Because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, restaurants and bars have been forced to get creative to adhere to new social distancing requirements. In Budapest, Michelin-starred restaurant Costes decided to serve up its multi-course artistically-plated meals in the private glass-enclosed cabins on the city’s Ferris wheel.
The downturn in tourists has meant that both the high-end restaurant and the Budapest Eye have seen just a fraction of their usual visitor numbers, so the collaboration seemed a good fit. Tickets for the four-course meal cost about US$155 and sold out within days for the one-off dining pop-up this month, but the restaurant owners are planning further dates when the weather turns warm again in spring.
Costes was the first restaurant in Hungary to gain a Michelin star, and it serves up classic Hungarian dishes with a Portuguese influence. As winter approaches in the northern hemisphere, restaurants must also grapple with how to safely serve diners. One city in the USA even launched a competition for local residents to develop a way to make outdoor dining feasible in the winter months, with a $5000 cash prize to boot.
Like other countries in Europe, Hungary has seen a huge increase in the number of reported coronavirus cases, with an all-time high of 3149 daily cases reported last week. European governments have started to impose new lockdowns and restrictions, and in some countries, hospitality venues are required to close early or there’s a complete night-time curfew. The European Union also implemented a new traffic-light system to help make rules and restrictions clearer to travelers. Member states will be color coded as green, orange or red depending on infection rates provided by the European Centre for Disease Control, and the system will be updated weekly.
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