New York Café

It opened in 1894 on the ground floor of the New York Palace, built for the insurance company of the same name. For decades it was Budapest's great literary café: legend has it that the writer Ferenc Molnár threw the key into the Danube on opening night so it would never close.

After years of neglect it was restored and reopened in 2006, and it is now part of a luxury hotel. The interior is spectacular: twisted columns, marble, gilded frescoed ceilings and Venetian glass chandeliers.