Prague's Culinary Renaissance

People gravitate to Prague for its enchanting cobblestone streets flanked by stunning Baroque and Gothic buildings and for its palate-pleasing pilsner beer. But the food? It long acted as stodgy stomach filler to prolong an evening of beer swilling. But something has changed in the Czech capital. The historic charm has not faced and the beer is still exceptional, but now the dining scene is an attraction in and of itself.  

I once asked Oldřich Sahajdák, chef of the Michelin-starred La Degustation Bohême Bourgeoise in Prague’s Old Town, about his thoughts on the future of Czech cuisine and he answered with another question, asking if I could have ever imagined that Denmark would be the epicentre of the most cutting-edge cuisine on the planet?  I thought about it for a long second and shook my head from side to side. “Exactly,” he said.  

Not that the Prague dining landscape is filled with $500-per-person tasting menus that serve reindeer brain custard and chocolate-covered moss. Noma, this is not. But given where Czech cuisine came from—the extremely bland 41 years under Soviet-imposed Communism—the elevated, creative Central European cuisine chefs are showcasing here should be celebrated for the leaps and bounds the culinary scene has taken in the last three decades.  

The culinary revolution started at La Degustation Bohême Bourgeoise when chef Sahajdák unearthed an 1894 Czech cookbook and began re-introducing long-lost Czech fare in an elevated way. His most recent restaurant is Marie B., a 20-seat eatery that consists of a U-shaped dining counter around the kitchen. The restaurant does something novel in that the servers don’t reveal what you’re eating, only informing the diner after each dish of the five-course tasting menu. As a cheat sheet, expect dishes like deer saddle doused in a gingerbread puree and sous vide salmon topped with roe.  

After a legion of young Czech chefs worked their way around some of the world’s great kitchens, many have come home inspired and eager to put Czech cuisine on the culinary map. You can say they’re succeeding. Chef Radek Kašpárek, who got his culinary training in Switzerland, has followed up his nearby Michelin-starred restaurant, Field, with 420, the country calling code for the Czech Republic (not the code for smoking weed). In a soaring glass-ceilinged Baroque courtyard just off Old Town Square, Chef Kašparek cooks up a menu of hearty Mitteleuropa fare like snails in foie-gras-spiked butter and duck-pate topped with sour cherries paired with a duck-fat baked bun.

Opened in Autumn 2023, tavern-like Hostinec na Výtoni is housed in a former medieval customs house on the Vltava River. The duck-centric menu features a handful of recently resurrected dishes that were lost during the Communist era. Snails, stinky Olomouc cheese on toast, and a duck blood sausage to start, followed by shredded duck wrapped in thin potato pancakes and crispy rotisserie duck—all consumed in a merry, warm environment that will make you want to order a few more rounds of pilsners and linger for a while. 

After working in Michelin-starred restaurants in Berlin and Salzburg, Chef Jan Punčochář opened U Matěje in the charming, upscale neighborhood of Hanspaulka. The casual tavern atmosphere—long wooden tables and wood-paneled walls—belies the excellent execution with which Punchochář delivers in the kitchen. The menu is loaded with feel-good pub grub that is taken up several notches, including duck leg confit with pumpkin cabbage and potato dumplings and tender veal cheeks cooked in dark beer. The long wine list has a stellar selection of Czech natural wines. 

“I’m very happy with the way the Prague dining scene has evolved in the last decade or so,” Chef Radek Kašpárek told me when I ate at 420 earlier in the week. He had just one complaint, adding, “I just wish it would develop even quicker.”  

Yes, people still come to Prague to stroll across the 14th-century, sculpture studded Charles Bridge, to trudge up to the castle, and to linger in Old Town Square. But the one difference between years past and now is that they’re doing it with a very satisfied stomach. And if Chef Kašparek gets his wish, the Central European cuisine being made in Prague is going to get even better very soon. So come now and come hungry.