An easy Hungarian-inspired dinner, a cocktail of our own, a wonderfully moody film and a few small details to make an ordinary evening feel a little more like Budapest.

There are cities you visit, enjoy and leave behind.

And then there are cities that somehow follow you home.

Budapest is one of those.

Maybe it is the glow of the Parliament building reflected in the Danube after dark. Maybe it is the faded grandeur of the old cafés, the heavy doors, the tiled entrance halls and the bars hidden behind unmarked entrances.

Whatever it is, Budapest understands atmosphere.

So rather than trying to recreate an entire holiday at home, we thought we would do something much simpler.

One dinner.

One cocktail.

One film.

A little music.

And a few hours in which your house feels slightly less like wherever you happen to live and slightly more like somewhere beside the Danube.

Welcome to a night at home in Budapest.

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First, Change the Mood

You do not need Hungarian antiques, embroidered tablecloths or an elaborate tablescape.

Actually, don’t.

Budapest is far more interesting when it is a little imperfect.

Turn off the bright overhead lights. Put on a lamp or two. Use the wine glasses you normally save for guests. If you have linen napkins, put them on the table.

Bring out something burgundy, walnut, brass or deep blue if you happen to own it.

Then put some music on while you cook.

Hungarian café jazz works beautifully. So does a little Franz Liszt if you want to lean further into the old-world mood.

The objective isn’t to theme the house.

It is simply to make tonight feel different from Tuesday.

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What to Eat: Easy Chicken Paprikash

Proper Hungarian chicken paprikash can be a slow, gloriously comforting affair.

Tonight, however, we are not spending two hours cooking.

Our version keeps the things that matter — chicken, onion, good Hungarian paprika and a creamy sour-cream sauce — while making it achievable on a normal evening.

Serve it over wide egg noodles rather than making nokedli dumplings from scratch.

Hungarian grandmothers may forgive us.

Easy Chicken Paprikash

Serves 2 generously

You will need

• 400–500g boneless chicken thighs
• 1 medium onion, finely sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1½ tablespoons sweet Hungarian paprika
• A small pinch of hot paprika or chilli flakes, optional
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 250ml chicken stock
• 120ml sour cream
• 1 teaspoon plain flour
• Salt and black pepper
• Olive oil or butter
• 200–250g wide egg noodles
• Fresh parsley, to finish

How to make it

Cut the chicken thighs into large bite-sized pieces and season with salt and pepper.

Heat a little oil or butter in a large frying pan and brown the chicken. It does not need to cook through yet.

Remove it to a plate.

Turn the heat down and add the onion. Cook slowly for around five minutes until soft.

Add the garlic and cook for another 30 seconds.

Now add the paprika and tomato paste.

Give everything a quick stir — you want the paprika fragrant, not burnt.

Pour in the chicken stock and return the chicken to the pan.

Simmer gently for around 12–15 minutes until the chicken is cooked and the sauce has reduced slightly.

Meanwhile, cook the egg noodles.

Mix the sour cream with the teaspoon of flour and a spoonful of the warm sauce. Then stir it gently into the pan over low heat.

Don’t furiously boil it from here.

Taste. Add salt, pepper or a little more paprika if necessary.

Pile the noodles into shallow bowls, spoon over the chicken and plenty of that paprika sauce, and finish with a little parsley.

That’s dinner.

Rich, warm, deeply comforting and still completely achievable after work.

Make It Plant-Based

This one is almost absurdly easy to adapt.

Replace the chicken with a generous pile of mushrooms — ideally a mixture of brown mushrooms and oyster mushrooms.

Brown them hard in the pan first so they develop some colour, then follow exactly the same method using vegetable stock and either plant-based sour cream or a thick unsweetened plant-based yoghurt.

You end up with mushroom paprikash.

Same noodles. Same paprika sauce. Same glass of wine.

Nobody is eating the sad vegetarian option tonight.

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What to Drink: The Danube After Dark

Now for the fun bit.

This isn’t a historic Hungarian cocktail.

We made it up.

But if Budapest were a drink, we wanted it to feel the way the city feels at night: elegant without being precious, slightly dark around the edges and just a little celebratory.

So we started with gin, brought in plum as a nod to Hungary’s fruit spirits, added lemon and honey, and finished everything with dry sparkling wine.

We are calling it:

The Danube After Dark

You will need

• 30ml gin
• 15ml plum pálinka or plum brandy
• 15ml fresh lemon juice
• 10ml honey syrup
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters
• 50–60ml dry sparkling wine
• Lemon peel or a thin slice of plum, to garnish

To make honey syrup

Mix equal parts honey and warm water and stir until combined.

That’s it.

To make the cocktail

Add the gin, plum spirit, lemon juice, honey syrup and bitters to a shaker with ice.

Shake briefly.

Strain into a coupe or wine glass.

Top slowly with dry sparkling wine.

Twist a piece of lemon peel over the drink and drop it in.

Then take it somewhere comfortable.

No pálinka?

Don’t abandon the entire evening because your local bottle shop does not have a shelf dedicated to Hungarian fruit brandy.

Use plum brandy or a good plum liqueur.

If your plum liqueur is quite sweet, reduce or remove the honey syrup.

The idea matters more than cocktail orthodoxy.

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What to Watch: Budapest Noir

Once dinner is finished and the second Danube After Dark is looking dangerously appealing, put on Budapest Noir.

This is much more our idea of a Budapest film night than simply watching The Grand Budapest Hotel because it happens to have the word Budapest in the title.

Budapest Noir actually puts you into the city.

Set against an older, darker Budapest, it has crime, shadowy streets, beautiful interiors, politics, journalists and precisely the slightly melancholy atmosphere we want for this evening.

This is not background television.

Pour the drink, turn the lights down and actually watch it.

If subtitles occasionally make you reach for your glasses, consider it cultural enrichment.

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Something Sweet Afterwards

You absolutely could make a Hungarian cake from scratch.

You also absolutely do not need to.

Tonight is supposed to be easy.

Buy something involving chocolate, walnuts, apricot or layers of pastry from a good bakery.

Bring it home.

Put it on a proper plate rather than eating it from the packet.

Make strong coffee.

Problem solved.

If you happen to find Dobos torte at a Hungarian or European bakery, even better.

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The Budapest-at-Home Formula

If you’re saving this idea for a Friday night, here’s really all you need:

Eat: Easy chicken paprikash with buttered egg noodles
Plant-based: Mushroom paprikash
Drink: The Danube After Dark
Watch: Budapest Noir
Listen: Hungarian café jazz or Liszt while you cook
Finish: Strong coffee and something involving chocolate or pastry

Nothing difficult.

Nothing that requires transforming your living room into a themed restaurant.

Just enough detail to change the atmosphere for an evening.

And perhaps that is the part of travel worth bringing home.

Not souvenirs.

Not replicas.

Just the feeling that, for a few hours, life can happen slightly differently.

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Still Thinking About Budapest?

If this evening has you plotting an actual trip, we’ve spent rather a lot of time wandering around Budapest too.

You might also like:

• A Literary Weekend in Budapest — historic cafés, writers, bookshops and atmospheric streets
• The Historic Cafés of Budapest — where writers, artists and revolutionaries once gathered
• Budapest’s Hidden Bars — secret doors, speakeasies and some of the city’s more unusual drinking spots
• Budapest Art Nouveau: A Walking Guide to the City’s Most Beautiful Buildings
• The Architecture of Budapest: Why the City Looks So Grand
• Budapest Colour Palettes — seven colour schemes inspired by the city
• Budapest Interior Design — how to bring a little of the city’s faded grandeur home

Or simply save this page for the next evening when going to Budapest sounds considerably more appealing than going to the supermarket.