The freshly published “Budapest Day & Night Guide” provides in-the-know tips for dining, nightlife, and more, all provided by an esteemed team of Hungarian journalists and bloggers. Through the native perspective of these Budapest-based observers, the book provides an extraordinarily up-to-date look at genuinely hip locales ranging from high-quality pizza purveyors to ruin pubs to Michelin-starred restaurants, along with healthy doses of details about must-see Budapest sights like thermal baths and a few museums.
Primarily this book is focused on capturing the unique assortment of quirky dining and drinking destinations in central Pest, providing in-depth coverage about the bars and eateries that line specific streets and squares. Many of the places included in the guide only opened in recent months, and a considerable number of them are not even very familiar among many Budapest residents, making this an invaluable reference for city visitors seeking locales where they’ll see authentic slices of modern life in the Magyar metropolis. However, it appears that in the rush to publish this book while its subjects are still in vogue, a round of proofreading the graphics may have been sacrificed for the sake of speed, and this results in a handful of significant errors and misleading elements that to a small extent negate the guide’s purpose.
After immediately eschewing traditional Budapest tourist landmarks within the preface text, chapters begin with colorful (and slightly cartoonish) maps that depict contemporary in-crowd scenes of downtown Pest – Király Street, Madách Square, Nagymező Street, the Basilica area, etc. – with numbered arrows pointing to many restaurants and clubs that most tourists unknowingly pass by. The maps look great, but in multiple cases the arrows are placed inaccurately, and important cross-streets are left unnamed or are simply left out, making the task of finding these often-clandestine locales difficult for those unfamiliar with Budapest – which, in the case of this book, comprises the target readership.Nonetheless, the text about these local scenes is well-written, lively, and informative, accurately reflecting the spirit of each place featured, whether describing laid-back Fekete Kutya (“…sagging couches and yellowed pictures on the walls make you feel like you’ve stepped into grandma’s living room…”), posh DiVino (“…often frequented by one or two Hungarian media personalities…”), or basement bar Klub Vittula (“…the name of this graffiti-covered underground cellar club is the Finnish slang word that means none other than ‘cuntville’…”).
In addition to the central-Pest neighborhood descriptions, the guidebook includes several “top lists” for restaurants that provide good breakfasts and street food, craft beers and artisanal wines, fashion hotspots, child-friendly places, and much more, which helps fill out a more whole portrait of Budapest. This is especially helpful considering that recommendations for the entire Buda side of the city are restricted to two hangouts in the earlier chapters, and they happen to be right next door to each other.At any rate, the “Budapest Day & Night Guide” is a valuable resource that will enhance the experience of high-living visitors in Hungary’s capital, allowing readers to plot out a course involving multiple vivacious destinations that provide a broad spectrum of all that the city has to offer in 2014, which is quite a lot… but if readers are relying on finding their way around with only this book, it’d be wise to bring along a good old-fashioned giveaway tourist map to assist with drunken navigation as the night goes on.
