It isn’t to everyone’s taste, and animal rights activists wish the custom would vanish entirely, but anyone who fancies eating foie gras – fattened goose liver – would have done well to be in the Hungarian capital this past month.

November is when Hungary – and many other countries in Europe – celebrate the feast day of Saint Martin who, so the story goes, tried to hide in a goose pen to avoid being ordained bishop but was betrayed by the honking of the geese.

The feast day is November 11 and, in the not so distant past, Budapest restaurants would mark the occasion for a few days by serving goose specialities in a country that is one of the major European producers of fattened goose liver and other goose products.

But tourism is big business in Hungary, and with an abundance of geese available at a time of the year when they are ready for slaughter, many restaurants now celebrate ‘St Martin’s Day’ for almost the entire month: and diners don’t seem to get at all tired of it.

This month, for example, it was possible to sample fresh fried goose cracklings – made from the fatty skin of the bird – at Budapest’s relatively new Noir et L’or restaurant (17 Kiraly Street), which despite its French name has a mostly Hungarian menu.

Goose cracklings are standard fare in Hungary, but those at Noir et L’or are fresh cooked, making them particularly delectable.

Not far away, near the National Museum, the Museum Cafe and Restaurant (12 Muzeum korut), a longstanding temple of Hungarian gastronomy, was serving up its refined takes on some of the staples of the Hungarian goose menu.

Many restaurants now celebrate ‘St Martin’s Day’ for almost the entire month: and diners don’t seem to get at all tired of it

These included fattened goose liver fried in breadcrumbs – which keeps the liver from drying out – and roast goose leg, perhaps the most common but also sometimes the least successful of Hungarian goose dishes.

This one, served on a bed of prepared plums, had perfectly crisped skin and melt-in-your-mouth goose meat, which was the ideal combination.

A Hilltop Vineyards sweet Harslevelu wine made the perfect mate. Some prospective diners might, at this point, say, that’s all very well but what about the poor goose?

It was possible to attempt to get that answer at the hunter-themed restaurant Haxen Kiraly (100 Kiraly Street), which, for the edification of diners, had a live goose penned up in its lobby.

Honking from time to time to let everyone know it was still there and had not been spirited off to the kitchen, the goose served as a kind of avian majordomo to the dining areas packed with happy people gorging on goose.

The cuisine at Haxen falls between the swank of the Museum Cafe and the bistro style of Noir et L’or, but all its sampled goose dishes were top flight.

However, it’s not all about the offal products in Budapest.

The Hungarian Museum of Fine Arts is due to close next year for a multi-year refurbishing, but it is turning out the lights with a bang.The Hungarian Museum of Fine Arts is due to close next year for a multi-year refurbishing, but it is turning out the lights with a bang.

The Hungarian Museum of Fine Arts, located on Heroes Square at one end of spacious Andrassy Boulevard, is due to close next year for a multi-year refurbishing, but it is turning out the lights with a bang.

The museum’s swansong Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age is a large-scale exhibition running until February 15, which features more than 170 works by 100 painters, including some 20 by Rembrandt and three by Vermeer.

Franz Liszt was Hungarian, as were Bela Bartok, Zoltan Kodaly, Gyorgy Ligeti and, still with us, the octogenarian composer and performer Gyorgy Kurtag.

So it should come as no surprise that Budapest has an incredibly varied musical culture.

At the Budapest Music Centre, recording studios and smaller-scale shows share space with top-notch jazz performers (www.bmc.hu).

The Hungarian State Opera, in all its ornate, neo-Renaissance splendour, is a favourite with visitors (www.opera.hu) while the modern Palace of Arts (Mupa) has programmes for every taste.

This weekend, British composer Michael Nyman, famed for film soundtracks including for Jane Campion’s The Piano, has presented his War Work, described as “a vast visual and musical fresco to commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of World War I” (www.mupa.hu).

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