What is St Martin’s Day and why should you care?
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.
Where can you get St Martin’s goose?
Now, last year’s St Martin feast was a take out affair (thank you, lockdowns!), but this year you can actually have a seat indoors for a change (at least for now). This is a very popular event, so please make a reservation before you arrive at a restaurant, having starved all day and preparing to chuck a whole bird inside.
Výčep
Not many restaurants in Prague do proper, comforting Czech cuisine as well as Vinohrady’s Výčep. Chef Jirka Hrachový has prepared a St Martin tray with goose leg confit for four, dumplings and cabbage, along with goose kaldoun soup, a “májka” paté from goose livers and foie gras, or pan-fried goose livers. We are yet to have meh food from Výčep - everything there was top notch, and we see no reason why this should be different.
(Full disclaimer: we run social media for Výčep, but that doesn’t change the fact it’s a great restaurant and would be on the top of our list even if we didn’t have a business relationship.)
Ossegg
Ossegg has been consistently punching way above its weight. The little craft beer pub that could now offers a great-looking menu that combines classics with some delicious newbies like the pan-fried foie gras with onion-apple cabbage, or the bun with dried goose ham. They also have an insane take out box for 4 to 6 people that includes their St Martin beer special and kolache. CZK 2895 to be ordered one day in advance, but it’s a big box.
ČERVENÝ JELEN
The 700-seat modern pub that seemed too big to not fail at the beginning, only to become a super popular space now, is offering a St Martin goose menu by chef Marek Fichtner, and it all looks good: you can get a whole bird or a quarter with chestnut dumplings, red cabbage with orange and star anise, and Brussel sprouts with bacon. Yum! Add an irresponsible amounts of Pilsners and their sweet buns with goose fat, rum custard and plum jam at your peril.
U Bansethů
The iconic Nusle pub, famous for their ducks, will be baking geese in their rotisserie like there’s no tomorrow. You can get a whole bird for four (Jesus help us), or just a quarter, with two types of cabbage and dumplings, as the Lord intender. Add their goose liver paté with almonds, kolache and St Martin’s wines, and you get yourself a good time.
Kastrol
Kastrol has always been one of our favorite Czech pubs in town, despite the location that can easily be described as… ahem… remote. Anyway, if you live on the left bank somewhere there, this is a fantastic option for you. Reservations are a must, and the menu has some really nice options that go beyond the classic offerings: how about potato pancakes stuffed with pulled goose? Or goose with cholet, for a slightly Central/Eastern European Jewish spin? Or goose headcheese or goose paté with Port wine? Yum!
Mlýnec
Mlýnec, the upscale restaurant by the Charles Bridge, is following up on their classic tradition and throws St Martin’s brunches on the 11th and over the weekend. Their Instagram suggests goose in many forms and sizes, with sweet buns and other desserts. And probably St Martin’s wine. Mlýnec does brunches right (meaning they involve drinking).
Čestr and Kantýna
Sister restaurants Čestr and Kantýna may be known for beef and pork, but they are part of the St Martin’s goose craze this year. Čestr has some 200 portions available from Thursday through Saturday, and they include the classics (different parts of goose, soup, paté) but also goose necks. Kantýna has classic parts of goose with two types of cabbage and two types of dumpling. They also offer whole uncooked birds for you to take home (must preorder).
Café Imperial
Chef Pohlreich’s flagship restaurant offers a classic goose menu: rillettes for starters, kaldoun soup and classic roasted goose with dumplings and white cabbage. This is your place if you want to eat with a view and a Belle Epoque feel. The Next Door restaurant across the street offers goose with red cabbage and foie gras parfait instead of the rillettes.
Café Savoy
The Czech/French grand café offers St Martin’s sets for two or four for take out, but you can also reserve a table to eat in, obviously. The sets include goose, two types of dumplings and cabbage (the raspberry red cabbage sounds great), potato pancakes, kaldoun soup and kolache, available from Thursday through Saturday. Their St Martin’s wine offerings also looks great - two dry wines without official certification, but from the otherwise natural wine cellar from Kutná Hora, which seems to be a more adult choice. Yes!
Krystal bistro
The Karlín staple has a thing for geese - goose or duck confit have always been on the menu in one way or another. This year, they offer - in addition to a classic dining-in experience, a St Martin’s take out bag for two at CZK 995: kaldoun soup, rillettes, and obviously roast goose with either cabbage and dumplings, or lentils. Plus dessert. You can choose your sides when ordering the meal online.
Vinohradský parlament
Vinohradský parlament, one of the nicest pubs after the redesign, offers a true goose bonanza - a whole bird for 4 to 6 people (comes with a bottle of St Martin’s wine, and must be ordered 48 hrs in advance), classic goose confits and grilled goose breast with buckwheat, smoked breasts and goose paté, and whole lotta dumplings and dumpling combinations, which is their thing. Sounds fun!
Vinograf
Vinograf, one of the pioneers in promoting local wines to the local audience (many people tend to forget that) is a place where St Martin goose and St Martin wines collide. The menu has all the classics - goose confit, goose paté, goos kaldoun soup, and sweet potato dumplings with poppies and plum jam for dessert. But this is mostly a place where you want to explore young wines, obviously.
Lokál
Each Lokál pub operates independently of each other to some degree, but it has been announced that virtually all of them will offer geese one way or another, but every pub will take a different approach. Check your Instagram and/or Facebook in the coming days to see what is on offer. The perfect pairing? Their fresh Pilsners, of course. Drink responsibly.
La Farma
We actually went for St Martin’s lunch to La Farma, this small restaurant at the far end of Vinohrady, in 2019, and we really liked it. The restaurant has the atmosphere of a family-run trattoria, but a Czech one, with what seemed to be a loyal following of regulars, and the food was tasty, too. Their menu features St Martin goose for one (or a whole bird to pre-order), goose paté, kaldoun soup and sweet potato pancakes with plum jam.
There will be other restaurants rolling out their own specials for sure, although they may not be online as of yet. We’re betting Chef Pohlreich’s restaurants will have something, and U Matěje probably too. We’d keep an eye on those, if you’re fans.
Just one thing to be mindful of - all the family sets must be ordered in advance, so don’t expect to roll on at 11am on St Martin’s Day without a reservation and taking a family set home with you. Be smart, preorder, and be the family hero for once.
St Martin’s wine
And how about St Martin wines? Well, with 2.34 million bottles to be made available on November 11 (a record number thus far), we’re sure you can get your hands on some. Given the very short time to age these young wines, St Martin’s wines are „happy“, drinkable wines that are aromatic and may have a tiny bit of sugar in them. Expect a good time, not a sombre contemplation over the wine’s complexity by the fireplace. Here’s a full list of all the certified St Martin’s wines this year.
We suggest you go to a wine bar and consult with a sommelier there, rather than just buying some in the supermarket. Not all St Martin wines are made equal, and there’s no point in drinking bad St Martin wine if you can have a decent one. We have recognised a few “household names” in Moravian winemaking on the list (think Mádl, Zapletal, Gotberg, Sedlák or Kosík) but we wonder if they are any guarantee of quality here.
Natural St Martin’s wines? Not really, at least under the official branding. Serving young wines really goes against the whole philosophy of the low-intervention movement. But you can get some your natural wines, albeit without the official certification. This year, we’ve noticed young wines by Dobrá vinice and Syfany, available from Etapa and Veltlin in the Karlín district, and Trikoloniál above Smíchov. Cheers!
In any case, happy St Martin’s Day, and drink responsibly!