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.

Before we get to the list, a modest disclaimer: The place you love has not made the list? Sorry! Please don’t hate. It’s just perhaps we have not noticed. We will be happy if you let us know in a private message. Thanks.

What shut down in 2019

Let’s get over this quick because the list is surprisingly short. Café Lounge was, in a way, an institution that did everything right: Chef Cerny, one of Prague’s most talented chefs, cooked what we thought were some of the best lunches in town (although we’ve heard the increased pricing did not sit well with the regulars), the coffee was as you’d expect from one of the pioneering specialty coffee shops in town, and the natural wines from Veltlin hit the mark, too. We obviously don’t know anything specific but we’ve heard the shutdown is due to possible tensions within the complicated ownership structure. Allegedly.

Milada, the neo-bistro in the Letná district, shut down so abruptly the chefs allegedly learnt on the day. What a shame. We had one of the best lunches of the year in Milada just a week or two before it closed. Probably goes to show a new reality on the Prague food scene: unless you compete on price, you cannot and will not survive without at least a bit of a marketing effort or proactive communication.

Finally, Sólista, the tiny espresso bar in the Letná district, shut down just before Christmas. What a shame. It’s the second coffee shop to shut down on Milady Horákové street in 2019 (the Prague location of Karlovy Vary-based Café Republika being the first one), but why did it have to be this one? Anyway, the owner wants to travel more, but we know he’ll be back eventually. You can’t escape the Curse of Cheap Pilsner forever, you know.

KRO Kitchen. our opening of the year 2019

NEW PRAGUE FOOD OPENINGS OF 2019

The list is honestly too long, so let’s start with what we think were the two major ones.

Two major openings of 2019

KRO Kitchen is our opening of the year. The team behind Chef Vojta Václavík (click here to listen to our podcast interview with Vojta) know what they are doing: fast food based on local Czech ingredients, but made in a way that feels „cheffy“, and, on occasions, dare we say healthy? (Butter is healthy, right?) No, really, this is the kind of place we’d eat at all the time - great food with some fine-dining techniques but without the fuss and wrapped in a quick, easy to digest form (pun intended). We hope to see more locations of KRO, because this is the way forward.

U Matěje is another major opening of 2019. Chef Punčochář, one of Czech Masterchef judges and a staple on the Prague fine-dining scene, has opened a „glorified pub in an area where rich people live“, as we pitch it to the guests of our Prague food tours. This is what a modern pub should be: great beer, great Czech cuisine that shows quite a bit of technique and packs a lot of flavor. U Matěje has quickly become extremely popular, and for a reason: this is what Czechs like. We are yet to dine at „Chef Punčochář’s Table“, as they call the chef’s fine dining private set menu, but will report on it soon. One minor complaint: why not more Czech wines on the menu?

We are happy to report that both of the two major openings of 2019 were creating modern Czech food. We hope to see more of the same in 2020.

Asian

It was bound to happen sooner or later, and it happened in 2019: Prague has finally witnessed a full on invasion of ramen, so now you don’t have to take a drive to Berlin’s Cocolo Ramen anymore. First it was BON Fresh Ramen and Udon and Miska Ramen in the Vinohrady district, followed by Isai Ramen Bistro (who have just received a great write up in The Eater) in, of all places, the Petriny area, followed by Taiko in Zizkov. Final contender? Takumi over at Senovážné náměstí. While we would have killed for any of these a few years ago, our heart and money so far goes to Isai. Chef Yoshi trained at Ippudo, a Japanese ramen chain, whose location in Lower East Side in NY draws incredible crowds of people willing to wait for two hours, and we’re in that line, so that’s that. If you’ve ever been to Japan, this will definitely feel the closest.

Tamarind Tree, a popular pop-up and market stall that focuses on dim sum dumplings and affiliated Asian grub, has finally opened its permanent location, taking the space of what used to be known as Richard’s Kitchen, near the Botanical garden. Open for lunches and then once a month for dinner (or something like that), the team seems to have come to its own in a permanent kitchen. Good stuff. We also like J’s Kitchen, a simple Korean takeaway space that serves bowls of rice with different proteins. Probably not something we’d travel across town for for a romantic dinner (the restaurant has precisely zero chairs), but if we lived in the Vinohrady district, we could easily see ourselves getting their comforting takeaway dishes quite regularly.

The people behind SaSaZu, the upscale Asian fusion restaurant in the Holesovice market, have opened Hanzu, a smaller bistro, in the place that used to be occupied by Bistro Kaprova. It’s too early to see how this will go - while we love most of the SaSaZu dishes on Hanzu’s menu, the rents in Karlova have proved too much for a few restaurants in the past few years, while the exposure to mass tourism hasn’t proved to be much of help for upscale establishments on Kaprova. (The KFC a block away is doing just fine, thanks for asking.)

Two new places that focus on the other cuisine that you should try in Prague - Vietnamese - opened in 2019. First, Pho Bar opened early in the year in the Florenc area. It would be just another pho place (and we have quite a few in Prague) if it had not been opened by Mai, one half of the Viet Food Friends duo of Vietnamese Czech food bloggers who originally introduced Vietnamese cuisine to the general Czech public. And having tasted through the menu, it quickly grabbed „our favorite Vietnamese spot“ spot. Their pickled garlic should be served with everything. EVERYTHING! And Banh Mí Makers have opened a new location in the Letná district. It’s bigger, as a more ambitious menu and a kid’s corner. Yay! Last place: Závitkárna in Letná seems to be a cool spot for Asian-inspired rolls, feeling somewhat similar to the Onigirazu place nearby: cute, hip, fun.

Meat

2019 was also a great year for people who love meat. (But then again, every year is a great year for people who love meat, if those people happen to live in the Czech Republic.) Anyway, 2016 called, and it wants its pastrami back: it seems that after a few years of hiatus, pastrami is back: The Bros, the symbiotic brother/sister of The Bowls next door, and the Meat Vandals operating a stationary food truck and a brick and mortar place in the New Town, both offer their version of a pastrami sandwich. And both are nice and honest. (Although Jan is an old-fashioned guy and would love to see a version on rye, with mustard and a pickle. The modern versions seem overdressed and served in bread that is too sweet.)

2019 also saw the opening of the second location of the beloved Dish Fine Burger Bistro. The new location is over at Belgická, has been beautifully remodeled and finally answers the question that probably nobody asked: “You want meat with those burgers?” Yes, there’s more meat on the menu besides the sort served in a bun, some with Asian flavors. The two locations should not be serving the same burgers going forward, and the new location will be serving Dish’s famous Fitness fries. Just writing about them adds 10 calories, so I will stop right there.

2019 brought two additions to Prague’s BBQ circuit: Bob’s BBQ opened right next to its parent, Krystal Bistro, in the summer. The owner has rained in Central Texas, and it shows. Our tray had some serious BBQ, some of which reminded Jan of his year spent in Houston. (Woot woot!) The end of November also saw the long-awaited (by us) opening of Big Smokers, the BBQ joint in the Holesovice district by the people behind our beloved Mr HotDog. The visuals are spot on, from the benches in the back, to the big barrel of water in the front. (Where’s the tub with ice and soda though?) Add craft beer and natural wines and you have a winner on your hands.

Markets

Two new markets opened in 2019: the Heřmaňák market in the Holešovice district grew on us super fast - it is fairly small but really has everything you need, and before it inevitably becomes very popular and crowded, it will feel the most neighborly of all Prague’s farmers markets. This is a place to watch affluent Prague liberals who buy organic stuff for their small kids. (So basically our gang.)

Manifesto market has opened a second location in the Smíchov district. Thanks to the kiddie pool and several bars, this location feels more lounge-y and beachy than the original location, and thus destined to be a great summer hangout. The rest is similar to the original location: fast and comfort food, beers and drinks. We would wish for less waste (think Singapore’s hawker markets) from an organization that claims to be helping the city, but truth be told, we know nothing about running markets in the Czech Republic.

Restaurants and Bistros

The beginning of the year saw the battle of two Italian-focused restaurants that offered different takes on pizza: Manu, by the TV Chef Emanuele Ridi, a huge, two-story place with a view of the Letná district has placed its bet on Pizza Napoletana, while Amano, another restaurant from the well-established and well-liked La Collezione group, went with Pizza Gourmet, and sharing plates. We revisited Amano recently and had one of the best lunches in town in recent memory. Manu also seems to be doing fairly well, although it might prove difficult to fit in all the concepts and all the seats of the ambitious project.

But Boldest Ambition Award must clearly go to Červený jelen, a modern pub that has opened with great fanfare in the Hybernská street. 750 seats over three floors in a former bank, the place is so big they allegedly had (and still have) trouble hiring staff for such a huge place. The reviews have been mixed but we applaud the owners just for daring and for coming with a concept that is not just another copy of a Lokál pub. Oh, and btw, a new location of Lokál, a popular collection of Czech pubs, has opened in the Vinohrady district. (Vinohradský parlament went through remodeling and a change of concept, but formally it’s not a new opening.)

A few new exciting bistros opened in 2019: The Bowls in the Smíchov district serve fun poke, Buddha and who knows what other bowls, but they’ve all been tasty, and are a great complement to the pastrami sandwiches of The Bros next door. Golden egg in the Žižkov district and their egg sandwiches are Prague’s answer to our beloved Eggslut, while Gemüse Kebab Corner in the Podolí are Prague’s answer to Berlin’s Mustafa. Both are super fun. Sisters, the bistro that focuses on chlebíčky, the Czech open-faced sandwiches, has changed ownership (now owned by the Together group) and have opened a new location in the Spálená street.

The Karlín districts saw two new openings: Spojka Karlín, which occupies the ground floor of a new development in Pernerova street, and Yolo, a lunch spot in the Butterfly office building at the end of Březinova and Pernerova. Confession: we haven’t been to either yet, but we’ve heard great things about Yolo. Vinohrady have been graced with two Spanish-style tapas places by big names in the food industry: Gilda was opened by the Kogo group, and El Camino by the people behind the Medité restaurant in Mariánské lázně. They are about a three minute walk from each other, and while we liked our food at Gilda, the chef of El Camino, which was opened too recently for us to visit, used to cook at London’s The Ledbury, so we expect great things, too.

Dejvická 34 opened at, well, Dejvická 34 in the Bubeneč district, with the chef Tomáš Černý (formerly of La Finestra di Cucina and Bistro Kaprova) at the helm of the kitchen. We hope this goes well - the Sunday lunch we had was excellent, but we feel Dejvická is a cursed street for restaurants trying to be upscale. Hope this breaks the curse. Vallmo is another recent opening, taking the space formerly occupied by the popular Oliva restaurant. Vallmo focuses on local ingredients with some vegan options thrown in, sitting just under the fine dining spectrum. A great place we would take the family for a nice Sunday lunch of Czech food that pulls off being modern without intimidating your parents.

Finally, Bockem was a notable opening of 2019 simply because it was different: it opened with breakfast service only, but a three-course set menu breakfast that included the infamous soufflé Eggs Benedict the team of Bockem used to serve at their sister, the beloved Kavárna co hledá jméno. We loved the breakfast - it was refined and served in one of the most beautiful restaurant rooms in town. Now they offed dinner service, too.

Coffee, wine and sweets

2019 was a good year for local coffee addicts. We will soon write about a post about Prague coffee, but the trend set in previous years has been pretty visible in 2019 too: specialty coffee is now mainstream. When a new coffee shop or bistro opens, regardless of the location, the odds are it will serve specialty coffee rather than the opposite. And that’s great news in itself. Another fantastic addition to the Prague coffee scene in 2019 is actually a project from the Moravian town of Olomouc started in 2018: the Otoč kelímek project that lets you buy a recyclable takeaway cup in any of the participating coffee shops and give it back for full refund at a different coffee shop. Whether you think a certain Greta is a prodigy or a teenage brat, we hope we can all agree that waste is bad, and this is a great solution to reduce it that just works given how many coffee shops have signed up for it. If you are visiting Prague and taking coffee to go, pay up for the cup and give it back wherever for a refund. Thank you.

Anyway, the year started with the opening of Café Truhlárna in the Franciscan Garden. A tiny place with a great design and even better outdoor seating. Godsend in the summer. The people around Barry Higgel’s Coffeehouse were busy in 2019, opening two coffee shops with some baking: The Miners in the Vinohrady district is large (some’d say grandiose) and airy and modern, like a Blue Bottle somewhere, and La Forme is the Bubenec district (just steps from Doubleshot’s Kavárna Místo) is small and cosy. (If you’ve ever wondered where I edit the audio files of our podcast, well, now you know.) Coffee Source, a large roasting operation and distributor of all things coffee, has moved… a block away and opened a new beautiful coffee shop at Francouzská. Beautiful stuff and worth a visit.

Café Tout va Bien is, in many ways, our fave coffee opening of the year, although we live on the other side of town, so wee don’t visit as often as we’d like. But the beautiful design, jazzy soundtrack, cool magazines to read and the two lovely Korean girls behind the counter all come together to create a nearly zen-lie atmosphere that is hard to beat in terms of cosiness. Speaking of cosy, Café Tvaroh, inheriting the beautiful interiors and garden from Milada and Love Kidó, Pilot Café and a new location of Kiosek Kafebar (the original being a coffee stand by the bus stop to the airport at Dejvická) are three new coffee shops that opened in the Letná district in 2019, and all are very comfortable coffee shops to spend a few hours in.

When Osada opened in the Holešovice district, it was a bit of an enigma: is it part of the Ambiente group, or not? Well, the people making and serving coffee and food all worked in different Ambiente outposts, but the coffee shops is independently owned and only connected to Ambiente through the people and perhaps some consultancy from Ambiente’s part. Anyway, it has become one of our favorite spots for the summer, with a great outdoor seating separating from the street outside (a godsend for parents of a 2yo with a curious mind and quick legs). Ronin Coffee Spot is also run by a barista of former Eska/Ambiente fame, Boris, and it’s a beautiful place with fantastic outdoor seating in the back, and it has quickly become our favorite coffee spot in the area. It’s strange: Ambiente seems to have never created a big league of „alumni“ chefs that would open their own restaurants, but that does not apply to baristas, especially given Ambiente’s fairly short track record in the specialty coffee scene.

Final opening of Prague’s coffee year has been mazelab.coffee in the Bubeneč district, and in many ways, it has been the most surprising one. „No cash, no wifi, no sugar“ is the mantra in the all-white space that occupies a former tyre-change station. Jackie, the owner (and the person behind Vinohrady’s Cafefin), is a designer and it shows. The place looks like if a Tokyo Blue Bottle and Copenhagen’s Coffee Collective had a baby, and that’s a compliment. Also, the coffee (for now, beans exclusively by the Danish La Cabra roasters) is given great care, and mazelab must be one of Prague’s most generous shops when it comes to space. (The whole space would easily accommodate five coffee shops in NYC and ten in Tokyo.)

Oh yes, and one more thing: while Etapa by our friends PG Foodies has officially opened on 1 January 2020, they had so many reopening events and soft openings we must include them in 2019. Sure, Petr and Gábina are our friends but we honestly love what they do: great coffee, artisanal bread and great food with some vegan options are all informed, smart and tasty. Do visit them in 2020.

We are slapping a wine place and some sweet shops to this category. Autentista wine bar has finally opened in the former Damuza in Řetězová street in the Old Town. The beautiful space is the child of the people behind Veltlin, a natural wines shop in the Karlín district, and Champagnier.cz, an importer of natural Champagnes. We like what they’ve done to the place, and despite the initially confusing pricing models of wine, we hope this will be a hit. They cook, too, with fermentation being the name of the game.

As for sweets: the super popular cronuts by Oh Deer Bakery may not be compatible with new year’s resolutions if you’re reading it in January, but you should know they opened as new, more central location right next to the Quadrium mall in the New Town. Also, Erhart café has a new location in the U Nováků house at Vodičkova, finally completing Prague’s Triangle of Sweet Death (Myšák, If Café and Erhart pastry shops all within two minutes of walking distance). 2019 also saw the comeback of Votre Plaisir, the French-Czech pastry shop, from their Brno exile. They are seated in a small shop in Klimentská and re-started their Prague existence humbly and without big fanfare.

Final mention in the sweets category must go to the amazing Kristyjan chocolatier in the Bubenec district. Their box of chocolates are of the sort brought home from Paris, at a fraction of the price (for now). Their chocolate bars are varied and tasty, and their hot chocolate will ruin any new year’s resolution if the winter is long enough. Too bad we live around the corner or two. Oh well, this will be a fun year.

Prague food scene openings of 2019 - the map and cheat sheet

Here’s a handy map of all the notable 2019 openings on the Prague food scene.

Finally, to gamify this a bit, please click here to download a pdf with a checklist of all the new openings of 2019. Print it out on an A5-sized paper, chuck it in your purse, put it on your fridge… and later show off to your friends (or us - we’ll act impressed) how savvy you are about food in Prague!

Enjoy 2020 and stay hungry!