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Budapest – Andrassy Avenue, Onyx

This is part five of my trip to Paris and Budapest. For the remainder of the series, please see below.

Paris – Hotel Esprit Saint Germain
Paris – The Marais, Le Bon Marche, Le Comptoir du Relais
Paris – St. Germain, Hermes, L’Avant Comptoir
Budapest – Four Seasons Gresham Palace
Budapest – Andrassy Avenue, Onyx
Budapest – Taste Hungary
Budapest- Christmas Markets, Bock Bistro

For my next few posts on Budapest, I’ll be taking you through our days there, exploring and eating our way through the city. Today, I’ll be sharing from day to evening our local exploration of the area right around our hotel, as well as one of the most famous boulevards in Budapest.

Each morning and afternoon, we’d walk right outside our hotel and be greeted by lovely weather (yes we were lucky with the weather while there), the lawn right outside the Gresham, and Chain Bridge.

Budapest - Walking Out

Like Paris, Budapest is a walking city – if we had the time, we would have walked almost everywhere. Unfortunately, our schedule was fairly packed during our short visit there, so we often took the metro. The stations in Budapest were very clean and charming (though I will say that I found the system for buying and using tickets confusing and quite manual).

Budapest - Metro Inside

Budapest - Metro

Just a short metro ride away was Andrassy Avenue – one of the most famous boulevards in Budapest. This street is a UNESCO World Heritage site and had some beautiful buildings along it, including the famous Hungarian Opera House.

Budapest - Opera

There was also the newly opened Il Bacio Di Stile – the first luxury department store in Budapest. We took a brief tour around and it was lovely inside, albeit with very few people actually purchasing. Prices were higher than in Italy and Paris…the shop reminded me a bit of TSUM in Moscow.

Budapest - Il Bacio Di Stile

One shop that we did spend quite a bit of time in was Alexandra Bookshop. I love, love bookshops and so always try to visit them wherever I go (even if I can’t understand a word of the written language). Alexandra was one of the grandest and most beautiful bookstores I had ever seen!

Budapest - Bookshop

The second floor had a huge, grand cafe with beautiful ceilings and decor. I thought that the locals were very fortunate to have this type of cafe as just a regular place to have drinks – I saw many on laptops, just surfing the web just like at my local Starbucks!

Budapest - Bookshop Cafe

Budapest - Bookshop Inside

After spending some time at Alexandra, we ended up back on Andrassy and checked out a few more local shops. One was a brand that some of you may have heard of – Omorovicza.

Budapest - Omorovicza Outside

Omorovicza is a top luxury skincare brand in Hungary and I had seen it many times at my local Neiman’s. The flagship store was beautiful inside – I would recommend any spa lover visiting Hungary to either get a facial here or at the Gresham, where they use Omorovicza products.

Budapest - Omorovicza Inside

My favorite that I tested was the BB cream – I was told it was a bestseller.

Budapest - Omorovicza BB

After an afternoon spent wandering around Andrassy Avenue, we returned to the hotel for a brief siesta. After a little nap, we woke up refreshed and also – hungry! Which was good, as we were going to dinner nearby at one of the more well known dining destinations in Budapest- Onyx.

Budapest - Onyx

Onyx is one of two single star Michelin restaurants in Budapest (there are no two or three, yet), and probably the more formal one. The restaurant was a very short walk from our hotel and soon we were inside the beautiful dining room.

Budapest - Onyx Inside

I am the world’s worst food writer so unfortunately my description of many of the upcoming photos are lacking. But I can assure you that they were all very good to absolutely fantastic. Our first morsel was an amuse bouche.

Budapest - Onyx Amuse

Followed by the bread course. Here were the spreads were were presented for the bread – a butter, a pork rillette, and a cheese/paprika spread. My favorite was the latter.

Budapest - Onyx Spreads

The bread cart was probably one of them most spectacular I have ever seen – it reminded me of the amazing carts at Joel Robuchon.

Budapest - Onyx Bread

Mr. Feather and I at this point knew we were done for and decided to go all out and have a carb fest. This was our bread bowl, which was refilled twice during the evening….Mr. Feather was looking at the wine list.

Budapest - Onyx Breads 3

After the bread, our meal started. We each ordered the tasting menu – I opted for the vegetarian version so we could try more items. Some highlights from our meals.

Budapest - Onyx - 5

Goose liver prepared two ways – my favorite was the spread.

Budapest - Onyx Goose

Wild mushroom soup.

Budapest - Onyx Mushroomp

A beautiful goulash soup. I love soups so ate this and the mushroom!

Budapest - Onyx Goulash

Budapest - Onyx 4

Budapest - Onyx 6

Budapest - Onyx Veggies

Grilled beef shoulder with vegetables.

Budapest - Onyx First

A light little palate cleanser…

Budapest - Onyx Amuse2

..and then dessert.

Budapest - Onyx Dessert 2

This was Mr. Feather’s favorite – a Somlo sponge cake. The restaurant accidentally brought over two of these when I had ordered something else, so he got to devour both. It was an impressive feat of eating!

Budapest - Onyx Dessert

After our three (!) desserts, the sweets brigade wasn’t over. There was of course, a cart of petit fours rolled past. At this point we were feeling super full but knew we would regret not trying everything, so had one of each.

Budapest - Onyx Petit FOurs

And after some tea and espresso, we were finally done with our meal. It was about three hours but felt shorter. While we were eating, we actually eralized that it was Thanksgiving back in the U.S. – so this was our Thanksgiving feast!

Before we left, the lovely staff presented us with our “next day” presents – a box each of their sweets, and an individual poppy and walnut sweet spiral loaf for each of us (called beigli in Hungarian).

Onyx goodis

Onyx goodies 2

Overall, I would highly recommend Onyx as a restaurant stop in Budapest – especially if you are someone who loves food. This was a spectacular meal – the food was incredibly high quality, and there was a great selection of local wines. We were told that this was probably the most expensive restaurant in Budapest – and though it was expensive, it was also very reasonably priced especially compared to its Western counterparts. A tasting menu for each of us, along with a full wine pairing for each, ended up being somewhere around $400. Basically the cost of a meal for one at French Laundry, with maybe a single drink.

Thank you as always for reading about my trip to Budapest. On my next post,  I’ll be covering some more of the above – food!

14 Comments

  • Reply
    tabitha
    January 15, 2014 at 9:28 am

    I would have been the size of a house after this trip!

    • Reply
      Katherine
      January 15, 2014 at 1:25 pm

      That is exactly how I felt…!

  • Reply
    Irina
    January 15, 2014 at 9:39 am

    Good morning! You guys can surely eat! I got full just reading about how many deserts you ate!!!:)

  • Reply
    Zsófia
    January 15, 2014 at 1:42 pm

    How nice to read about my city on your blog 🙂

    • Reply
      Katherine
      January 15, 2014 at 8:57 pm

      You live in a beautiful city!

  • Reply
    cynthia
    January 15, 2014 at 6:18 pm

    wonderful post as per usual. loooooove the bookstore cafe! (and the food too, of course!) awesome blog. i stalk it religiously at work. haha!

    • Reply
      Katherine
      January 15, 2014 at 8:57 pm

      Thanks so much Cynthia! Best of luck at work 🙂

  • Reply
    Belen
    January 15, 2014 at 10:04 pm

    Oh my god, the food!!!! I’m drooling over my computer.

    I bought the ombre version of the Gap moto jacket around 2 months ago and finally decided to send it back. I loooved it on the rack but it looked so weird on me… I must have tried it on in the bathoom 100 times 🙁

    • Reply
      Katherine
      January 16, 2014 at 8:18 am

      I’m sorry to hear that! I tried on the gray version in stores when it was full price but didn’t get to do the full examination…:)

  • Reply
    christine brightside
    January 24, 2014 at 9:41 am

    wonderful pictures, Katherine – both sightseeing’s and food! 😉 The petit fours cart reminds on the chocolate cart they brought in after the desserts at our new year’s dinner at Enoteca PInchiorri (called the “best Italian restaurant”, currently holding 3 Michelin stars)… I just wanted to take the whole cart home and I was just sooo full already and not able to taste more than two of those little precious things.

  • Reply
    Budapest – Four Seasons Gresham Palace | Feather Factor
    February 2, 2014 at 4:50 pm

    […] Relais Paris – St. Germain, Hermes, L’Avant Comptoir Budapest – Four Seasons Gresham Palace Budapest – Andrassy Avenue, Onyx Budapest – Taste Hungary Budapest- Christmas Markets, Bock […]

  • Reply
    Budapest – Taste Hungary | Feather Factor
    February 2, 2014 at 4:53 pm

    […] Relais Paris – St. Germain, Hermes, L’Avant Comptoir Budapest – Four Seasons Gresham Palace Budapest – Andrassy Avenue, Onyx Budapest – Taste Hungary Budapest- Christmas Markets, Bock […]

  • Reply
    Mod
    April 3, 2014 at 1:36 pm

    Did you take home any Omorovicza products with you? I’ve been seeing that name pop up everywhere and was curious if you can recommend any.

    • Reply
      Katherine
      April 4, 2014 at 10:44 am

      No I didn’t, I took home some small samples of the BB cream which I really like and would probably buy once my current stash runs out. What aer you thinking about adding?

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