This was where the trains started clattering loudly in his head. "At exactly ten minutes past seven, regular as clockwork." And so I sit there and order spicy paprika soup. As a matter of fact, I could just as easily be sitting at the table where Mihály Babits used to sit, or in Schöpflin's place, "by the corner table of the café's shorter end", or perhaps at the far end of the rear area, "opposite the tiled kitchen, where the smell of fresh coffee, scrambled eggs and toast was the strongest, and of course, where the smoke was the thickest," and where, (according to János Kodolányi's reminiscences), the poet Lőrinc Szabó used to sit, half hidden behind stacks of books and piles of notes.

The so-called "round-table" was the headquarters of József Kiss' paper, A Hét (The week), Ignotus once said jokingly that this paper was read in cafés and written in cafés. Endre Ady had a favourite table here, as did Uncle Zsiga (the writer Zsigmond Móricz), Gyula Illyés and Géza Ottlik. The table where Dezső Szabó used to sit had a special name: "shaman". "He used to sit at a separate table, with an arrogant expression on his face, like Danton (this is how József Fodor remembers him), so that the writers belonging to Nyugat (the most influential Hungarian literary journal in the first half of the twentieth century) could see how much he depised them." The best one, though, must have been the poets' favourite table, where (as Lőrinc Szabó wrote in Tücsökzene/Song of the Crickets) Mikes was playing chess, Babits was proofreading, the air was full of cigar smoke, gossip, money and a hundred different plans.

The homepage of Centrál Café says: Where there is genius loci (spirit of a place), that is where there is intellect. There's nothing wrong with genius loci. Even someone who knows nothing about the café's legendary past can feel the spirit of the place. The problem is the second part of the motto. At the moment, the cream of Hungarian intellectual life is represented solely by Géza Csemer, a regular customer of the café. The middle-class intellectuals - who in the past ten years were (supposedly) regular customers of the café - have disappeared. In the course of the great gastronomic renewal of Centrál Café, which took place at the beginning of this year, the lamb stew with fresh tarragon has disappeared, along with the Fiakker Goulash, the fried peppers filled with aubergine paste, the sweet cottage cheese dumplings and the cream cakes. It is hard to decide whether the regular customers of more modest means have disappeared as a result of the economic crisis or thanks to the chef, János Cseh's (otherwise excellent) "reinvented" paprikás krumpli (potatoes stewed with paprika and onions), his French beans in white sauce with sour cream, which doesn't even resemble the original, or perhaps the "mutant" Dobostorta (round layered chocolate cake with hard caramel top) of confectioner László Mihályi. Whatever the reason, there are no midnight dinners after a theatre performance, no games of chess or cards, no spirited intellectual life characteristic of cafés, there are usually only around thirty-forty foreigners eating lunch in the beautiful rooms that seat altogether 200 people.

Szindbád (Márai's, not Krúdy's, character) may well ask: Where has the secret gone? The one that everyone was familiar with; that the existence of Budapest cafés and coffeehouses was based upon their regular customers. "So, you would just like a newspaper? Certainly, here you are, sir. You'll eventually become a bit sleepy, you'll order a cup of coffee. Then you'll get thirsty, because coffee has a diuretic effect, so you'll drink something, then when you see someone at the table next to you being served an appetizing beef-stew with paprika, you'll suddenly feel hungry, and so on." Meanwhile, you'll meet some friends, start arguing with them, and endeavour to save the world. Everything in Centrál Café is like it was in 1887. There is a large (though diminishing) assortment of newspapers, splendid things to eat (although the regular customers have yet to learn what a pangasius fillet fried in a crust of pumpkin seeds is, or a barramundi casserole, they have to get accustomed to macaroons instead of cabbage ravioli), the waiters are polite and helpful, but one thing is missing: the atmosphere. That of the good old days. "The reason for visiting a café," wrote Viennese humourist Alfred Polgár, "is to be alone. But you need company for that." The Szindbád-types did not go to cafés to drink coffee (or eat, or read), they went there to live. With Sándor Márai's words: "to get through life, somehow".