While all of us devoted Wes Anderson fans wait patiently for that next film to release, if you live in Melbourne, it looks like there’s another way to pass the time. And it involves brunch.
Cue The Budapest Cafe, a coffee spot with delicious eats that also making it possible for us to step into the wonderful world of Wes Anderson. And more specifically, the fictional Grand Budapest Hotel.
Having opened late last year, The Budapest Cafe caught the attention of anyone with a penchant for a Wes Anderson flick, a peachy hued cafe and anyone else in between. It’s the perfect Venn diagram situation.
Interior designed by the company, Biasol who are renowned for designing a number of other key Melbourne cafes, they said that they drew from their “appetite for modern abstract art, design and hospitality.”
They continued, “We evolved the design experience to create an immersive, gallery-like experience. Minimising the built form maximised the space and the impact of colour in the imaginative and evocative space. Bold, offbeat elements encourage patrons to engage with the design, and the natural earthy palette exudes warmth, texture and character and reflects the local design sensibility.”
According to Dezeen, at the Swanston Street location in Melbourne, when it came to the walls, Biasol focused on applying dark tones of the orange variation, like terracotta for example. They also worked with softer hues like beige and sand to embellish the cafe’s interior, like the archways for example.
On the food front, the cafe’s menu is loaded with nods to Asian cuisine, with some of their most popular dishes including the Tornado Omurice with tomato fried rice with ham, mixed vegetables, demi-glaze and the Mentaiko Udon, with mentaiko sauce mixed udon, lobster salad, spring onion, seaweed, kimchi and a 63 degree egg.
And there’s one thing that you absolutely order when ordering your coffee, which also doubles as one of the most crucial homages to the film within the entire cafe. And it’s their cream-filled pastries known in the film as: Courtesan au Chocolat. The Budapest Cafe’s puffs come in a stack of three, each filled with a different custard: vanilla custard, matcha custard and seasonal fruit custard. And of course, packaged in a pretty in pink Mendl’s box.
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