food offering includes the slick Leo rooftop bar and Leo Bistro, with a modern European menu featuring local delicacies – my top pick is the lamb-stuffed Kapia (peppers).

A 24/7 sauna and gym will be welcomed by anyone who thinks a full day of sightseeing isn’t enough exercise. For art buffs, there are regularly changing exhibitions in the hotel’s Art Corner.

Housed in the former headquarters of 19th-century Hungarian Freemasons, the Mystery Hotel is one of the best hotels in Budapest. It’s conveniently located for all the key District V sights, including Andrássy Avenue, the elegant, tree-lined street often described as Budapest’s Champs-Élysées.

The Great Hall, with its vaulted ceiling, houses the lobby and restaurant, which serves breakfast and international and Hungarian dishes.

The excellent facilities include a spa and one of my favourite rooftop bars, the Sky Garden, where I’ve sipped on Kiwatas (a frozen kiwi and tequila cocktail) while soaking up views of St Stephen’s Basilica, the Hungarian Parliament and Buda Castle.

One of the most unique hotels in Budapest, rooms here have ornate chandeliers, velvet curtains and textured wallpaper. Art is everywhere, with changing artworks in lightboxes. In guestrooms and public spaces, what look like giant reproductions by Vermeer and da Vinci have cheekily added contemporary details.

Built in 1906 as the Hungarian headquarters of the British Gresham Insurance Company, this Belle Epoque gem was restored in 2004 as a swish hotel. The location in Budapest’s historic centre is superb, facing the Chain Bridge, near the Parliament Building and the posh shopping street of Andrássy Avenue.

One of the best hotels in Budapest, visitors will marvel at the elaborate iron peacock entrance gates, opulent tiled lobby, Art Nouveau stained-glass windows and stunning lounge and bar. Ask for a room or suite at the front for incredible views of the Danube and Buda Castle.

The signature cocktails are works of art in Muzsa, the award-winning bar serving fine Japanese dishes. Don’t miss the crispy tempura with zucchini, prawn and squid. Most evenings you’ll find live entertainment – when I visited, there was an excellent Latin band and a captivating ballet performance.

Set on a leafy square just outside Budapest’s Palace District, this was once the largest telecommunications centre in Eastern and Central Europe. Today, Kozmo Hotel Suites & Spa is one of the best hotels in Budapest, a 5-star property with 84 guestrooms including 23 suites and a member of the Leading Hotels of the World.

Each suite has its own unique design, while the best have terraces – my favourite, Suite 603, is located in a tower at the top of the hotel. Meanwhile, the Presidential suite has a vast outdoor space and its own sauna.

The ground floor spa boasts a sauna, 24-hour gym, hot tub, 16-metre-long heated pool and products by Swiss beauty company Valmont. Art and history buffs should keep an eye out for the evocative photographs of Budapest by Spanish photographer Carlos Cánovas, which are on display throughout the guestrooms and public areas.

This adults-only hotel is across from Károlyi-kert, the French-style garden that’s the city’s oldest park. You can see plenty of French influences inside the boutique property too. One of the best hotels in Budapest, its 16 elegant rooms take you back to the Belle Époque, while gorgeous Art Deco details include black lacquer, dark parquet flooring and black-and-white bathrooms.

There are some nice modern touches too, including a pillow menu, Marshall bluetooth speakers and free Netflix. The Parisian style café in the courtyard is a sweet place for coffee and pastries, while just down the road is Centrál Café, another of the city’s top coffee houses.

Also close by is the Hungarian National Museum, where you can see the first King of Hungary’s coronation mantle and the ornate Dohány Street Synagogue, the largest synagogue in Europe and the second largest in the world (after Great Beth Midrash Gur in Jerusalem).