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!
When we wrote the wrap-up of new restaurants and food stops in Prague in Q1 of 2023, we closed it with a promise that some exciting openings would happen in Q2 and Q3 of the year. And boy, did Q2 and Q3 deliver! So without further ado, here’s the most exciting new restaurants in Prague that opened in Q2 and Q3 of 2023.
We’ve been running food tours in Prague and Moravia for 11 years now, and we can confidently say that we’ve seen it pretty much all. But there are some mistakes our guests make, and some misconceptions they have, over and over again. So we’ve said “enough”!
Here’s five basic tips that will help you enjoy our food tours (and any other tours, really) to the fullest.
If you follow our Instagram, you know we love to travel with our little JJ. Travelling with him and seeing the destination through his eyes is truly rewarding... as is giving him to the grandma for a day or two once we come back. (Sheesh, rewarding but so tiring, too!)
Anyway, while we want to do the things we want to do when we travel, we try to make sure he gets what we call his “executive time” - a good hour of juts pure playtime at a playground where we travel. Some cities do playgrounds really well (Paris, for instance, or Kyiv was great, too), while some lag slightly behind (we’re looking at you, Barcelona and Rome).
Luckily, Prague clearly belongs among the cities that do playgrounds really well. So if you’re traveling to Prague with your kids, here’s our favorite kids’ playgrounds in Prague.
When we started our Prague Foodie Tours at the top of the Wenceslas Square in Prague’s New Town, showing its historical importance was easy: we’d just whip out our iPad and show photos of people celebrating Czechoslovakia’s independence in 1918, the Nazi troops parading on the square in 1938, the Soviet tanks in 1968, and the Velvet Revolution that ended Communism in late 1989.
Yes, Wenceslas Square, one of Prague’s natural crossroads and a place when the locals meet to venture into the historical centre, where they work and shop (but rarely live) is a place where history was repeatedly made. It has been losing its splendour in the past decades as it lost some high-profile retail shops to Old Town’s Pařížská street and as it became the nearest Prague had to a red light district at night. Think Champs-Élysées, but in Prague.
So the locals may be a bit grumpy about the current state of the square, and look forward to plans of its revitalisation, which - after years of empty promises - seem to be finally picking up speed.
The Wenceslas Square is not just a photo opportunity to capture the monumental National Museum towering at the top of the avenue (year, the „square“ is not really a square), but a great place to spend a day, or a half of it, breathe in the history, have a meal and a drink, and wonder through the webs of walkthroughs that connect the buildings around it. So if you’ve done the Old Town and the Castle District during your Prague trip, the Wenceslas Square is a great place to explore, especially on a rainy day in Prague.
Not much to write here, but we had the first snow in Prague here today, so when we woke up to it, we did what we always do - ran to the Charles Bridge to take some pictures. So here you go, enjoy if you like snowy pics of old buildings, this will be for you.
The Baba housing estate encompasses 33 buildings built in early 1930s. It is one of six projects of this kind in Central Europe, but Prague’s project was different: the investor had bought the land and approached selected architects and selected clients from Prague’s cultural and financial elites, so that each building was built specifically for a particular client, and usually the villa bears the client’s name. We will not get into details about each house’s architect, purpose or client - this website will does a fantastic job we don’t feel compelled to try to replicate and fail.
What we want to focus instead is two things:
real estate market prices in Prague.
the lack of continuity of wealth in the Czech Republic due to its Communist past.
So you’re itching to get to Prague or the rest of the Czech Republic and wonder what the Covid restrictions in the Czech Republic are now, or what are the Covid travel requirements to get entry in the Czech Republic
Easy. There are two good sources for that:
The US Embassy in Prague has a great and frequently updated overview of the entire Covid situation in the Czech Republic and whether foreign travellers (with a special focus on US citizens, obviously) are allowed in the country and on what conditions.
Czech Tourism Board has the official information, although the updates are not as frequent and at times they may lag behind the reality by a week or so. For best results, we would combine these two sources to get the best picture.
Now, the bigger question is… how the hell did we end up here?
Whenever we travel, we always make a point of seeing a movie: the fact that it’s such a common and familiar scene only highlights the little differences between cultures. And we also like to see a movie popular in the destination we’re eyeing because - again - it shows the human experience from a point of view that may be different than your own. This will sound strange, but for instance Jan never really wanted to particularly visit Miami until he saw Moonlight.
So we thought we’d give you five cult Czech movies because they might give you a bit of an insight into the Czech psyche… and what else do you want to do now, in early 2021, when everything’s locked down, than watch a movie? Exactly. Now, of course, we could go over the list back and forth and never settle on anything, so we just went with the five movies that we personally like and that we believe are available online with English subtitles. Yeah, it’s going to be subtitles, but come one, man or woman up. You know what we call watching a movie with subtitles here? „Watching a movie.“ You think Bruce Willis speaks Czech?
About that availability: we went with things that are available on Czech Netflix… only to find out they might not be available on US Netflix. So if you’re an expat living in Czechia, easy, and if you’re not, we think you’ll have to shop around a bit (Amazon Prime seems to be a good source, or this website looks great), but we’re confident you’ll find a streaming source. So put that popcorn in the microwave, open a bottle of something good, and enjoy!
We’ve been writing Prague Christmas and NYE dining guide for a few years now. But just like with everything else, the guide in 2020 will be different - our current shutdown prevents us from eating outside during the holiday season, so we will be focusing on take-out and pre-made meals for the home.
Now, for the readers abroad: the vast majority of Czechs eat their Christmas Eve dinner at home in the circle of their closest family, and the dinner tends to steer towards fish, especially carp, which is the traditional fish for Christmas that is sold on the streets live in the days leading up to the holiday. Some people opt for salmon or other fish that may be easier to work with (carp is notoriously boney and requires heavy prep work) or for meat (think schnitzels).
But in our household, we began to eat out for Christmas Eve years ago, after a misfortunate Christmas Eve when Zuzi’s just about had it with all the preparations and family members showing up late or not showing up at all. It was a revelation: we realised that many families ate outside and we have thoroughly enjoyed the relaxing and trouble-free experience of Christmas Eve, as opposed to the stressed out and labour-intensive Christmas Eves we remember from our childhoods.
Now, this being 2020, things are obviously different. Restaurants were ordered to shut down about ten days before Christmas Eve and are unlike to open before… well… we’re guessing late January, early February? So eating out for Christmas Eve is out. But do you have to slave over the Christmas Eve dinner, or are there different options? Have restaurants come to the rescue?
We’ve done a bit of research, and the short answer is yes. Below is a summary of the take-out options and meal kits for your Christmas cheer. Enjoy the holidays whatever you do, okay?
This time food will be served by the amazing El Camino Tapas Restaurant. Yeah, we know, it only opened in December, but the pedigree is there: Mr David Böhm lead the iconic Medité restaurant in Mariensbad. And he worked in a few Michelin stars in Spain. ‘Nuff said.
Let’s be honest here: normally, it would make no sense to recommend a Spanish tapas bar with a focus on seafood in Prague. But guess what: El Camino earns our full and unconditional recommendation. It’s amazing regardless of the location. It would be amazing even if it was located in Spain. And we’re super excited to have them on board with our Eating Alone Together series.
And just in time: This is May 1, people! You want to be the boyfriend and/or husband you know you are, deep down inside, under that beer belly? This is your chance.
But how good is El Camino? Let us tell you: Zuzi rarely leaves a new restaurant impressed. She did leave El Camino impressed blown away. We have a habit of visiting La Degustation, one of Prague’s two Michelin stars (btw, will they roll out their European guides this year? Isn’t it about time?), for her birthday, but midway through our meal, she said “Hey Jan, for my birthday, could we actually come back here this year?” Yeah, that's how good this place is. The food, the service and the ambiance? All spot on.
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