Gábor Eszter: Andrássy Avenue – Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)
Bellevue in Pest, put his ideas in the mouth of Frigyes Podmaniczky when evoking the heyday of the establishment. "...on this spot stood the restaurant called Bellvü, ” says he at the comer of Andrássy út and the Park. 'We used to sit in the garden below Chinese lanterns, while the gypsy played the piddle and the ancient folk (by which he meant the poor) peered in through the iron railing. It was a very fashionable place, where the ladies took their latest summer clothes for some airing and displayed their hats, too." "Svery minute a coach would arrive from which hand-picked gentlemen, the 'kosher lot' as they were called at the time, alighted. Leó Lánczy would sit here with his imperial beard. He always walked even though he was the first in town to possess an electric car. It was to this place that the Haggenmachers walked out from their mansion in Andrássy út, when her ladyship was not in the family way. and thus the expectant wife, who carried a Swiss passport, was not obliged to retire to the land of Wilhelm Tell. It was here that the best-known stock brokers would come before going on holiday to Karlsbad, Marienbad or Ischl. But those who spent the summer on Sváb Hill or Margaret Island would show up at the Belvü in the summer, too, as they did in the Hangli on the embankment of the Danube, because no man can do without acquaintances." (The Bridegroom of Budapest) ■ The Bellevue - 1872-1904 (No. 129 Andrássy út) 60
