“Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury,” Coco Chanel once said. The great French designer was also quoted as saying about luxury that it not the opposite of poverty, but the “opposite of vulgarity.” Unfortunately, both quotes seem to sum up the Dunapark Étterem és Kávéház, the historic café/restaurant which re-opened last fall, and has since become the place to see and be seen in Pest’s up-and-coming neighborhood of Újlipótváros.
Before we get to the bad news, here’s the good news. The place is a pretty spectacular, if not flawless, recreation of an Art Deco café circa 1938, which is when the Dunapark first opened. (After surviving World War II, the space was turned into a furniture store, and then a somewhat proletarian pastry and ice cream shop.) The soaring interior offers lots of interesting seating possibilities, as well as giant picture windows facing Szent István park that can apparently retract into the basement when the weather starts getting really nice. There is also an alcove upstairs where guests can play poker.
Perhaps because of all this, the Dunapark was recently voted “Café of the Year” by the jury of the so-called “Competition of Cafés” (Kávéházak Versenye). According to a run-down of the contest on kavehazak.hu, for the first time in 2007 the organizers decided to pick one winner, rather than publish a list of the city’s top 100 cafés as they had done previously. But we suspect that another reason Dunapark got voted the “best café” is simply that it is one of – and maybe the – most luxurious or expensive such places in town, and tends to draw an exclusively well-heeled (i.e. filthy rich) clientele.
Like Coco, we have nothing against luxury, or people with money. But as Ms. Chanel quite rightly pointed out, luxury that is not comfortable isn’t very luxurious. And despite the Dunapark’s arresting interior, it simply isn’t very comfortable. Instead, everything seems kind of stiff and unfriendly. And the crowd that the place seems to be drawing – it included several “face-famous” Hungarian celebrities when we were there – is, to put it nicely, not the opposite of vulgar.
All this could be excused if the food was spectacular. But, alas, it isn’t. From our two trips we can’t say anything we had was horrid, but nothing was remarkably good. And the prices aren’t easy, either, with most appetizers over Ft 2,000 (€8) and most mains twice that. Meanwhile, we’ve had several reports from reliable sources that the Dunapark’s süti (cakes and pastries) are not up to snuff, and the ice cream even worse.
This first round of food pics is from last Wednesday’s “business menu”: A choice of gazpacho or chili calamari, followed by gnocchi with pumpkin cream and arugula or duck with dates and some kind of potato and eggplant fritter, and then panna cotta. Not bad, and, at Ft 3,400 for three courses, not unreasonably priced.
These second shots are of dishes from the regular menu we had on our first trip, sometime early last fall. We can’t remember what exactly any of them were, but as you can see, they all follow the prevailing culinary trend in Budapest that might be called “luxury international.”
Again, we have nothing against luxury or international cuisine, but for some reason we spent both of our visits wishing we had just gone to a normal upscale kávéház – like the Central – where everything would have been just a little more friendly and familiar, or to an even more luxurious one – like the Gresham – where the décor, food and service would have been so flawless that even Coco couldn’t have helped but feel comfortable.
A friend of mine took me there it was such an experience I am counting the days to return to Budapest for another dinner. Is non MISS in Budapest. Don’t forget the cakes.
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