Budapest: A Critical Guide

KogArt House, for the opening of an exhibition, and followed with a drink in the elegant restaurant

A fine, imposing arts exhibition centre opened in 2004. The centre's highly polished presentations are geared for those in the business elite who tastes are on the conservative side. Exclusive restaurant with old pictures on the walls on the ground floor. Added value: you can demonstrate that you are both knowledgeable in the art and the wine world... (VI. Andrássy út 112. www.kogart.hu)

Menza Retro Restaurant

Though the name of this fashionable restaurant in Hungarian means "canteen" it is in reality anything but. It is a real work of art. If only this sort of thing could have been allowed in 1975, say, Budapest would have been as exciting a place as London ... Added value: you can tell the story of your young years, when you did have your lunches in actual "menzas"...(VI. Liszt Ferenc tér 2. www.menza.co.hu)

Café Zila

Large, beautifully restored coffee house with rooms upstairs as well as on the ground floor. Situated in the centre of a suburb on the Pest side. Long ago, before this district was incorporated into the growing metropolis, the building was used as a gentlemen's shooting range. Added value: you can demonstrate that you are a connoisseur of great places off the beaten path... (XVIII. Üllői út 452, www.zilakavehaz.hu). 

Concert in the Great Hall of the Music Academy

One of Europe's most attractive concert halls built in art nouveau style, with excellent acoustics. The experience is to be gained from simply going there to see and hear a concert - it is of secondary importance who is playing and what is on the programme. Though visitors know it primarily for its concerts, its main function is actually as a music conservatoire, founded in the nineteenth century by the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. Added value: you can quip: "What really fires me up is music written before 1800." (VI. Liszt Ferenc tér 2. www.lfze.hu)

Dinner in the garden of the Fészek Club

The Fészek Club is just three minutes' walk from the concert hall. The building dates from 1903 but its garden reminds one of the inner courtyard of a Renaissance private mansion house. It is a special feature in the cultural life of Budapest, frequented by many an older artist and upstanding member of the community who likes to move in those circles. Added value: one can flaunt familiarity with some octogenarian painters and actors, can even call by first name some of them... (VII. Kertész utca 36., no website)  

Budapest Operetta Theatre

Budapest was once regarded as third in importance, after Paris and Vienna, in the world of operetta. Nowadays there are confident signs of a resurgence as operetta - and musicals - are once again enjoying huge popularity in the part of the city which is sometimes dubbed "Budapest Broadway." Added value: not much, apart from an evening with reliable quality entertainment. (VI. Nagymező utca 17. www.operettszinhaz.hu )

Late-night movie at the WestEnd City Centre, followed by a walk under the stars in the roof garden

The WestEnd City Centre, designed by one of Hungary's leading architects, József Finta, and opened in 2000, is one of modern Budapest's most renowned buildings - a colossus containing shops, offices, a hotel - as well as a multi-screen cinema. Here the last showing of the day's films starts later than in other cinemas, well after dinner in fact. Afterwards, have a walk in the roof garden and take in the view towards the slumbering city centre. The first building you will see is the imposing Western Railway Station, designed by the office responsible for the Eiffel Tower. Added value: feeling like Gulliver as a giant, when peeping downwards, to the world of tiny shoppers... (Sixth and Thirteenth Districts, between Nyugati Square and Lehel Square, numerous entrances.)