Prague Food Blog
The best Prague food tips and Prague restaurant guide by Taste of Prague Food Tours. For more insight in Prague food, check out our Prague food tours and our Prague Foodie Map!
Oh, what a year 2017 was. What started rather slowly has become, both for us personally and for Prague’s food scene in general, a year of excitement and hope. Here’s the year 2017 in review, as it relates to the Prague food scene.
(And yes, we did not know what picture to post as the title photo, so we put a pic from Maso a Kobliha with JJ's first hand modeling assignment.)
This post is really one long apology.
You see, if you’ve been reading this blog for some time, you may have noticed that the frequency of our blog posts has decreased in the past years. Well, „decreased“ is a nice way of putting it. We hardly posted anything this year. We’re sorry. We did not die, or split up, or go on a hunger strike. But there’s a reason for the silence, and a change is coming.
Summers in Prague can be excruciating. Especially in the past few years, as Czechia (yup, we’re using the new abbreviated name for the Czech Republic) has been getting more tropical weather from the South. As temperatures reach 30C/85F, the cobblestoned streets heat up, and air-conditioning is hard to find in the Unesco-protected historical centre. Your answer? Ice-cream. In your face, climate change!
But where to go for great ice-cream in Prague? We’ve gathered a few of our favorite ice-cream parlors and a few ice-cream purveyors you should look out for. And a few bonus tips on how to stay cool in summer Prague. Here’s a list of what we think is the best ice-cream in Prague.
Visitors come to Prague not suspecting how much walking they will do: the centre is very compact and it just makes sense to walk everywhere. But boy oh boy, when it gets hot during the Prague summer months, a day of sightseeing can get pretty exhausting. That’s when it is very important to hydrate. And does a splash of alcohol in your drink really hurt? No, we don’t think so either. Recently, a group of Australians who joined our Prague food tour spent the next afternoon in a wine bar opening seven (not a typo, seven) bottle of wine. I think they made more memories - and friends - they ever would walking the city. So really, in a way, this post is not about cool drinks in Prague. Let’s think of it as a post about making cool friends in Prague. (Yes, it is important to rationalise your day drinking on vacation, and we are happy to help.)
Ahhh, the joys of devouring a good steak tartare! One of the most feared - and later one of the most loved - dishes we order in the course of our Prague Food and Culture Tours, beef steak tartare is one of the most popular dishes eaten in Czech pubs and arguably the king of a specifically Czech category of foods found in many Prague restaurants: “snacks that go well with beer”. Forget about the naysayers and fear mongers. You should give it a try in Prague. Where and how? Read on.
The cafes in Prague are great, and the specialty coffee they serve is seriously good. It's easy to forget that or take it for granted. But when we travel, one of the things we miss the most about Prague is coffee. It's really that good.
It hasn't always been the case. Five yeas ago Zuzi came back from the specialty coffee workshop and the number of coffee shops we could visit shrunk to about two or three, much to Jan's dismay. Now when a new cafe opens, it is more likely to have good rather than bad coffee. Sure, they rarely bring anything very new or different to the table, but they are usually good. And it's not only about the "centre" anymore. None of the residential districts that surround it are actually lacking in the specialty coffee department.
So what makes the cafes in Prague so special? Passion. Specialty coffee seems to be a viable career in Prague, and the baristas of Prague's best coffee shops seem to genuinely like what they do. Most of the coffee shops are independently owned and can source their coffee from wherever they wish. Prague's leading specialty coffee roaster has set the prices of coffee fairly low, which means you get great bang for your buck. And at the coffee scene's core lies a community of baristas who know and continue pushing each other. And you generally don't get any attitude or scolding when you want sugar in your coffee.
It's time to reap the benefits. Here's the best cafes in Prague, according to us.
Prague farmers markets are, without a doubt, one of the best things to do in Prague. As a Prague attraction, they are authentic, genuine and popular among the locals. Prague markets are on throughout the year, most typically on Saturday mornings, with an ever-shorter pause in January and February. Visiting Prague farmers markets is a great idea for so many reasons, but primarily, they nicely show what is in season at the particular time of the year and what you should expect - and demand - on the menu in the best restaurants in Prague. We have picked the four best farmers markets in Prague we think are worth visiting. You can find more farmers markets in Prague, but we visit these four the most.
Oops, we did it again. (Oh, this never gets old. Thank you, Britney.)
Yes, we’re happy to announce that the second, updated and improved edition of our Prague Foodie Map, our Prague food guide, is finally out. Our curated selection of the best restaurants in Prague, along with best coffee shops, bistros and bars in town.
The first edition sold out in less than six months (the recommendation in the Food & Wine magazine helped). The new, second and improved edition adds more tips and Prague travel advice, mostly based on two things: (1) our own travels, and (2) the most common questions that get asked on both of our Prague food tours.
We travel quite a bit, and if you’re following us on Instagram (if you don’t, drop everything and do it now), you know it’s mostly for food. And we’ve always wanted to have a reliable, honest guide for each city we travel to, written by a local foodie. With things that only make sense to taste, and nothing more. A guide devoid of cliches and stereotypes. With tips that get you outside of the beaten path. Basically a guide a local would endorse. So we wrote one for Prague. And now you can have it, too.
We're finishing our "Prague Five Faves" series where we are introducing the people behind Taste of Prague. And we saved the best for last: the founder, the enforcer, the visionary: Zuzi.
"Capo di tutti capi.” "Da boss.” “The interrogator.” These are only a few things people say about Zuzi. When she’s not in the room. The truth is that Zuzi runs a very tight ship and likes to be in control of things. Because she cares. She’s not that type of person with a “whatever” attitude. Only the best will do, especially when it comes to the guests of the Taste of Prague tours. And she’s a leader with a strong - and usually the right - opinion. And she’s not afraid to voice it. You know what Zuzi thinks. As Karolina put it during one of our Taste of Prague outings: “Zuzi, you’re tough, but I have never, ever, ever thought you were a b*tch.” Wow, thank you for the compliment! (We were all tipsy.)
Zuzi is also a loving foodie with a discerning palate. Heck, she even quit her good lawyer's position in big law to pursue her passion for food. She’s known for one thing: she will not finish a dish or a cup of coffee she does not like. (Unlike Jan, who can gobble things that are less then perfect because, you know, food.) Which can mean long dry coffee spells during vacations. Or the relative lack of fruits in the winter because, hey, they "don’t taste the way they should”. Yes, Zuzi demands perfection not only from people but also from fruit.
But Zuzi also has one of the biggest hearts you will ever see, and if you’re a friend - or a guest - she will do whatever it takes to help you or make sure you’re happy, and she is genuinely happy for your success. She is the girl behind our “will not write about bad dining experiences” policy because she understands perfection takes time and effort. And that's what makes Zuzi so great: she is the perfect combination of demanding - which is great for what we do - and loving, which is great for everything.
Yes, Christmas is coming in three days or so, and if you are like us, you have just started freaking out when you realized you have no Christmas presents for your loved ones. And your in Prague and you have no idea what to buy as the perfect Czech Christmas present. Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered.
We have put together a small Czech Christmas Presents Guide for your convenience and pleasure. We asked ourselves a simple question: „What should you buy as the perfect Christmas present from Prague?“ It took us some time, but here’s our answers. You will see we’re quite a diverse bunch. Or are we?
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