December is looming fast, and for many establishments this means the busiest time of year, containing as it does Advent, Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Feasting is often the name of the game, and the InterContinental Budapest is one hotel tackling the food front full-on.
Offering number one from the towering 4.6-star hotel alongside the Danube next to Chain Bridge on the Pest side is home delivery of goose or turkey. This slowly roasted bird comes served with a filling of dried fruits and chestnuts, plus mashed potatoes, braised cabbage with apple, carrots and brussels sprouts, red wine jus and cranberry sauce.
Dessert is your choice of apple or pumpkin pie and the package includes a bottle of wine, either MÁD Furmint from Szent Tamás winery, Tokaj, or Egri Bikavér from Demeter winery in Eger.
A four-kilogram goose or turkey is HUF 29,900, or the full package, which should feed four to six people, costs HUF 38,700, including delivery. This is available from now until December 31.
An alternative is the InterContinental’s Hungarian Christmas Package. This is for those people who prefer the local flavours, because it consists of Hungarian fish soup with a pinch of szegedi paprika, a breaded baked Balaton pike perch with potato salad, stuffed cabbage and, to finish things off, poppy pudding or walnut beigli.
The minimum order is for two persons. The Hungarian Christmas Packages are pick-up only but can be combined with a turkey/goose delivery. They are available from December 1-31. The price is HUF 22,400 for a four-person package, HUF 33,000 for six persons, HUF 43,200 for eight persons and HUF 53,000 for 10 persons.
The hotel has a seasonal Gingerbread House, and here visitors will find various handmade Christmas confections such as beigli, Christmas Yule logs and a gingerbread box filled with snow crescent. The Gingerbread House has already opened and will run until December 27.
Sunday Brunches in the InterContinental’s riverside Corso restaurant are an ongoing occasion at any time of the year. During the festive season there will be traditional Hungarian and special international cuisine on offer, with special Advent brunches this Sunday November 29 and on December 6, 13 and 20. Additional Christmas brunches will be on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
Of particular interest may be this Sunday’s brunch, on the first day of Advent and which coincides with the fifth annual Diplomatic Spouses Fair at the hotel. Budapest has a good number of lady ambassadors and so a fair few of the stalls will be manned by men.
Many countries will have a stall, selling handicrafts and delicacies, and often offering free nibbles.
The Sunday brunches come as a standard package for HUF 10,900 or a premium package for HUF 12,900.
The Corso restaurant looking over the water to the illuminated former Royal Palace will also be the site of a Christmas Eve Buffet Dinner and a New Year’s Eve Gala Dinner. The former advertises exquisite cuisine, a festive atmosphere and live music. The latter promises to take diners back to 1950s and 1960s America with an atmosphere of casino life. Latin fiesta dance shows will be mixed with revue, jazz and burlesque styles. There will be a vodka bar with ice sculptures and what is described as an illuminated ice carved station with seafood.
The Christmas Eve Buffet Dinner is HUF 14,900 and the New Year’s Eve Gala Dinner costs HUF 39,900.
January 1 is a time for incautious revellers to take it quietly and the InterContinental’s Corso will have a New Year’s Day Brunch, again with traditional Hungarian and special international cuisine. This also comes in standard HUF 10,900 packages or premium HUF 12,900 packages.
Finally, this festive season the hotel is holding bakery classes for children where they learn how to make cookies. These will be on December 2, 8, 11, 14, 17 and 22 from 4pm until 5.30pm. Each class will accommodate up to 20 children and advance booking is necessary. The cost is HUF 5900 for a child and HUF 900 for an adult, which is offset by being able to take home the cookies.
InterContinental Budapest
Apáczai Csere János u. 12-14, District V
Phone: (+36-1) 327-6333
Website: http://budapest.intercontinental.com/en/festive-season
