Juhász Gyula - Szántó András: Hotels - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

Buildings of defunct hotels

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The Hotel TIGRIS

No. 5 Nádor utca, district V A recumbent stone tiger, the old coat-of-arms, is still in evidence above the gate of the building. Built to plains by József Hild and opened in 1826, the first hostelry had a huge courtyard, a secure stable and a carriage house. Renovated after the great flood of Pest the building, also designed by Hild, became one of the finest corner-houses in the Inner City. The establishment was reopened in 1840. One hundred and thirty rooms altogether were opened on three floors, there were two large dining halls in operation and, of course, the horses and carriages were also taken care of.

Here is how the contemporary newspaper Jelenkor (The Present Age) described one section of the hotel: “The paintings in the upstairs restaurant are so beautiful that every art-lover would like to beg the gentlemen so unwilling to part with their pipes ... to desist from spoiling at least this splendid hall with the ugly fumes emanating from their playthings... It would indeed be a great pity to debase, by smoking, this fine place into a common cave of an eatery...” Although the plea made by this zealous protector of public health and the environment is likely to have gone unheeded, the hotel itself became very popular. It was here that a “restaurant photographer” made his first public appearance to prepare daguerreotypes of those assembled here with his tripod-supported machine.

In the 1840s Márk Rózsavölgyi gave what he called “musical presentations” in the hotel’s café three times a week. From the 1850s onwards, all kinds of dances and balls were held in the halls of the hotel. After the Austro- Hungarian Compromise of 1867, the place became the regular haunt of Kálmán Tisza’s opposition party, who came to be called “tigers” after the name of their haunt. The first Budapest Chess Players’ Association was founded in the café in 1889.

From 1890 on, Gustav Mahler stayed here as a permanent guest, while filling the post of Chief Musical Director of the Hungarian Royal Opera House. In the same year the hotel assumed the name of the then defunct “Europa”, hoping that the nostalgia associated

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