Taste of Prague Czech Podcast, Ep 6 - Jan Čulík o provozování táborského Thiru

Taste of Prague Czech Podcast, Ep 6 - Jan Čulík o provozování táborského Thiru

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

Vítáme Vás u šestého dílu našeho podcastu v češtině. Tentokrát byl naším hostem Jan Čulík, majitel a provozovatel táborského vinného baru a restaurace Thir a pivnice Výčep.

Pokud sledujete českou gastroscénu již nějakou dobu, Honza Čulík pro vás určitě nebude žádnou neznámou. Majitel a duchovní lídr vinného baru Thir v Táboře a jeden ze členů Družstva, které pořádá pop-up akce na zajímavých místech s ještě zajímavějšími naturálními víny, je známý nejen v Táboře, kde se narodil a kde již nějakou dobu znovu působí, ale i v Praze díky své práci s naturálními víny v karlínském Veltlínu (tenkrát jsme na něj měli zálusk jako na případného kolegu do Taste of Prague, než nám řekl o svém plánu vrátit se do Tábora) a poté v již zmíněném Družstvu. V neposlední řadě je organizátorem táborského food festivalu Naše chutě, který představuje táborskou gastronomii a jehož šestý ročník proběhl tak, aby za sebou zanechal minimální množství odpadu.

S Honzou jsme se potkali v jeho vinném baru Thir, který sází na naturální vína ze střední Evropy a na vaření ze surovin získaných zejména z Tábora a z jeho nejbližšího okolí. Tam už na nás čekal Honza, lahev vína, talíř huspeniny a další pochutiny. A to byl teprve začátek opravdu skvělého dne. Ne, opravdu, pokud jste za Honzou v Táboře ještě nebyli, měli byste to okamžitě napravit. Vlak z Prahy je v Táboře za hodinu a patnáct minut a výlet opravdu stojí za to. Tábor má neopakovatelnou atmosféru a pro zhýčkaného foodie z velkoměsta překvapivě vyspělou gastro scénu. A Honza je jejím největším ambasadorem.

Nesnášíme rozhovory, kdy Pražáci přijedou na „maloměsto“ a soucitně se ptají, jaký je to boj, provozovat v podstatě velkoměstský koncept v prostředí „vesnice“. Co je právě skvělé na Honzovi i jeho Thirovi a Výčepu je to, že nevytvořil „ostrov“, který čeká jen na hosty z Prahy nebo jinde ze světa, aby se pak nechal oslavovat jako hrdina, který přes nesnáze a nepochopení místních tvrdohlavě provozuje něco, co by se uživilo jenom na velkoměstě.

Naopak, Honza se snaží vytvořit koncept, který je sice inspirován děním jinde ve světě, ale je pevně zakotven v Táboře a okolí a který propojuje místní producenty s místními spotřebiteli a který místním milovníkům vína vychází v mnoha ohledech vstříc. A zároveň láká hosty odjinud, ale opět je neizoluje od Tábora, ale naopak je s Táborem propojuje. A propojování a snaha utvářet místní dění a být jeho součástí je vidět i v jeho činnosti na místní politické scéně, o které se v podcastu bavíme též.

No nic, pokud si chcete poslechnout, jaké to je provozovat v podstatě velkoměstský koncept v prostředí „vesnice“, určitě si tento podcast poslechněte. Sakra.


Prague off the beaten path: Vinohrady district

Prague off the beaten path: Vinohrady district

The Vinohrady district is a place of many appeals. Originally a place for vineyards (which is what “Vinohrady” means, anyway), Vinohrady witnessed a population boom in the late 19th and early 20th century, becoming the fourth biggest town in the Czech Republic alone before it became a part of Prague in 1922. It is a district of affluence and beauty, with Art Deco houses and lush trees and beautiful parks overlooking either the centre or other parts of the city. It is also very popular among expats and young professional: it is very near the centre, but not directly in it, and it has nearly everything you’d want for a comfortable life. If you live in Vinohrady, there would be very few motives to move out of it.

And it is also a great place for other things: Vinohrady has probably the highest concentration of specialty coffee places in Prague: it actually boasts more good cafes than the central district. It is also a great place for Vietnamese, Mexican or Italian food, with some fancy fast food thrown into the mix. And the Jirak farmers’ markets can be a reason alone to move in. What to see, where to eat and what to drink? Here’s our Vinohrady neighborhood guide.


Taste of Prague Czech Podcast, Ep 5 - Katka Jakusová o stáži v kodaňské Nomě

Taste of Prague Czech Podcast, Ep 5 - Katka Jakusová o stáži v kodaňské Nomě

Vítáme Vás u čtvrtého dílu našeho podcastu v češtině. Tentokrát byl naším hostem Katka Jakusová, zástupkyně šéfkuchaře v karlínské Esce.

Pokud si někdy zajdete na jídlo nebo na kávu do Esky, zastavte se chvilku u dveří a podívejte se do otevřené kuchyně. Trkne vás něco? Ne? Třeba věkový průměr kuchařů a kuchařek v kuchyni? Podle nás v Praze není kuchyně oceněná Michelinským průvodcem, kde by měli mladší kuchyni. A pokud u stolu, kde se jídla kompletují a vydávají, uvidíte kuchařku v brýlých a s tetováním na rukou, vězte, že je to zástupkyně šéfkuchaře a že se jmenuje Katka Jakusová.

No a právě s Katkou jsme se potkali nad dnešním dílem našeho českého podcastu z jednoho hlavního důvodu: byla na tříměsíční stáži v kodaňské restauraci Noma. (Pokud jsme posledních pár let nesledovali dění ve světové gastronomii nebo žili někde v jeskyni bez připojení k internetu, pak byste asi měli vědět, že Noma je slavná restaurace pod vedením šéfkuchaře René Redzepiho, která je podle téměř všech existujících žebříčků jednou z nejlepších restaurací na světě.)

My jsme shodou v okolností v Nomě během Katčiny stáže jedli a už tenkrát nám říkala, že stáž v Nomě je pro ni jedinečným zážitkem. Vyplatilo se to ale? Doporučila by stáž v Nomě jiným kuchařům nebo dokonce nekuchařům? Jak stresující práce v Nomě je? A jak se tam vůbec dostala a jak dlouho to trvalo vyřídit? A zvládla by Noma večerní servis, kdyby všichni stážisti šli ráno do stávky? Na to všechno jsme se Katky zeptali, stejně jako na její dojmy z Kodaně a na práci v mladém kolektivu v Esce.

Přejeme příjemný poslech!


Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 11 - Gwilym Davies, coffee judge and barista trainer

Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 11 - Gwilym Davies, coffee judge and barista trainer

We have written before about how good the Prague coffee scene is. There’s a few reasons why, but we did mention one specific contributing factor: the power duo of Petra Vesela and her UK-born husband, Gwilym Davies, who happens to be the 2009 World Barista Champion.

They may have met under some interesting circumstances: we will just mention a death threat during a coffee competition, judges locked in the judges room… and a bottle of whiskey in the very same room, a leftover from an Irish coffee preparation before. For the rest of the story, you will just have to listen to the podcast. Anyway, Gwilym came over to see Petra in Jílové, a village near Prague, and the rest is history.

Gwilym is an incredibly interesting guest to interview because…

  • He is in a unique position to compare Prague and London coffee scenes (which we do a lot of in the podcast), since he owns a stake in Prufrock coffee in London but lives in Prague

  • He was one of the pioneers of the Third Wave Coffee revolution, having learnt the craft in New Zealand and brining it to Europe. He was right there with James Hoffmann and Scott Rao, the people who have helped define what a specialty coffee operation looks like.

  • He and Petra own a barista training centre that will train anybody from the general public to baristas who are about to compete in the World Barista Championships. You always see Gwilym and Petra in a Prague coffee shop with a barista from Korea, Japan or Australia who flew over just to have their presentation fine tuned by Gwilym and Petra, who are both certified judges for high-profile barista championships and events.

  • He is now also a roaster under The Naughty Dog label, taking on a different role in his never-ending quest and thirst for knowledge.

As a result, Gwilym has helped cultivate and improve the coffee scene in Prague through his trainings and sheer presence, and has been a connecting link between Prague’s coffee culture and the rest of the coffee world. But as you will hear in the podcast, he has learnt a thing or two from Czech baristas, and brought some of that knowledge with him back to London and Prufrock Coffee.

Finally, Gwilym is a super nice guy that is just a pleasure to talk to. We sat for about 40 minutes in Kafe Pragovka during the Czech Barista Championships, and despite the noise in the coffee shop and at the event (sorry about that!), we had an absolute blast talking to Gwilym.

This is some of the things we discussed with Gwilym during the interview:

  • What does he like about the Prague coffee scene.

  • How does it compare to the London coffee scene.

  • Does he feel a part of the Prague coffee scene, or London coffee scene? In terms of the clientele, the drinks, the quality of coffee, or the living standards of baristas?

  • Is there anything specific about the Prague coffee scene?

  • How long will he continue to judge barista competitions? Has he ever faced any threats as a judge?

  • When was the last time he saw a presentation as a judge that was, well… different or surprising in any way?

  • Does he ever plan to open a coffee shop in Prague or the Czech Republic?

  • What does he miss from the UK?

  • What are the things he would miss from the Czech Republic if he were to move back to the UK?

There you have it. Hope it Enjoy the podcast!


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Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 10 - Taste of Prague's Travel Tips

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Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 10 - Taste of Prague's Travel Tips

Alright, this is the moment some of you have been waiting for - Zuzi joining Jan behind the mike, and giving some tips about the way we travel. Now, if you’ve been following us for some time, you know that we love to travel, and we have been getting many questions by email and social media about our particular way of traveling. So when we invited everyone to post questions about a month ago on our Instagram feed, we did expect some questions, but we did not expect so many.

As a result, we have decided to record two separate episodes: one about our travel in general, and a second one (later on) about our travel with JJ (now over 2 years old) as a family. We got lots of questions about both and we thought that the answers would be too long for a single episode, and that the questions about family travel with a toddler would be irrelevant to many. The first episode comes out today, and please stay tuned for the second one… eventually.

We have also edited the questions a bit, combining what really were the same questions, but perhaps worded differently. We also skipped questions asking for tips for various destinations because again - answering them would take a long time and would be irrelevant for many. If you need tips for specific destinations, please have a look at our Instagram highlights, or send us an email. We’ll do our best.

We recorded the podcast in the cinema of the Bokovka wine bar and had a lot of fun doing it. We actually recorded it twice, because we were unhappy about how the first recording turned out. But hey, having more wine while recording worked wonders the second time around. Go figure. These are some of the topics we have discussed:

  • When did we start traveling and where?

  • How many trips do we take per year?

  • How do we choose our destinations?

  • Which countries have we visited?

  • What has been our favorite destination so far? Which destination had the best food?

  • Any dream destination we want to visit? Or any places we do NOT want to see and why?

  • How did Jan overcome his fear of flying?

  • How do we buy our flight tickets?

  • How do we choose the type and location of accommodations?

  • How do we research restaurants?

  • Do we book tables at restaurants ahead of time?

  • How much planning is involved in our travels?

  • How do we deal with language barriers?

So stuff like that. The answers take about an hour, but we tried to be brief. Oh, and one more thing: we drop names of products and services during the podcast. We are not affiliated with any of them, and none of the mentions have been paid for in any way. It’s just the products and services we have been using in our travels, nothing more.

Thank you for all those questions, and we hope you like this episode!


Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 9 - Brewsta, Prague Burger Enthusiast and Food Blogger

Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 9 - Brewsta, Prague Burger Enthusiast and Food Blogger

To quote David Letterman, my next guest needs no introduction. That is, if you’ve been living in Prague for the past decade or so and have had a keen interest in food. The one, the only, Czech Please, aka Brewsta, aka the Masked Food Critic. Okay, I made that last one up - got carried away a bit here.

Anyway, Brewsta started his Prague-centric English-writted food blog back in 2007, as the first… ehhh… Prague-centric English-writted food blog back then. There literally was nothing else - either the horribly metaphoric (and secretly distorted by hidden friendships and behind-the-back deals) Czech restaurant reviews in the mainstream media, or Brewsta. We followed him religiously, and if I am ever diagnosed with diabetes, I will blame all the chocolate fondants I ate because of Brewsta in between, let’s say 2009 and 2012. Amazingly, the blog is still live, and I think this is the only reason why blogspot as a platform should never be unplugged from the interwebs.

What has ready made Brewsta famous around Prague have been his Prague burger rankings, a tradition of 13 years now. Ranking anywhere between the city’s best 20 to 30 burgers, Brewsta is putting his body on the line so that you don’t have to. And people listen. I am always amazed how even Czechs who normally do not follow English-speaking food-related outlets can list the top five burgers out of Brewsta’s list every single year.

Another thing that you should know about Brewsta is his strong desire to stay anonymous through his entire blogging career and a strong separation of his private life from his blogging life. So we avoid questions that might in any way reveal his real identity. 

Which was a bummer for us - we wanted to conduct the interview in a burger joint, seeing Brewsta do what he does best: eat and rate a burger. But he does not want to draw attention to himself and let people in the food industry know what he looks like. Luckily, the good people at Mr. HotDog made a special delivery to the door of our Taste of Prague apartment where we held the interview, so you will hear Brewsta munching away at their delicious beef sliders and listen to his burger ranking process. 

We also discuss his 2020 Prague burger rankings that came out on the day of the interview, his experience as an expat living in Prague for 20+ years, the sustainability and the environmental footprint of the beef industry, and whether he will ever rate vegetarian or vegan burgers. Listen away, Brewsta is a great guy to meet and interview.


Taste of Prague Czech Podcast, Ep 4 - Tomáš Berdych o cestování a jídle

Taste of Prague Czech Podcast, Ep 4 - Tomáš Berdych o cestování a jídle

Vítám Vás u třetího dílu našeho podcastu v češtině. Tentokrát byli naším hostem Gabi a Petr, food bloggeři píšící pod názvem PG Foodies, manželé a od nového roku majitelé a provozovatelé bistra Etapa v Karlíně. 

Zuzka vždycky žertem říká, že jako každý absolvent filozofické fakulty jsem měl vždy sen otevřít si vlastní kavárnu, abych si tam mohl žvanit s ostatními. Trochu kruté, ale v jádru pravdivé. Je taky záhodno přiznat, že během slabších chvilek jsme se se Zuzkou zamýšleli nad tím, že bychom si otevřeli něco vlastního, ale záhy jsme tu myšlenku opustili - na vlastní podnik máme příliš rádi cestování, navíc bychom se asi po týdnu zcela určitě rozvedli.

Gabi a Petr, kteří už blogují o jídle čtvrtým rokem a kteří minulý rok vyhráli hlavní kategorii soutěže Food blog roku, si vlastní podnik otevřeli - Etapu v pražském Karlíně. Hodně se na něm nadřeli. Všechno dokumentovali na Instagramu. A nerozvedli se.


Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 8 - Journalist Joann Plocková

Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 8 - Journalist Joann Plocková

Influencers, as a new phenomenon in travel and food, never cease to fascinate us. And we are not talking about the Kardashian lookalikes that will try to sell you anything from energy water to teeth whitening products. We are talking about the people who you may not follow, or even know about, but influencer the way you eat or travel even without you realizing it. And when you think about it, journalists are the prototypical influencers. So you read an article about a destination and though hmmm, that sounds nice… maybe we could go there next year, what interests me is who wrote that piece, who edited it and in what way, who decided to run it in the first place, and so on.

Which brings us to the guest of Episode 8 of our little podcast, Joann Plocková. Joann is travel and design writer who has written pieces for the likes of The New York Times, Monocle, AFAR (once about us, yay!), Financial Times, Conde Nast Traveller and others. And she also wrote a part of the Louis Vuitton guide for Prague and the Wallpaper guide for Prague. Talk about influencing the way you travel! 

Anyway, Joann is one of the nicest writers we have ever worked with - she does not just phone it in (and believe us, we have worked with multiple journalists who hardly did anything but phoning it in, and they are, sadly, influencers too) and she takes her research and writing very seriously. She also happens to be a US expat who has been living in Prague steadily since 2007 and has a unique perspective on Prague and Central Europe as a whole.

We met in the great Ronin Coffee Spot in the Vinohrady district and chatted about her life as an expat in Prague, about the hustle of being a freelance journalist, about the success rate of her pitches (you’ll be surprised - she knows a thing or two about pitching), and about a thing that I have been discussing quite a bit: who actually writes the narrative about a destination, and can locals do anything about it? Like when Buzzfeed puts out a picture of the horrendous trdelník pastry and in a few weeks, it becomes the most Instagrammed food of Prague, while local foodies just shake their heads in bitter disbelief, is there anything we can do to change that?

Anyway, if you have ever though about influencers, narratives of different destinations, or ever though about being a freelance journalist or travel writer, this episode is for you.


Best Coffee Shops in Prague, 2020 edition

Best Coffee Shops in Prague, 2020 edition

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.


Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 7 - Chef Bára Simunková

Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 7 - Chef Bára Simunková

Okay, all Czech chefs who worked, not staged, in multiple three-Michelin star restaurants in a big city abroad, hands up! Okay, there must be only one. Bára Šimůnková has worked in Eleven Madison Park, Le Bernardin and Per Se, three 3-Michelin stars in New York City. Again, was not there on a stage (except Eleven Madison Park) - she actually worked there as a line chef. And now she’s coming back and is hopefully due to open a restaurant in Prague in the spring. Oh yeah, and she’s not even 30.

Anyway, we have heard of Bára when she came back and worked at our favorite bakery in Prague, Praktika, and it was nearly mythical: „have you heard of this Bára? She worked at Per Se and Le Bernardin and she’s amazing.“ And as will be revealed in the podcast, she was praised by Paul Day when he hired her for Sansho as her first job out of school. Given all that, it’s a wonder that Bára has been moving below the radar and has not been filling the title pages of major Czech cooking and food magazines.

Maybe it’s because she’s laser-focused and does not waste a lot of time. She knows what she wants and does not take sh*t from anybody. When she felt being passed over for promotion because she was a girl from the East, she went straight to the managers to talk it over. When she arrived in NYC, she basically sent emails to what she thought were the best five restaurants in town, and got a response from three right away.

And now she’s back and due to open a restaurant in Prague. What are the differences between chef life in NYC and Prague? How does she feel about the Prague food scene, having come back from the best restaurants of NY? How demanding is work in a three-Michelin restaurant? What will her Prague restaurant be all about? Listen to find out. Enjoy the podcast with Bára!


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