Budapest New Year's Eve Dinner: Where the Grand Galas Happen
Gundel and the Kempinski Hotel Corvinus have published 2026 New Year's Eve dinners in Budapest, running through the evening. Four Seasons Gresham Palace and the New York Café are not confirmed for 2026.
Checked 7 November 2026. Two of these four rooms have published a 2026 programme. For the other two we found only earlier years, and we say which. This page names rooms and tells their stories. It gives no prices.
A table, or a different kind of night. The four rooms below are seated dinners. If that is not the evening you want, our crawl is a different way to spend it, and the last section tells you about it.
Four rooms, and what we know about each
Two of these rooms date to the same year: both Gundel and the New York Café trace to 1894.
Gundel, City Park: 2026 programme published
Gundel says its building has been dedicated to hospitality since 1894. It wasn't called Gundel at first. Ferenc Wampetics ran it until the Gundel family took the lease in 1910. Between the wars it worked as a vast open-air dining area with space for as many as 1,000 seats, and the building then had its own pigsty and laundry.
On 31 December 2026 it offers two rooms: the Art Deco restaurant, and the upper-floor Queen Elizabeth Ballroom, Rococo with gilded stucco. Menu and wines are the same in both. The music differs: Lili Fehér in the restaurant, the Budapest Show Band in the ballroom. The published running order has a countdown at 23:50, a champagne toast, and traditional lentil soup after midnight. Gundel says exact times will be finalised as the night approaches.
Kempinski Hotel Corvinus, Erzsébet tér: 2026 programme published
The hotel's ÉS Bisztró lists four courses, a glass of Piper-Heidsieck champagne, and live entertainment from 20:00 until 01:00. Its restaurant page gives seating from 19:00 to 21:30, and its package page says from 20:00, so check which applies to you. A separate five-course dinner in the Living Room's champagne salon has champagne poured until midnight, with arrival from 20:00. The hotel says Vörösmarty tér is a 4-minute walk away.
Four Seasons Gresham Palace: not confirmed for 2026
Wikipedia dates the building to 1906, Art Nouveau, designed by Zsigmond Quittner and József Vágó as offices and apartments. It reopened as a hotel in June 2004. The hotel's 2025 programme was a five-course dinner in the Gresham Room with a live jazz band and a champagne welcome, then dancing in the Zrínyi Passage. The dress code was "Elegant and glamorous". We could not read its 2026 page, so all of this is last year's pattern.
New York Café: not confirmed for 2026
According to Wikipedia, the building opened on 23 October 1894 as a local office of the New York Life Insurance Company, the café was renamed Hungária in 1954, and the building reopened after renovation on 5 May 2006. The last New Year's Eve programme we found is the Anantara hotel's 2024 brochure: a gala dinner with two menus, one vegetarian, and live music. Its starter was goose liver terrine with Tokaji-flavoured red onion jam. We found nothing for 2026.
Lentils on the menu
Gundel's page says of its soup after midnight: "According to tradition, it brings good luck and prosperity for the new year." The New York Café's 2024 menu put a lentil curry with its main course. If you want to know why lentils belong to the New Year, we have a page on the old rules.
Who this isn't for
A seated dinner suits a table of your own and a menu set by the room. Our crawl is for moving through bars with other guests instead. Neither is the better night. They are different nights.
Who books with us? Solo travellers and couples made up 73.5% of bookings in our three-year direct data. Separately, of 2,153 direct bookings from January 2024 to June 2026, 98.8% came from abroad and 60% were made on the day of the tour. Those figures cover the whole year, not this night.
The other way to spend the night
Instead of a dinner, take an alternative night that ends at Instant-Fogas, party ticket included. We meet at 19:00 at Oktogon, two hours ahead of our usual 21:00, with welcome champagne, then three bars, then Instant-Fogas as the last stop. The ticket is worth €50. Eat before you join us.
There are two more options for that evening. You could have dinner on the river instead, or read where midnight happens after dinner. And if you want both a table and a crawl on your trip, we run a guided night out the evening before New Year's Eve, on 30 December.
Questions people ask
Where can you have New Year's Eve dinner in Budapest?
As of 7 November 2026, Gundel and the Kempinski Hotel Corvinus have published 2026 programmes. Four Seasons Gresham Palace and the New York Café held dinners in 2025 and 2024, and neither is confirmed for 2026.
Is lentil soup served at New Year's Eve dinners in Budapest?
At Gundel, yes: its 2026 programme lists traditional lentil soup after midnight. Lentils appeared on the New York Café's 2024 menu too. We have not checked other restaurants.
What is a different way to spend New Year's Eve in Budapest than a dinner?
Our crawl: we meet at 19:00 at Oktogon with welcome champagne, visit three bars and finish at Instant-Fogas, with the party ticket included, worth €50. We run on 30 December too, at the usual 21:00.