It is really hard not to like Paul Day, the chef and owner at Sansho and Maso a kobliha, and the master butcher at The Real Meat Society butcher shop. What is actually really harder is to interview him in his restaurant: everyone who walks in is a friend or a fellow chef or a supplier or a regular. He may have stood up five times to greet guests and friends in the short time we interviewed him. His humor is dry and brisk and his laughter contagious. He’s the guy you would want to have a beer with.

He’s also the guy you would want to serve you meet: originally a butcher hailing from England, he has promoted whole animal butchery of organic and traceable meat from farms that let the animals live outside here in the Czech Republic. He’s also the man who has nearly single-handedly, with his partner Michaela, put the Prestik pig, an old breed of Czech fatty pigs, firmly back on the foodie map. He’s been serving fantastic breakfast sausages and buns at the farmers’ market from his white Land Rover Defender. And for us, he’s always been a great chef, steering Sansho and Maso a kobliha, two restaurants that really can stand up to the best establishments in the bigger cities to the west of the Czech border. We stopped by to interview him at Maso a kobliha after his lunch service.

If you’re drinking great coffee in a Prague cafe, the odds are that the beans were roasted by doubleshot coffee roasters. In about four years, they have managed to teach locals drink lighter roasts of high-quality coffee from selected farmers, and showed them how to brew great filter coffee at home, too. Their flagship cafe, Muj salek kavy, is one of the best in Prague, and we still insist that their paper cups are the only cups that are the right size. (Yes, we hate those humongous cups as much as you do.)

In this edition of our Meet a Local series, we have talked to Jarda Tucek, one of the three founders of doubleshot, and arguably the face of the company. You know he’s been around when Ralf, the owner of The Barn in Berlin, tells us to say hi to him, or when the barista at Joe Coffee HQ in New York City asks us whether we know him. We had a small chat at doubleshot’s new barista training centre right next door to Muj salek kavy in the Karlin district that has recently opened to the public, too, which means it is not only designed for doubleshot’s wholesale customers but also allows the public to learn how to prepare a great cup of coffee at home.