[Note to all English readers: This podcast and its description are both in Czech. Please look for English episodes of the podcast. Thank you!]

Možná nám nebudete věřit, ale letní výlet do Toskánska jsme si plánovali už minulý rok. Ale pak přišla korona a chvíli to vypadalo, že se letos nepodíváme vůbec nikam. No ale nakonec jsme přesně kolem data, kdy došlo k uvolnění hranic v rámci EU, dostali pozvání do Toskánska od Zdenky a Martina, se kterými si už nějakou dobu dopisujeme přes Instagram a kteří s námi před pár týdny udělali super rozhovor přes Instagram (podívejte se sem). Vzhledem k situaci měli u sebe ve vile volno, tak jsme mohli na týden přijet, a nebudeme vám lhát - bylo to opravdu perfektní. Ještě o tom napíšeme článek, tak se za pár dní podívejte na blog. Bude tam hodně tipů.

Podcast jsme natočili poslední večer našeho pobytu na dvorku vilky, kde Zdenka a Maťo žijí a odkud provozují Sí Toskánsko, malou cestovní agenturu, která v Toskánsku zprostředkovává bydlení a zážitky nejrůznějšího druhu, které se však točí zejména kolem dobrého jídla a pití. Aby taky ne, Martin je známý šéfkuchař a jako jeden z porotců slovenské verze soutěže Masterchef svého druhu celebrita, která prožila a provařila 11 let v top kuchyních v Londýně, a Zdenka je zakladatelka Sí Toskánsko (Maťo se podle svých slov do projektu "přiženil"), která sama jídlo miluje a věnuje mu spoustu času. Podle vlastních slov je Zdenka ta, která tráví večery nad maily, zatímco Maťo díky své otevřené povaze převzal roli "animátora".

[Note to all English readers: This podcast and its description are both in Czech. Please look for English episodes of the podcast. Thank you!]

Pokud se nějakou dobu pohybujete ve světě vína a žijete v Čechách, jméno Jan Čeřovský Vám nebude neznámé. Nezávislý autor, který o víně psal pro Hospodářské noviny a nyní například pro českou mutaci časopisu Forbes, se vínům věnuje již téměř dvě dekády a v roce 2007 si založil blog o víně, Jižní svah, kam píše svoje postřehy, recenze a další články o víně a o gastroprůmyslu. Pokud máte rádi víno a jeho blog nečtete, měli byste okamžitě začít. A rovnou Honzovi přispět na jeho provoz, protože si podporu za to, co dělá, určitě zaslouží.

Mnozí ho také budou znát jako člena skupiny Družstvo. Tato skupina mladých someliérů a lidí točících se kolem vína pořádá vinné pop-upy, které se vždy odehrávají na zajímavých místech (v minulosti třeba na Strahovského stadionu nebo ve Vile Tugendhat) a kde se podává výhradně naturální víno, které splňuje určitá kritéria co do spontánnosti kvašení nebo množství přidané síry. Pokud jste ještě na žádném jejich pop-upu nebyli, musíte to okamžitě změnit. A když píšeme okamžitě, myslíme nejspíš během léta, kdy už snad restrikce ohledně větších akcí pominou.

Honzu jsme si do podcastu pozvali, protože na rozdíl od mnoha jiných, kteří se vínem zabývají, není zatížen nějakou konkrétní filozofií ani v něm nemá žádný komerční zájem. Jeho názory jsou objektivní a v zásadě nestranné. A to je dnes vzácnější, než si možná myslíte.

So it’s been a month since we entered a lockdown here in the Czech Republic to fight the spread of the coronavirus. We know that many of the guests of our Prague food tours have fallen in love in Prague and have been asking us about how we were doing, so this is an update about life in Prague after a month in quarantine. If you’re Czech, feel free to skip this unless you want to know what our opinion on the current and future state of restaurants in Prague and on our very own presence and future is. So here we go.

So you’re in Prague and ordered to self-contain. Listen, we know how you feel. We ALL know how you feel, because we’re all contained too. Anyway, your days of eating well and drinking well don’t have to be over even as restaurants are ordered to shut down and you really can’t go anywhere. Here’s a basic overview of your options during the times of ordered containment in Prague.

Now with a printable cheat sheet of what’s available with phone numbers!

Disclaimer: please check before taking action. Things change not on a daily, but an hourly basis. We had to rewrite this piece several times over the weekend.

We wrote about Prague’s coffee scene and the reasons why it’s so great last week (TL;DR version: specialty coffee now a standard, young people, barista a viable career here, and high standard of skill), but this week it’s time to list our favorite specialty coffee shops in Prague. Before we get to the list, a few details on how we choose the coffee shops and why maybe your favorite is not included. 

We write this blog as a service to the guests of our awesome Prague food tours, and these best-of’s are primarily targeting foreign visitors to Prague who may have just a few days here, so our key criterion here is consistency. If we drag you across the town for a cup of coffee, we better be damn sure they serve good coffee EVERY DAY. So if a coffee shop served us the best cup of coffee ever on one occasion, but a mediocre cup the next day, it may not have made the list. We don’t want to run the risk of our readers coming in on that mediocre day. 

As Jarda Tuček, one of the founders of Doubleshot Coffee Roasters told us, once you reach a certain level of quality in coffee, the rest is just preference or nuance. So all of the Prague coffee shops below should pass the basic bar: they use good beans freshly roasted by a high-quality, independently-owned roaster, ground just before brewing, by a barista that has been properly trained and uses properly maintained equipment. Even on that mediocre day, the places listed here will serve coffee that is drinkable, but the coffee shop may not make the must-go cut.   

How have we divided the coffee shops? Easy. We have roughly used and adapted the Michelin guide principle. The Must Go Coffee Shops are the three Michelin stars: worth a separate trip if you like coffee or coffee culture. The Other Favorite Coffee Shops are the two stars: worth a detour on your trip. And the coffee shops included in the neighborhood guides are the single stars: worth a stop if in the area or on the way. Easy, right? Enough talk, let’s do this.

So it’s been nearly three years since we wrote about specialty coffee shops in Prague. And it’s high time to revisit Prague coffee again - just last year, Prague saw the opening of nearly 10 coffee shops that serve specialty coffee - which is astonishing, if you realize that we didn’t even have 10 coffee shops that served specialty coffee some eight, nine years ago.

This time, we’d like to split our coffee guide to Prague into two posts: the first that explains the local coffee culture and will help you navigate the lay of the land when it comes to coffee in Prague. You know, a post we would like to read before we travel anywhere. The second post will list our favorite coffee shops in Prague. Okay? Let’s get right to it.

We dread the „Year in review“ articles. „Oh, nothing has opened this year. What are we going to write about? Prague is not NYC, you know? It’s not like something new opens every week. Jeez, this is gonna be boooooring!!!!“ Oh well.

But then you start counting. What the heck? 48 new places worth a mention? And we’re pretty sure we forgot a few. Which boils down to nearly… wait for it… one opening every week. Yup. Hold our beer, NYC! Prague coming through! Well, obviously, we’re not there yet, but in hindsight - and despite the perceived lack of „major“ openings, 2019 was a great year for the Prague food scene. Food and coffee in Prague flourished last year, and we could honestly write a separate version of our Prague Foodie Map just covering the openings of 2019, and it would still be a decent guide. Let’s keep that going in 2020. 

What follows is a list and a small description of the new openings on the Prague food scene in 2019, followed by a handy map and a “cheat sheet” - a downloadable and printable checklist of the 2019 openings to brag to your friends how many you’ve covered so far.

Spoiler alert: If you’re spending Christmas in Prague and are reading this in December without a reservation for Christmas Eve dinner, you’re already screwed. Panic and/or stock up on food now.

Prague dining used to be so easy. When we started our Prague food tours back in 2011, we could make reservations for a tour hours before, and restaurants would have a table. While this all has changed and now you need to book sometimes well in advance for the popular restaurants and hours in Prague, even back then there was one exception: Christmas and NYE. That is why, from the very outset of this blog, we have been compiling an annual overview of Prague Christmas and NYE dining options, and this is the 2019 edition.

You know what they say: ”The best Czech wine is… beer.”

Of course, this is disrespectful of the beautiful Czech and Moravian wine production that we are so fond of, but the undeniable fact is that the Czech beer culture is one of the strongest unifying themes in the Czech national identity. While ”Czech Republic means beer” may sound as a cliché, it is mostly right. We Czechs actually do love beer and drink a lot of it. And the Czech beer culture is unique in several ways. Beer is to Czechs what wine is to the French - just walk into any restaurant and order their “house beer”, and it will be cheap and good. It’s the default beverage. A no brainer.

So you should have a beer in Prague. Make it several beers. Not having a beer in Prague would be a mistake even if you think you don’t like beer. Honestly, don’t diss beer until you had a tank Pilsner Urquell (more on that later) on a hot night. It might be a game changer. We know it has been for many guests of our Prague Foodie Tour. We’ve had many beer converts on our tours actually.

The following is a short guide to beer in Prague. Of course, this is in no way comprehensive or exhaustive - most travelers don’t spend more than three nights in Prague, so this mostly for them. The idea here is to get you introduced to the world of Czech beer and get some basic lay of the land, teach you what you should drink and where, what to look for and what to avoid in your Prague beer experience. So let’s do this! Na zdraví! (Which obviously means Cheers in Czech!)

In an ideal world, Hana would have been the first team mate we would have hired. We did talk about her joining us waaaay back when Taste of Prague was just Zuzi and Jan. But we don’t live in an ideal world, and Hana was not ready to leave the big law she was practicing at the time, just like Zuzi did a few years before. Fast forward five years later, and we are incredibly happy to welcome Hana to our small team. She will fit in like a glove - she loves food and other people’s company. She still does practice law a bit, though. (Remember, not living in an ideal world?)

There is something about Hana. She has a calming, soothing presence, and you just can’t help but feel good when she’s around. She’s a great listener with heaps of empathy, and when she talks, you listen. We also assume she hates being bored: she’s a well-travelled fan of food, wine and coffee, an avid skier who likes to bike and hike, and has a keen interest in architecture and urban planning. Oh yes, and movies. You know, the smart kind.

What we’re trying to say she’s busy. Or crazy. One of those two things. But never mind her schedule, she was super quick to give her tips for her five favorite places in Prague and five social media accounts, and not one, not two, but four (!) secret tips for Prague. But that’s just Hanna being Hanna. So here we go!