Ruszwurm Café

Located in Buda’s Castle Hill district, this venerable café—the city’s oldest—is considered by many locals and loyal visitors to be the best in the city. It’s certainly the most charming: the small patisserie has original cherry wood paneling that dates from its founding in 1827, and the adjacent tearoom looks like the pretty salon of a well-heeled Hungarian aunt. If timing and luck are on your side, you’ll claim one of the velvet fauteuils under faded photographs and beside a white tiled stove, and while away the afternoon over coffee and Ruszwurm’s famous homemade pastries.

The cakes, tarts and desserts in the multi-tiered display case look like something out of Willy Wonka’s factory: there are stacked cakes, like the walnut-filled Estherházy and marzipan-covered Mátyás torte, beside Ruszwurm Krémes (cream-filled phyllo dough) and a large assortment of strudels made with poppy seed, cherries and apples. If you fall for the café’s delicious creations, you’re in good company: during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a courier was dispatched weekly to bring back cakes and pastries to Vienna (home of the Sachertorte, no less). Today, it’s owned by the Szamos clan, marzipan manufacturers who also have a boutique in Pest.