The Best Arty Hotels to Book in Budapest

Once a 19th-century doctor’s surgery, Brody House now has rooms and shared spaces showcasing works by artists with a personal connection to Budapest – take the time to admire pieces by portraitist Alexander Tinei and colour-loving painter Ludovic Thiriez, who both had studios here. Each of the 10 intriguing bedrooms (variously featuring free-standing tubs, hand-crafted beds and mezzanine galleries) is named after a collaborating artist. If you’re inspired to create, join one of the regular in-house socials – the accurately named Drink and Draw night is led by a Brody artist.

Just steps from St Stephen’s Basilica, Aria has a roof terrace overlooking the towering dome of the church. Music is the inspiration behind the hotel’s palatial design: there’s a silhouetted jazz band on the wall of the spa, and a stylised piano keyboard curves along the marble floor in the orchid-flanked corridor. There’s an on-site musical director, who curates individual soundtracks and itineraries for guests, and live music accompanies the free afternoon selection of Hungarian wine and cheese.

On warm days, Baltazár has wooden tables spread over the car-free cobbles at one end of the historic Országház Street, which winds up past delis and bookshops to the medieval riches of the late-Gothic Matthias Church. This historic heart of Unesco-listed Buda is a foodie paradise, and the hotel’s charcoal grilled duck livers and poppy-seeded millefeuille with plum sauce and pistachio ice cream fit in perfectly. The 11 luxurious yet quirky rooms invoke Pop art and fashion icons, while the brick-walled bar, with a gallery of different shaped mirrors, serves shots of Hungarian fruit brandy or rum-cinnamon hot grog. Egészségére!

At Park and Art, some headboards incorporate part of an intricate musical instrument, the breakfast tables were once sewing machines and the iridescent lamps are beaten copper – it’s safe to say the contrasting styles in the individual rooms here are enjoyably eclectic. Just across the six-lane Dózsa György Boulevard you will find the expansive lakes and gardens of the work-in-progress City Park and Museum Quarter. From the hotel, stroll through the trees and flowerbeds outside to the imposing Heroes Square, which will awe you with its statue-topped columns and colonnades.

Are you drawn to the light-filled simplicity of the Heaven Room, which frames works by contemporary artists? The casual earthy tones of a Natural? Or the darker, gilded glamour of a Classic, with antiques and oil paintings? Additionally, at the adults-only Casati, guests can enjoy balconies that face onto a creeper-draped internal courtyard and access to a brick-vaulted gym and sauna on site. There’s a head-spinning choice of must-see sights outside the door, too, from the little Museum of Sweets and Selfies a few doors down to the frescoed State Opera House around the corner.

With plate glass windows overlooking the limpid Danube, the modern Lanchid 19 is sandwiched between a classic art nouveau mansion with ornamental faces and a 1930s block with curved balconies and a café on the ground floor. Lánchíd, Hungarian for chain bridge, refers to the elegant 19th-century Széchenyi Chain Bridge nearby, linking Buda and Pest. And it’s not just the views that are stylish: the glass-floored lobby reveals a subterranean medieval ruin, and the walls are hung with paintings by Picasso’s lover Françoise Gilot.

Originally a tobacco merchant’s mansion, this 19th-century building has previously been a bank and a cinema, but is now a 99-room hotel. Elaborate plasterwork and wrought-iron balustrades give way to rooms in which the decor echoes the painted ceilings downstairs and suites in which sloping windows have wide views across the skyline.

Grand colourful houses, fine art galleries and pavement cafés line the cobbles of the Castle District in Buda, where this 17th-century inn has become a stylish 10-room boutique. Bedrooms mix it up with retro radios and designer limestone bathrooms, modern prints and wooden walls. The restaurant, one of the oldest in Budapest, serves classic Hungarian dishes: fish soup, stuffed cabbage and goulash, and sweet nutty arany galuska in custard alongside citrusy Kreinbacher sparkling wine or fruity craft beers.

This cool, contemporary hotel has views of the Parliament Building across the Danube, plus colourful abstract designs by US artist Donald Sultan. There are more Sultan works in the restaurant, where an international menu features a no-holds-barred art’burger or cinnamon-spiced plum pie with Tokaj dessert wine. Work up an appetite by strolling out the front door and walking under lime and chestnut trees along the riverside, with views across the wide shining water.

Style is taken to new levels at the chic Bohem. Eye-catching, original paintings by Budapest-based artists form a focal point in minimalist rooms, some of which have individual features such as wooden floors and upper levels. You could be sleeping under the colourful geometry of Donáta Gajzágó’s Airport – Monoscope or the golden eye of Roland Horváth’s huge sunflower. Great location, too: fresh fruit and veg are laid out in the Neo-Gothic market hall at the end of the road, and there are boat trips on the Danube a few steps away on the riverfront.

Café-lined Király Street is one of the trendiest thoroughfares in Budapest, heaving with hipster bars and ice-cream kiosks. But Stories does its best to keep you inside all day with on-call mixologists, yoga teachers and tattoo artists. The triple-storey Presidentials, the biggest of the bold, colourful suites, are tailor-made for stag and hen parties with a sauna and jacuzzi on the top floor.