Café New York Budapest

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New York Café is the most beautiful coffee house in Budapest,  located in the world famous New York Palace Hotel.  It is one of the most characteristic and most impressive buildings of the Nagykörút or Grand Boulevard in English. In addition, the building is of cultural historical significance in Hungary.  The café became famous in the 1900s for its regular tables of writers, poets and artists as well as magazine editors.

The palace was ordered by the New York Life Insurance Company of the United States to be built by Alajos Hauszmann, who finished the eclectic, four-storey palace with the café on the ground floor for the grand opening on 23 October 1894.

After the change of the political system in 1990, the government could not market the state-owned building for a decade.

Eventually, in February 2001, the Italian Boscolo Group purchased the building and, after a complete renovation, the luxury hotel with 107 rooms and the New York Café on the ground floor, restored to its former magnificence, was reopened on 5 May 2006.

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Café Gerbeaud

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The tradition-rich history of Gerbeaud began in 1858 with Henrik Kugler, the third descendent of a confectionery dynasty. During his years of travel and as an apprentice, Kugler perfected his specialized knowledge of his art in eleven European metropolises, including Paris. The influence of this experience is recognizable to this day.

Kugler opened his first café on what is now József nádor Square. Because of the tastefully furnished salon, the assortment of Chinese and Russian tea specialities, and „the best ice-creams in Pest,” it soon became a wellknown meeting place.In 1870, Henrik Kugler moved his business to Vörösmarty Square, where he could offer his delicacies from the centre of the city. Kugler’s frothy coffee with chocolate, his special liqueurs and his bon-bons drew in crowds. The Kugler tortes and mignons were not only well-loved, but could be wrapped on a paper tray to take-away, an innovation of Kugler’s. Famous  personalities such as Franz Deák and Franz Liszt were among the patrons of the café. In 1881, Kugler’s was called „the meeting point of six elegant worlds.” 

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Henrik Kugler met Emil Gerbeaud for the first time in 1882, in Paris. He invited him a year later to Budapest in order to make him his business partner.  Emil Gerbeaud took on a great number of new employees in both sales and service.

He introduced numerous innovations: he included among the café’s offerings exceptional, new products, he created hundreds of biscuits, sweets, bon-bons and cherry liqueur bon-bons. He equipped his bakery with modern machines.

By the end of the century, he had approximately 150 employees, many of whom had come to Budapest specifically to work for him. The name Gerbeaud soon become well known and respected.  With good business sense, Emil Gerbeaud continued for decades to use the name of his predecessor, Henrik Kugler.

Gerbeaud stands today on Vörösmarty Square, with a complete offer of modern hospitality. The extraordinary history of the House continues to characterize the special atmosphere of Gerbeaud.