Concierge.com's insider take:

The 218 rooms at Le Méridien are less than a minute's walk from the best shopping in Pest: Rooms at the back overlook Deák Ferenc utca, the city's soi-disant "fashion street." With excellent public transportation and top-notch pedestrian connections, this hotel, opened in 2000 in a building constructed in 1911 on Erzsébet tér, certainly makes a great base. Even so, the spacious, romantic rooms (suggestive of both France and Tahiti, with hand-carved four-poster beds, plush fabrics, and palm trees) and a wellness spa practically beg guests to spend more time in-house. The hotel's Le Bourbon restaurant, arguably one of the best in the city, serves inventive haute cuisine such as pan-seared monkfish with butternut squash risotto and chlorophyll coulis, or orange-ginger-glazed breast of chicken with coriander-scented spring vegetables. Though the feel is one of money-is-no-object luxe, room prices don't include breakfast (the buffet is 25 euros per person) and Internet access is only free in deluxe rooms and above.