Taste of Prague podcast

Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 4 - Vojta Václavík of KRO Kitchen

Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 4 - Vojta Václavík of KRO Kitchen

Hey there! It’s Thursday, which means another episode of the Taste of Prague podcast, a podcast by Taste of Prague food tours about travel and food in Prague and the rest of the world. And after three episodes about tourism, we finally turn to food: we had the pleasure to interview Vojta Václavík, the chef and owner of the amazing KRO Kitchen. (BTW, if you have been pronouncing KRO in a way that rhymes with “shmoe”, you are wrong. It rhymes with “blue”.)

Now, we’ll admit straight away that we have been huge fans of the little fast food place in the Vinohrady district ever since they opened just a few months ago. Sure, this is fast food, but it ain’t no McDonald’s. The food is super tasty, the produce is sourced from really nice sources (including the farmers market across the street) and the cooking is super smart. KRO Kitchen has been the first place that could go head to head with the cool fast places in bigger cities to the West of Czechia and overseas, and we mean it: deceptively simple, yet made with techniques that could easily find place in the kitchen of a much fancier establishment.

And behind it all is the calm force that is Vojta Václavík. When you think about it, he’s achieved quite a bit given his fairly young age: he worked in such Prague icons as Dahab and Sansho, only to move to Oslo, Norway and work in the Michelin-starred Fauna (now sadly defunct) and then staging in Koka and 28+ in Gothenburg, Sweden. When he came back he took on the uneasy challenge to head the cuisine of the fancy Hergetova Cihelna restaurant. And before all that, he made a small detour and finished university, writing a thesis paper about Eating Habits in the Czech Republic. Not bad for a sweet 17. (Okay, he’s older than that, but you get what I mean.)

Now, saying that Vojta is passionate about his craft would be a cliché that you could say just about any good chef. But Vojta’s passion is different: he’s not a fanboy of some famous chefs - he does have a vision for Czechs to eat better, and he is focused on making sure we all get there. And whether he thinks of it or not in those terms, he cares about sustainability and waste that his business generates.

We recorded the interview in KRO Kitchen during the morning prep, so please excuse the noises in the background, especially in the beginning of the interview, as some technicians were repairing an air duct or something. I could talk with Vojta forever - about his dining experience in Noma, about the cool new projects in Prague, his new kitchen that he is about to open… chatting about all this with the backdrop of the knives hitting the chopping board and breathing in the smells is truly magical. And eating some of the stuff they were preparing after the interview was over was pretty magical too.

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Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 3 - Mark Baker

Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 3 - Mark Baker

Hey there! I am really happy about the third episode of the Taste of Prague podcast, a podcast by Taste of Prague food tours about travel and food in Prague and the rest of the world, because it’s a great one: I had the pleasure to have a chat with the one and only Mark Baker.

Mark who? Yeah, while he may be invisible to many, Mark is a writer of guide books for the Lonely Planet, Fodor’s and Frommer’s, covering mostly Central and Eastern Europe. So if you’re walking past the Charles Bridge and can’t get through because of the crowds, well, that’s kinda Mark’s fault. No, really, he wields a lot of invisible might, steering travelers in the right places and making sure that they enjoy the destination to the fullest. We see his guides in the hands of the guests of our Prague food tours all the time. Let me put it this way: the man who covers Slovenia for the Lonely Planet got „knighted“ by the Slovenian government. I will make it one of my top 2020 priority the same thing happens to Mark in the Czech Republic.

Mark is a fascinating guy. Hailing from Ohio and having majored in politics at the Miami University (the one in Ohio), he worked in Vienna for The Economist group when the Berlin Wall fell. Then he got to Prague on a writing assignment and… well, never left would not be entirely correct, but he’s still here 28 years later. He was one of the founders of the iconic Globe coffee shop / book store that was the ground zero for the exact community and young local intellectuals (heck, I was one of them) in the Holesovice district. He is also the author of multiple articles about Central and Eastern Europe for the likes of the BBC, the Wall Street Journal or the National Geographic. Finally, he has a fantastic website with long-form posts about his experiences living in and traveling through Central and Eastern Europe. It’s a true wealth of information and great writing: don’t blame me if you spend long minutes or hours browsing through the posts.

But back to the interview. When you think about it, writing guide books seems to be the perfect job: somebody pays you to travel and you write about it. But of course, on second thought, this ain’t no vacation. So this episode of the podcast tries to look into the mechanics of writing a guide book. Who is it for, how is it researched, what is the brief, and how do you write it. And also, we look at the future of the printed guide book in the age of the internet and the smartphone app. Mark also has a few comments on the Czechs and Czechia, having lived here - on and off - since 1991.

If you want to stay on top of our podcast, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Soundcloud to get the latest from us.


Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 2 - Janek of Honest Guide

Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 2 - Janek of Honest Guide

Hello there! Welcome to the second episode of the Taste of Prague Podcast, our podcast about two things we love - food and travel - in the two places we love - Prague… and everywhere else. Hope you enjoyed last week’s first episode with Jirka Duzar! I think we’re going to turn this into a weekly affair. I hope. We have a few guests in the pipeline already, and some of them are actually quite surprising. So please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Soundcloud to get the latest from us.

Anyway, here we go, the second episode is a big one: we’re interviewing Janek of Honest Guide.

If you’ve lived in Prague, or if you traveled to Prague recently and spent at least a tiny bit of time researching your trip, you will be familiar with my first guest: Janek, the on-camera half of the duo that you know as Honest Guide. I know this may sound as a bit of overstatement, but for a certain generation or group of travelers (those who use YouTube as a tool of travel research), Janek and Honza may be the first ambassadors of Prague a traveler finds when researching Prague, thus becoming, in effect, the “faces of Prague” for many.

In this podcast, I ask Janek about his own travels, about his on-camera persona, the creative process behind Honest Guide, his way of approaching two different audiences that speak two different languages, if he enjoys the life of an internet celebrity and, of course, frozen pizza.


Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 1 - Jiri Duzar of Czech Tourism

Taste of Prague Podcast, Ep 1 - Jiri Duzar of Czech Tourism

So this is big. After many months of deliberations, failed attempts - and honestly, towards the end, quite a bit of bitching by Zuzi (“So when is the podcast coming out? This is ridiculous.“) - I have the slightly nervous pleasure of introducing the Taste of Prague Podcast. It’s a podcast about two things we love: travel and food. And it’s about travel and food in two places we love: Prague… and everywhere else.

When we started the Taste of Prague food tours back in 2011, we had no prior experience in tourism. And eight years later, it is still an industry that keeps fascinating us. I mean, 25 years ago, Taste of Prague could not have existed. But now the internet, the connected phones and the apps, and the affordability of travel have changed everything, and will continue to change everything. It is fun to be in the middle of it, but it’s also nice to take a bit of a back seat, put the popcorn in the microwave, and just enjoy the show. And that’s what this podcast should be: a look at travel and food around the world, mostly through interviews with interesting people who have something to say about either or both. Oh, and we’ll throw in tips for Prague, I guess.

Anyway, here we go, and we start with a great one: Jiri Duzar of Czech Tourism’s Digital Marketing Strategist.

Jirka Duzar is not only a friend, but a true Renaissance man: he is an accomplished photographer (for a sample of his work, have a look at his website and Instagram account), owns a coffee business with his father (and a very successful business at that), an avid cyclist, but first and foremost the Digital Strategy Manager for Czech Tourism’s US and Canada office. And as such, he is in charge of Czech Tourism’s collaborations with influencers. And all that at less than 33 years of age. Makes me kinda rethink my career.


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