Easy. St Martin’s Day falls on the 11th of November and it celebrates St Martin of Tours, one of the first „non-Martyr saints“, a soldier-turned-Bishop who lived in the 4th Century. There are many legends surrounding his life, but only a few are relevant for us specifically.

Namely, it’s St Martin goose, St Martin rolls, St Martin wines, and St Martin arriving on a white horse.

Traditionally, St Martin is said to be arriving on a white horse, meaning that November 11 tends to coincide with the first snow of the winter season. Well, due to a little thing called climate change, this hasn’t been the case very much lately. Still, St Martin is the day on which you feast on comfort food before the Nativity Fast hits on November 28: there’s a few legends involving geese and St Martin (they either made loud, annoying noises during his sermons, or he hid among geese when they came over to make him a Bishop, and they ratted him out - in any case, they misbehaved and must be punished one way or the other), but the fact is St Martin goose with cabbage or sauerkraut and dumplings is an absolute St Martin’s Day classic, along with sweet rolls filled with either nuts or poppies.

St Martin’s wines are a much newer thing in the Czech Republic, although they do follow some historical logic - St Martin was about the day when winemakers stopped working for the masters who hired them. Marketing-wise, the denomination of St Martin’s wine was introduced as late as in 2005, as a Czech and Moravian response to Beaujolais Nouveau wines. Not all young wine are eligible to be St Martin wines. Only some grapes qualify (the more aromatic whites like Muller Thurgau, Moravian Muscat and Veltliner Frührot, and St Laurent, Blauer Portugieser and Zweigeltrebe for reds and rosés), and allowed residual sugar is capped. All wines that want to bear the denomination must be approved by an independent committee. In 2020, 328 wines by 80 wineries will bear the mark.

We have realised information about the Covid situation and Covid restrictions in the Czech Republic - written in English - is scarce. So we’ve decided we will write a blog post about what is closed in the Czech Republic and what is open, if you can enter the Czech Republic and on what conditions, what are the current Covid and vaccination numbers, and so on. We will be update this on a weekly basis until it is no longer needed. (Which will be hopefully soon.)

Enough chit chat, let’s do this.

With restaurants in Prague open for outdoor dining, and their opening for indoor dining so far uncertain, the hottest question is town right now is where to eat outside. So below are some of our favorites.

Before we get to the list, just two notes:

1. The odds of your favorite restaurant having outdoor seating are pretty high: restaurants knew they would be allowed to open for outdoor seating first, so they made sure to have at least a few tables open outside. If you’re not sure, pick up the phone and call them.

2. Wear one extra layer. Not sure about you, but we are finding this year’s „spring“ quite cold.

Anyway, here’s our favorite Prague restaurants with outdoor seating.

A few weeks ago, we posted about our favorite bakeries in Prague specifically for bread. This time around, we will have a look at our favorite bakeries or coffee shops for something sweet.

And boy do we know a thing or two about „something sweet“. If you’ve been following us, you surely know we’re on a never-ending #kolachehunt, and we rarely say no to something sweet along with our coffee. So while our bodies suffer, why can’t you get something out of our… ahem… research?

Three notes about the list: there will be some overlap with the bread list - some bakeries just make delicious bread AND great sweet stuff. Also, please note that we will not be including pastry shops in here - let’s leave that for another post. Finally, we will not be including coffee shops that resell baked stuff from other producers. Everything mentioned in this list is made in house. Enjoy!

St Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching, and what better way to show your love and appreciation for your better half than not kill them and yourself after a year of being stuck in quarantine together? Oh yeah, a Valentine’s Day dinner. Sure, forgot about that one.

But unless a miracle happens in the next few days, Prague will still be spending Valentine’s Day in a shutdown, so a romantic dinner will have to be a home affair. Again. But you can still win at life and become the hero your loved one deserves by getting a great take-out dinner for that special occasion and that special lady or man and finishing it at home in style. This is where we come in with this overview of what’s available.

Now, before you proceed, you might want to check out our guidelines to enjoying a take-out meal at home. It covers things like properly ordering, timing your meal, finishing dishes and plating. In addition, we have prepared a very special Valentine’s Day playlist for you, you romantic you. Click here to set the mood right. (Try if it works beforehand. There is nothing less sexy than someone „figuring out how this damn thing works“ when you should be at your romantic best.)

(Picture from Salabka.cz)

Let us start with a confession: before the whole Covid thing, we had never ordered takeout food home. Ever. The whole idea of Taste of Prague was showing the best food and the best experiences money can buy in Prague, especially if you’re visiting from abroad, so ordering take-out food home would have defeated the whole purpose.

Well, a year into this goddamn pandemic, things are a bit different. If our math is correct, indoor dining was allowed in Prague for only 15 days out of the last 100 days, so if you ever found the need to eat during that time, you either had to cook, or order take-out. And while Zuzi is an amazing cook (have you seen our Instagram lately?), she also needs some rest. So take-out food has become a firm part of our reality.

Today, we’re going to look at some of our favorite take-out food options in Prague, but before we list them out, let’s set up some basic rules of take-out.

So 2020 is behind us. Right now, everything’s shut down and indoor dining is out. Our daily new coronavirus infections in the Czech Republic have reached record highs, so no one can predict when indoor dining will be an option again. Things look bleak at the moment but hey, let’s look at the silver lining here.

This can be an opportunity for a change. A change for the better. It may seem like an odd idea to complain at this particular moment, but we honestly see this as a challenge, and opportunity to improve.

Trust us - we’re coming from the hospitality and tourism industry and we are not alone in thinking we don’t want to go „back to normal“ when it comes to tourism in Prague. Tourism in Prague, or at least the mass tourism in the historical centre, was absolutely insufferable before the pandemic, and we are the first ones to admit it. So while we’re looking for ways to improve our own operation and its impact on the local community if and when tourism gets back, we think a few suggestions to the food scene in Prague won’t hurt. So here we go.

We’ve been writing these annual round-ups for quite some time but year 2020 has been… well, you know. Difficult. You’d say a list of new openings for 2020 would be very short. Well, we’re happy to report you’d be wrong. Sure, Prague’s cocktail scene, for instance, did not experience a Big Bang in 2020, for obvious reasons, but the coffee scene has added a few hefty players. And there’s a few new restaurants, too. Yes, crazy.

Let’s get to it.

We’ve been writing Prague Christmas and NYE dining guide for a few years now. But just like with everything else, the guide in 2020 will be different - our current shutdown prevents us from eating outside during the holiday season, so we will be focusing on take-out and pre-made meals for the home.

Now, for the readers abroad: the vast majority of Czechs eat their Christmas Eve dinner at home in the circle of their closest family, and the dinner tends to steer towards fish, especially carp, which is the traditional fish for Christmas that is sold on the streets live in the days leading up to the holiday. Some people opt for salmon or other fish that may be easier to work with (carp is notoriously boney and requires heavy prep work) or for meat (think schnitzels).

But in our household, we began to eat out for Christmas Eve years ago, after a misfortunate Christmas Eve when Zuzi’s just about had it with all the preparations and family members showing up late or not showing up at all. It was a revelation: we realised that many families ate outside and we have thoroughly enjoyed the relaxing and trouble-free experience of Christmas Eve, as opposed to the stressed out and labour-intensive Christmas Eves we remember from our childhoods.

Now, this being 2020, things are obviously different. Restaurants were ordered to shut down about ten days before Christmas Eve and are unlike to open before… well… we’re guessing late January, early February? So eating out for Christmas Eve is out. But do you have to slave over the Christmas Eve dinner, or are there different options? Have restaurants come to the rescue?

We’ve done a bit of research, and the short answer is yes. Below is a summary of the take-out options and meal kits for your Christmas cheer. Enjoy the holidays whatever you do, okay?

Disclaimer: before you read the following, please be informed we own two pairs of Michelin tires on our car. They are great, and I recommend them. Also, this is Jan's writing and his opinions may not represent the opinions of the entire Taste of Prague team. Zuzi told me to write this.

We have covered the Michelin guide's choices for Prague in the past here, liking them to celebrities to explain them better if you've never been to any. The new Michelin Main Cities of Europe guide for 2020 is officially out, and so are Michelin's recommendations for Prague. Let's have a look, shall we?