What makes a good burger a good burger? Well, for starters, the burger can't be a karbanátek.
I've seen some people in these parts frown on the notion of a hamburger being anything more than a quick food alternative to a real meal. But across the ocean in the hamburger's adopted home, putting together the all-American meat sandwich has turned into something of an art. Top-notch chefs like Daniel Boulud and Hubert Keller are opening burger restaurants, and some are even making them with luxury ingredients like foie gras and truffles.
I suspect it'll be some time before we see those kinds of ingredients on our burgers here, but there are a few places making a solid effort (and some not so solid) at dishing out the classic American meal. I went to six different local establishments that reportedly have good burgers, and ordered a bacon cheeseburger where available. Here are the results:
Bohemia Bagel Holešovice
Weekends are Burger Weekends at the Holešovice branch of Bohemia Bagel, when their usual selection of burgers is doubled; variations include the Falafel Burger, the Greek Burger, and the Steak Burger. But their classic version, the Bohemia Burger (135 CZK, plus an extra 20 CZK for bacon and American cheese), is probably their best: a juicy-flame-grilled patty on a toasted sesame bun slathered with garlic butter and served with lettuce, tomatoes, and onions. The bacon was crispy and the cheddar cheese was plentiful – but alas, there were no pickles, and the fries were miserably limp and soggy.
Fraktal
Judging by the recommendations I'd gotten, I thought the Fraktal burger was supposed to be something really special. And it was special, but not in the way I'd hoped. This was one sad little patty (I chose the small 125g burger for 170 CZK; a 200g burger is also available for 195 CZK), black and shriveled on the outside and overdone and rubbery on the inside. The top layer of the sesame seed roll was crumbling, as if it had been defrosted after spending the last six months at the bottom of a freezer. Not recommended.
Hard Rock Café 
I hate to give the Best Burger in Prague title to a big corporation, but this one was really good. The choice here is between ten different types of burgers in two different sizes: Legendary (285g of meat for 320 CZK) or Regular (starting at 220 CZK for 170g of meat). My HRC bacon cheeseburger had the telltale criss-cross marks of a flame-grilled patty, was perfectly medium-rare and came on a toasted brioche-style bun. The bacon was crispy, the meat was juicy, and there were potato peel fries on the side (not enough of them, though). The best part? The service at Hard Rock Café is simply stellar.
Jama
Jama's burger doesn't have pickles, but it does have tomatoes, red onions, lettuce, and… olives? To get a bacon cheeseburger here, you pay 175 CZK for a cheeseburger or a bacon burger, then add 40 CZK extra for bacon and 39 CZK extra for your choice of cheese (you can save a crown if you do the math). My beef patty was crumbly and thick, with nice grill marks, but it could have used a little more seasoning. The bun was American style (sweet and light with sesame seeds) and the bacon was Czech (fatty, with very little crispiness). Jama was the only restaurant I tried that had steak fries, but the service was excruciatingly slow. And I could have done without those olives.
Mozaika 
Mozaika's is a cheese-less burger (199 CZK), topped instead with garlic mayo and sautéed onions and mushrooms. I liked the effort at ingenuity here – the string fries come with a homemade spicy tomato dip and the burger is served on spinach foccacia – but the execution was all wrong. This was a straight-up karbanátek, with the meat all mashed together into an unappetizing lump, and the focaccia was saltless and soggy. I remember this hamburger being a lot better once upon a time.
Potrefená H
usa Dejvice
This Husa makes its 200g burgers (268 CZK) with beef tenderloin. That sounds good in theory, but tenderloin is really too lean a meat to make a juicy enough patty – and this one was under-salted, too. The toppings (American cheese, red onions, lettuce, tomato) were plentiful and fresh, and the shoestring fries were great, but they couldn’t make up for the white bacon and tasteless beef. It'll satisfy a craving, but you won't be dreaming about it.
photographs: 1 Tomáš Krist for Lidové Noviny; all others Prague Spoon
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 12/09/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Prague Burgers: A (Small-Scale) Investigation
Monday, October 19, 2009
Restaurant Review: U Emy Destinnové
It seldom seems to happen – in this country, anyway – that a restaurant's best asset is its kitchen. Lots of places are long on atmosphere, and nowadays you can even count on reasonably good service at most higher-end restaurants. But good chefs are still few and far between.
One of the exceptions is U Emy Destinnové, whose owner and head chef Steven Trumpfheller outclasses both his restaurant's location and its waitstaff. His menu is eclectic but not unfocused, a mix of mostly American and Italian-style classics.
I just can't g
et over the pumpkin risotto (180 CZK) I had there the other night. Creamy without being too heavy, the dish was a perfect balance of flavors. That was also because of one other crucial addition: bacon, fried to near crispiness (this is an American chef, after all, who knows how to cook his bacon) and folded into the risotto in small pieces. The fact is that bacon will make more or less any dish taste better – I recently sampled some bacon-flavored chocolate, and I loved it – but in the risotto, combined with the pumpkin's distinctive sweetness and the sharp tang of Parmesan, it was a truly inspired combo.
I couldn't say as much for U Emy Destinnové's interior design. Before the restaurant's recent renovation, it had a quirky, old-fashioned living room feel to it, with lots of strange knickknacks and some ratty gray couches left over from its previous incarnation as Czech restaurant JB Club. The getup felt a bit inappropriate for the food, to be sure, so a refurb was definitely in order. Now, the place has been tidied up and the couches have been reupholstered, but it's lost some of its charm. The beige walls are a little drab, and the maroon-colored runners over the tables feel out of date, like something you'd find in an old hotel restaurant in Communist-era Czechoslovakia.
On my second visit, there was a massive group dinner taking up the whole of the large front room (U Emy Destinnové offers several banquet menus), so my friends and I were seated in the little room in the back. That would have been perfectly cozy if we hadn't been within spitting distance of the bathrooms – they were separated from us by a partition wall, but every time someone left the toilet door open we were washed over by a familiar, unpleasant aroma. Because there was no self-closing mechanism on the bathroom doors, one of us would have to get up and shut them ourselves – and I don't especially like playing toilet porter on an evening out to dinner.
Then there was the problem of the lights being too dim, making it hard to read the menu and see the food properly. And although live piano music is a nice idea, this particular piano player didn't really do it for me. His style was aggressive and unpleasant, not fading gently into the background as it should have, but overriding our conversation. Moreover, he had a creepy habit of staring directly at me and my female friend for long periods of time as he played.
During earlier, pre-renovation visits to U Emy Destinnové, I remember being bowled over by the service. This time, it wasn't bad by any means – particularly on my first visit, when the waiter was impressively on point – but it did occasionally seem slightly amateurish. During the first evening, the server eagerly told us what dishes they had available as specials, but on the second, I had to ask if they had any specials before he thought to tell us. And I found their rattling off of all the aperitifs they had on offer (even when we had already declined) a little annoying.
Still, I was impressed with how timely the service was, even with that massive group in the front room. I had been dismayed when we first walked in that night – usually, kitchens get overwhelmed by the demands of the banquet and the timing of the smaller tables' meals suffers. But everything came out at just the right moment, and they even found the opportunity to show us the lamb and swordfish they had on special that night.
I had the swordfish in the form of a carpaccio (215 CZK), and it was great – fresh, beautifully sliced, and arranged around a small salad with capers and cherry tomatoes. They have a thing for raw meat here, with three kinds of carpaccio (including bison carpaccio with dried figs and pecorino cheese, 215 CZK), a lamb tartare, and often a couple of additional types of carpaccio on the specials list. But there are other tasty appetizers, too, such as the deep-fried calamari, zucchini, and lemon (155 CZK) or the wild French duck breast with blackberry port wine demi-glaze (175 CZK).
There are a lot of originals here, and having seen the same dishes over and over again on local menus, I can appreciate the ingenuity – especially when it comes out right. The golden capon chicken served over sweet corn relish (230 CZK) was tender and juicy, with browned, crispy skin, and its mildly creamy sweet corn sauce was a nice little bit of Americana to go with it. Paired with some fluffy garlic mashed potatoes (65 CZK), this was real soul food.
So, the American in the basement of famous Czech opera singer Ema Destinnová's birth house can really cook. I'm not totally convinced by his baking (the Philadelphia cheesecake, 105 CZK, had a very soggy crust), but I only managed to sample one dessert. The portions are big, and the prices are remarkably decent. I would urge you to give U Emy Destinnové a chance. Even if a few of the other elements are a little out of place, the food is definitely worth it.
U Emy Destinnové
Kateřinská 7
Praha 2 - Nové Město
map
Tel.: 224 918 425
Open Mon-Fri 11:30-23:30, Sat 18:00-23:30. Closed Sunday.
images 1, 2, 6 Tomáš Krist for Lidové Noviny; all others uemydestinnove.cz
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 03/10/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Restaurant Review: La Finestra
What happens when I get recognized in a restaurant? Well, the service usually gets better: suddenly, a waiter who's been ignoring me all night is perfectly on point, asking if we need a dash of fresh pepper or a foot massage. That's why I try to avoid getting noticed – otherwise, I would never know how the restaurant is experienced by the average visitor. The review just wouldn't be fair.
Try as I might, recognition sometimes happens. In the case of La Finestra, I was introduced to the manager by my dining companion against my will. I had planned on reviewing it. But as I watched the waiters prance around our table, checking in every three minutes to see if everything was all right, I figured I could never write about the place in an objective way.
The thing was, I really, really liked the meal. I'd been to La Finestra before, and hadn't been recognized, and the food and service were equally as good (if not better, because it hadn't felt oppressively attentive). So I decided to go again.
I have a theory about my appearance: when I don't wear makeup, I look like a slug. I am convinced that for people who are used to only seeing me in my enhanced mollusk-free state, I am impossible to recognize. The first review visit I made to La Finestra, I'd been in a nice dress, had my hair down and powder and lipstick on, and it was nighttime.
So, in the unforgiving glare of daylight, wearing Converse and a sweatshirt and my slug face, my unwashed hair pulled up into a childlike ponytail, no one would know it was me.
No such luck. "Aha! Dobrý den!" shrieked one of the servers as soon as I walked in the door. Damn. This was not only bad for my review, but bad for my reputation – at one point during the meal, the executive chef, Tomáš Černý, came over to say hello, and I was in his restaurant looking like an only slightly rehabilitated hobo.
I'm sharing all this for the purposes of full disclosure, although I know I will get some backlash from my feistier readers: how dare I give full marks to a restaurant that clearly knew who I was and treated me accordingly?
The simple answer is that I liked the place so much that I just couldn't help myself. On top of that, I have become convinced, both through casual observation and by questioning some of my more discerning restaurant-going friends, that all patrons are treated well at La Finestra.
For starters, it's the kind of restaurant where the waiters recognize returning customers. If you've been there before, they offer a friendly smile; they might even shake your hand (and no, not just mine). There are some establishments in this town that I've been going to regularly for years, and they still look through me when I step inside. Not so at La Finestra.
It goes along with the familial atmosphere that co-owner Riccardo Lucque first cultivated at his original restaurant, Aromi, and has perfected here. Eating at La Finestra is a bit like hanging out in your Italian grandmother's kitchen; their aim is to fill you up and make you happy, whatever it takes.
As a result, the options can seem endless. The dishes on the printed menu are just a rough guide – the specials are really where it's at. Servers come around to each table with massive platters of seafood and raw meat, picking each protein up in turn to describe what it is and how it can be cooked (sometimes I find their molestation of the meats to be a little off-putting, but maybe I'm just being prudish). Many of the portions are for two or more people, so you often see tables eating family-style, with a large platter of meat and side dishes in the center of the table and everybody helping themselves.
The chefs at La Finestra pay attention to seasons; on my very first visit there, the menu was laden with asparagus. Now, there were tons of black truffles: freshly shaven over a perfect, creamy risotto (395 CZK for a starter; 445 CZK for a main course); turned into briny truffle water and ladled around a bed of raw scallops (395 CZK); even infused into a rich chocolate cake (165 CZK).
One evening, the kitchen had fresh chanterelles, so the server offered several ways that they could make them. Would I like them on bread, as a kind of bruschetta? As a sauce over pappardelle? Or alongside a nice piece of beef? I went for the last option, a lightly marbled, tender fillet cut, crusty on the outside and red as a plum in the middle. La Finestra imports its beef from Italy, where it is aged for six weeks before being transported to Prague.
They also order a special variety of San Marzano tomatoes, called "La Motticella," a year in advance, then turn them into specialties like the cold tomato soup with burrata cheese (125 CZK) – something like a liquid caprese, sprinkled with croutons and fresh basil and a few drops of red wine vinegar. I would have preferred it to be sweeter, but Chef Černý explained that Mr. Lucque likes the dishes to be more on the vinegary side, since that's the style of his native region of Italy, Le Marche. Nothing, it seems, happens at La Finestra by accident.
And that's exactly the kind of restaurant where you want to spend your money: a place where everything is thought through in advance, where every detail is accounted for. They're going to treat you well, even if you look like a slug or a hobo – and yes, even if you're not a restaurant critic. I feel very confident about that.
La Finestra
Platnéřská 13
Praha 1 – Stare Mesto
map
Tel.: 222 325 325
Open Mon-Sat 12:00-23:00, Sun 12:00-22:00
images 1, 2, 6, 7 Tomáš Krist for Lidové Noviny; all others lafinestra.cz
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 26/09/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Las Adelitas to open restaurant in Vinohrady
Looks like Fosil will no longer be the only authentic Mexican restaurant in town.
The popular Mexican food delivery service Las Adelitas has announced it will open its first restaurant this month. There will be a grand opening party on Friday, October 16th -- but they are also holding a "pre-inauguration" party tonight at 8pm, at the new location on Americká 8 in Vinohrady. Delivery is on hold for now, but will restart as soon as the restaurant officially opens.
Margaritas and flautas... yum.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Restaurant Review: Kampa Park
Kampa Park's best asset is still its location. Positioned atop the Vltava in the shadow of the Charles Bridge, with sweeping views across Old Town and just a short distance from Malá Strana's storybook streets, it is hard to imagine a more attractive locale for a Prague restaurant.
But everybody knows that already – especially the hordes of tourists death-marching across the Bridge who spot Kampa Park's shiny terraces and decide to head on down for a classy meal. In recent years, in fact, the name Kampa Park has become so affiliated with its tourist clien
tele that few locals even consider it as a dining option. No one, it seems, plans a big dinner out at Kampa.
It wasn't always that way. When it first opened, and for quite a few years afterward, Kampa Park was the fancy restaurant; foreign movie stars who rolled through town always seemed to make pit stops there. A wall of faded celebrity photographs, taken with Kampa's owners, reads like a scrapbook of 1990s action heroes: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bill Clinton.
Kampa Park was the brainchild of partners Nils Jebens and Tommy Sjöö, who used to be the city's reigning restaurateurs. Their seemingly indomitable rule began in the early '90s, when Sjöö owned a restaurant in Obecní Dům called Brasserie Mozart (now the location of Francouzská Restaurace). Brasserie Mozart was among the first places in Prague to have a salad bar – a revolutionary concept, apparently, and enough to convince Jebens to partner up with Sjöö to open Kampa Park and the now-defunct Italian restaurant Segafredo on Na Příkopě.
Kampa Group, as the company was called, cycled through various ventures, some more successful than others. Eventually, the company split into competing fiefdoms: Pravda Group, lorded over by Sjöö and encompassing the Old Town restaurants Pravda, Barock, and (while they lasted) Aqua and Hot. Jebens, meanwhile, ruled the Malá Strana side of the river, developing Hergetová Cihelna, Cowboys, and Square (now replaced by Starbucks).
Jebens's flagship restaurant, of course, is still Kampa Park, even if it lacks the luster it had ten or fifteen years ago. The cuisine is in the French style, influenced slightly by Scandinavia and Asia, and sometimes by cliché – one of the starters is a beef carpaccio with arugula, Parmesan, and olive oil (395 CZK), the same dish you'd find in a Modrá Zahrada pizzeria, or almost anywhere nowadays.
But Kampa can also be pleasantly surprising, as in the case of their scallop appetizer. For two small scallops, 545 CZK is a bit on the steep side, but this dish was unique: the mollusks perfectly seared, served in a buttery lemon dill sauce with tiny niblets of cauliflower. Norwegian flavors, French technique.
The same description could apply to my king crab salad (645 CZK), a flavorful mayonnaise-based treat of fresh crab, chopped chives, and a mysterious spice I had trouble identifying. It was served atop a slick of tomato jelly (which was good but tasted a little like canned tomato paste) next to a small frisee salad with sprouts; some crispy fried bread sticks; and a little bit of salmon roe. The presence of dill was palpable here, too, which I appreciated – dill is common in Northern and Slavic cuisines, but I wish we could see more of it in French and Mediterranean cooking.
I had been skeptical of the place before I'd revisited it, but by the time the appetizers had been cleared away, I was beginning to think I'd judged Kampa Park all wrong. Maybe this was still one of the top few restaurants in Prague. Maybe, for all these years, miracles had been happening in its kitchen, and we'd all been too blinded by the flashy new establishments to notice.
Even the service, you see, had been exceptional up until that point. Our waitress had this amazing knack for glancing over at our table every time she walked by (something that should be second nature to every waiter, but I've found that most of them actually like to turn their heads away from your table when they approach, so as to avoid accidental eye contact with their customers). She never took away any plates before we were all finished, and she didn't pour water mercilessly into our cups. It seemed to me, as a matter of fact, that she had actually been trained.
So I was disappointed when the wait between our first two courses stretched into uncomfortable-silence territory. You know what I'm talking about – when you get so preoccupied with where your entrée might be that instead of talking to your dining companion, you repeatedly check your watch and look towards the kitchen doors. Our waitress, angel that she was, came to apologize. It was the soufflé, she said, that was taking so long.
I wish it had been worth the wait. Unfortunately, it was cheese overkill – cheesy black truffle soufflé (495 CZK) in a cheesy white sauce with cheesy parmesan chips, and the whole thing was very salty. I was happier with my lamb entrée (895 CZK); the meat was super tender and I liked the baby vegetables and sweet pea puree on the side, but the red wine sauce was one-dimensional and the little bits of sweetbread seemed more like an afterthought than an integrated part of the dish. Dessert, on the other hand, a strawberry cappuccino (295 CZK), served in a glass with meringue, vanilla ice cream, strawberry coulis and an edible forest berries skewer, was summery and divine.
So would I recommend Kampa Park now? Yes, with some hesitation. The outdoor seating is wonderful, the service is wonderful, the food is occasionally wonderful. You could definitely find better value for money; the water – some absurd Norwegian brand – costs 165 CZK for a 0.8l bottle. But keep Kampa in mind next time you’re in the mood to pay for a fancy dinner. You could do a whole lot worse.
Kampa Park
Na Kampě 8b
Praha 1 - Malá Strana
Tel.: 296 826 112
photographs 2, 4, 6 Jindřich Mynařík for Lidové noviny; all others kampagroup.com
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 19/09/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Restaurant Review: The Sushi Bar
I almost gave The Sushi Bar four spoons.
As my regular readers know, I don't give full marks very often. That's not because I'm trying to be difficult, or because I don't think this country has any great restaurants. I guess it's just that my standards are pretty high, and I haven't been met with a lot of perfect dining experiences lately.
Until, that is, I went to The Sushi Bar. Or so I thought. Then I looked at my receipt.
The Sushi Bar's been around since 1999, when it was, according to its website, the only sushi place in the Czech Republic. The little restaurant gets its most important ingredients from the partner shop next door called Seafood Shop, which also provides high-quality fresh fish to many local dining establishments.
The first, and still the best: that is The Sushi Bar's motto, and after eating their precisely crafted, unforgettable food – and comparing it to some of the more pathetic renditions of sushi available in this town – I can't argue otherwise.
I would, however, add the qualifier that The Sushi Bar's sushi is not only The First and The Best, but also The Most Expensive. An eight-piece "exclusive" maki roll can run you as high as 1190 CZK, although you can also get a cucumber roll for 150 CZK or a salmon roll for 290 CZK. So if you're on a budget, order wisely.
But do order something here, at least once. They take the art of sushi-making seriously at The Sushi Bar. They're not doing it because it's trendy; they don't throw in a few maki rolls as an afterthought to a menu loaded with spaghetti and knedlík. They don't think, "most of our customers won't know the difference between good and bad sushi, so who cares if we use this borderline-rancid tuna fish?" And they don't offer Thai spring rolls and tom kha gai soups to appease people who aren't sushi-lovers – they do have a kimchi salad, but at least the menu makes it clear that the dish is Korean.
The menu, by the way, is a work of art in itself. An appetizing photograph of each dish is set against a background of matte white paper, next to loving descriptions typed in crisp fonts. Picking the right kind and amount of sushi can sometimes be tricky, but thanks to their carefully-compiled 'boat' sets and a clever graph system for the nigiri, it's easy to choose a well-rounded meal.
My table chose the nigiri sushi menu number 1 (990 CZK), a fairly straightforward six-piece combination that included salmon, tuna, and red snapper. But it also featured the less-common freshwater shrimp, as well as toro, or tuna belly, a highly-prized, fatty delicacy that melts upon contact with the tongue (only restaurants that order large whole tuna fish can offer toro, since the belly makes up such a small percentage of the flesh). Each piece of nigiri was just as it should be: small and easy to eat in one bite, with only a modest amount of vinegared rice covered by a cleanly-cut slice of raw fish. And it goes without saying that the fish was as fresh as fresh can be.
What's so exclusive about an 'exclusive maki,' besides the price? None of the sakana ura maki's (1190 CZK) ingredients – salmon, cucumber, seaweed, mango, and avocado – seemed especially luxurious. But bundled up together in a tight inside-out roll and draped with elegant slivers of salmon and cucumber, each bite was a gorgeous medley of tastes and textures: the cool, smooth salmon; the creamy avocado; the crunch of cucumber and the fragrant mango. The roll was not only sublime, but huge. I would order it again.
Throughout the meal, the service was fantastic – attentive, but unpretentious. Our table was wiped down after each course, and the waiters were happy to make suggestions. One of the fish that was supposed to be part of our nigiri set was unavailable that night, so it was replaced with two pieces of a different kind. We were also given full portions of tuna and avocado sashimi on the house, and each female customer got a red rose when she left. We felt like we were really being looked after.
I was especially impressed by what happened when my companion asked if they had any Czech beer. "We do," our waiter said, "but only bottled. If you like, though, I can bring you freshly-tapped beer from next door."
This was fabulous news. Next door, you see, is the gastropub Olympia, where they serve tanked Plzeň – that meant some first-rate beer to go with the first-rate sushi. The waiter promptly returned clutching a frosty mug of the good stuff, and set it down on a paper coaster in front of my friend.
Now comes the part with the receipt. When we paid the bill, I noticed that it seemed a little high. But it was only after I got home that I took a closer look and realized that the two next-door Plzeňs – the very same ones that cost 39 CZK at Olympia – had cost us 150 CZK each.
What. The. Hell. This was truly an outrage. Yes, charging a little extra – maybe even double – for the additional trouble is understandable. But charging four times the original price? Without any warning at all? Who's ever even heard of a 150 CZK beer in this town?
I posed that last question to my beer-loving brother. He thought it over for some time. "Once," he said, slowly. "When I was at a stag party at this strip club, Goldfingers. They charged us 150 CZK there." He shook his head, apparently distressed by the memory.
And I shake my head, too. Because I really wanted to give The Sushi Bar four spoons. But see? I can't go around saying the service is perfect and then have you dip into your savings fund to pay for a glass of beer.
The sushi, on the other hand – that might be worth going bankrupt for.
The Sushi Bar
Zborovská 49
Prague 5 – Malá Strana
Tel.: 603 244 882
Open Mon-Sun 12:00-22:00
photographs 1, 3 Lidové Noviny; all others sushi.cz
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 05/09/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Restaurant Review: Olympos
I don't know what it is about me and Greek places. On my last visit to a Greek joint (Kri-Kri, on Korunní), I was not only subjected to painfully slow service, but was told that I should expect it to be slow, because that's how things happen in Greece.
Now here I am, sitting at Taverna Olympos, and after waiting ages for a server to take our orders, I have spotted him making his way over to a table of about eight people to take their orders – before ours have been put in to the kitchen. Of course, the big table came after we did, and of course t
hey will get their food first. And naturally, I am starving. I've unwittingly cast myself in One Greek Minute: The Sequel.
When our appetizers finally arrive, they come with a mixed salad we didn't order and one of our main courses. The other entrée comes way later, and it isn't what we wanted. Confusingly, the menu offers two codfish dishes, one fresh and priced by weight, and the other, described only as a "fillet," for 180 CZK. We didn't realize there were two options and weren't asked which of them we wanted, so we ended up with the battered and deep fried fillet.
Olympos has been around since 1997 – first as Tavernaki Olympos, a tiny operation in Pohořelec, then as a thirteen-table restaurant at their current location in Žižkov. They've since expanded to 103 tables, many of which are pleasantly situated in a large outdoor garden. In summertime, the outdoor seating is definitely the main draw, with its leafy trees, children's playground and kitschy murals depicting beach scenes and the Acropolis. So it's a bit of a shame that (although it is de rigeur in Greece to start dinner as late as 21:30) by 22:00, Olympos's guests have to be shuffled indoors or to the winter garden to satisfy noise restrictions. Better, then, to come a little early so you can enjoy the garden for longer.
For some reason, I'd been under the impression that Olympos is an inexpensive restaurant. It can be, I guess, but it depends on what you order. The main courses range from 160 to 800 CZK (for a two-person shrimp tagliatelle), and smaller dishes cost between 70 and 280 CZK. Not a crazy amount, but I didn't necessarily find the value to be all that good. On my second visit, I had the shrimp saganaki. For a fairly hefty 400 CZK, I got a ceramic bowlful (250 grams) of very small, overcooked shrimp, in an admittedly tasty feta, tomato, and green pepper sauce. But I liked Kri-Kri's shrimp saganaki a lot better, and that one cost only 105 CZK for 150 grams. And the Taverna salad (240 CZK) seemed pretty pricey too, considering it was nothing more than a plate of soggy lettuce with a couple of olives and sun-dried tomatoes.
As often seems to be the case in Greek restaurants (and, for that matter, in restaurants in general), the appetizers far outshone the main courses. The tyropites (125 CZK), or cheese-filled pastries, were hot and crispy and oozing with melted salty cheese. The dough was different than the filo dough I'm used to seeing these made with – it was thicker and more brittle, like a spring roll – but they were delicious, and there were lots of them. The peppers stuffed with cheese (120 CZK), on the other hand, only came with two small peppers floating in olive oil, but they had a nice spicy kick. I could have done with more bite in the tzatziki (95 CZK), which seemed a little low on garlic.
For a general taste of the starters, I would recommend you try the Olympos salad (280 CZK). Because it has no explanation in the menu, and the waiter wasn't able to describe it either, I'm going to tell you what was in it: hummus, eggplant spread, potato salad, tzatziki, htipiti (feta cheese spread), gigante beans in tomato sauce, and marinated bell peppers. Not a bad selection. I wanted to get the dolmades as a starter, but they were only listed as a 350g main course. The waiter was flexible enough to give us a half portion; unfortunately, although they came served in a very tasty tomato sauce, they were a little on the bland side.
Best of all was the grilled haloumi (165 CZK), a rubbery Greek cheese that squeaks when you chew it. The thick slices were covered in grill marks, which added a nice smokiness – yum. But it was all downhill from there. The papoutsaki (265 CZK), or stuffed eggplant ("papoutsa" means shoe in Greek), was flavorless and didn't have much meat. The sutzukaki smirneika (ground meat sausages, 225 CZK) were better, but were surrounded by a very oily, thin tomato sauce. And the side dish of grilled vegetables (at an unjustifiable 185 CZK) was an unattractive, woefully greasy mess of random veggies.
Here's what you should do: go to Olympos with some friends, sit in the garden, watch the neighborhood cats tormenting the patrons' tied-up dogs. Let your kids play on the swings and slide. Order a whole bunch of starters to share, as if you were in a tapas joint, and fill up on those. Get some wine, which they serve in these cute colored aluminum carafes, and be careful with the water – in large bottles, they only seem to have some Greek brand that goes for 100 CZK apiece. Skip the main courses. Enjoy, pay, leave.
There you go – a simple, inexpensive meal in a nice Greek restaurant. And you say I never recommend anything…
Taverna Olympos
Kubelíkova 9
Praha 3 – Žižkov
Tel.: 222 722 239
Open Mon-Sun 11:30-24:00
photographs 1, 4, 6 František Vlček for Lidové Noviny; all others taverna-olympos.eu
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 29/08/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Restaurant Review: Mirellie
It's not hard to see why the most-asked question about Mirellie is whether or not it's affiliated with the popular restaurant chain Kogo. All you have to do is open their menu.
Anyone familiar with Kogo's offerings will experience a little déjà vu at Mirellie. The divisions between dishes are the same and in the same order – starters, fish starters, soups, pastas, risottos, etc. –
and many of the dishes themselves are word-for-word copies. Plus, just like at Kogo, the selection is enormous.
The difference is in the prices. At Kogo Slovanský Dům, the grilled roast beef with arugula and parmesan cheese goes for 310 CZK. The same dish at Mirellie costs 135 CZK. At Kogo, a simple plate of linguine with olive oil, garlic and shrimps will set you back 295 CZK. Mirellie charges 165 CZK. A fish soup at Kogo? 210 CZK. Mirellie's is priced at 90 CZK.
No, Mirellie is not affiliated with Kogo. At least some of its owners, however, are former Kogo employees, and it seems they've decided to beat their fellow countrymen-restaurateurs at their own game (both Kogo's and Mirellie's proprietors are from the former Yugoslavia): serving a large range of Mediterranean classics in a modestly upscale atmosphere.
Mirellie's location on a quiet Bubeneč street used to be home to the Asian fusion restaurant Monsoon, and not much has changed in terms of the décor. The dining area is separated into upstairs and downstairs sections, the walls and furniture various shades of brown, grey and beige. The upper space has a bar, a couple of leather couches, and a flat-screen TV; the tables down below are adjacent to the kitchen and toilets. Unfortunately, the non-smoking section is in the far less pleasant downstairs area – a decision that makes sense in terms of its proximity to the kitchen, but continues the city's depressing trend of giving priority to smokers.
Since it opened at the beginning of this year, Mirellie has gained quite a few regular customers. Some of them might be neighborhood diners looking for a decent place to eat – Bubeneč and Dejvice are still low on quality restaurants, and one of the few comparable upper-scale Italian options, Da Emanuel, is very much on the expensive side. Other patrons are former fans of Kogo who have become disillusioned with its constant price hikes and are willing to travel out of the center to get their Yugo-pasta fix.
I count myself as one of the latter. I don't want to mislead anybody; I'm still a big fan of Kogo's, and for years, their restaurants have been some of the most consistently high-quality spots in town. But Kogo is now the kind of place I can't eat in very often without feeling guilty about the money I'm spending.
So on my first visit to Mirellie, naturally, I ordered my favorite Kogo dish: the tagliatelle with arugula and shrimp. At Kogo, this would have set me back 285 CZK; here, it was a mere 170 CZK. But the Mirellie version wasn't as good as Kogo's. The pasta seemed a little dry, as if there wasn't enough sauce or the sauce wasn't especially flavorful. The shrimp, however, were plentiful and perfectly cooked (on a recent Kogo Slovanský Dům visit, the shrimp had been way too soft), as was the pasta, so I was pretty happy overall.
And there were some real delights: a huge portion of bean soup (60 CZK), loaded with the musky aroma of smoked bacon; a small grilled sea bass (290 CZK), so fresh it still tasted of the ocean, served whole but deboned. One of the weekly specials, a lobster salad (260 CZK), could only be described as a fabulous deal. Almost anywhere else, you don't even get to smell a lobster for under 300 CZK. Here, there was a solid half-lobster, several shrimp, and a generous amount of garden salad in a creamy, Russian-style dressing (I didn't get to taste another intriguing special, the polenta with porcini mushrooms, because it wasn't available on either of my visits).
It's certainly not the quantity of food that Mirellie's saving its money on; my pizza Vegetariana (129 CZK) was so big it spilled over the edges of a large dinner plate. It had a thin, cripsy crust and was topped with marinated bell peppers, (undercooked) eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, and kalamata olives. I got half of it wrapped up to go. The grilled octopus with beans and leek (160 CZK) was another large dish, even for an appetizer, with lots of gently browned octopus. I suspected the beans had come out of the can, but they still tasted good. When you've got over two hundred dishes on the menu, I guess you have to cut corners somewhere.
I didn't have any dessert on either of my visits – I was too full, and besides, the dessert options seemed to be limited to the frozen Bindi cakes and profiteroles that so many other restaurants and cafés carry.
The service at Mirellie can be a little slow and forgetful sometimes (on one evening, two of us never got any napkins), and, at other times, a little too eager to clean up plates and pour out Mattoni bottles. I also didn't like that we were charged for bread (10 CZK each for a pizza dough-type roll) even if we didn't eat it. Were we expected to take it home?
Mirellie is destined to be compared to Kogo. People like me will come in and order their usual Kogo dish and will end up either disappointed or pleasantly surprised. But for all the similarities between the two restaurants, the newer one really is doing its own thing, and doing it well. Soon enough, perhaps, guests won't even think to ask about the connection. They'll just appreciate Mirellie for what it is.
Mirellie
V.P. Čkalova 14
Praha 6 – Bubeneč
Tel.: 222 959 999
Open Mon-Sun 11:00-23:00
photographs 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 Tomáš Krist for Lidové noviny; all others mirellie.cz
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 22/08/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Restaurant Review: Pálffy Palác
When Pálffy Palác was in its heyday, in the mid-90s, they used to serve whole roasted heads of garlic at the beginning of each meal. You'd pop a hot clove out of its shell and smear it on a crusty piece of bread, over a thick layer of butter. The garlic would dissolve into a soft puree at the gentlest touch of a knife.
I was only a kid when my family started going to Pálffy for dinner, but for some reason, the memory of the roasted garlic has stuck with me ever since. So upon returning to Pálffy Palác after what was perhaps a ten-year-long interlude, I was excited to see the waiter carrying the familiar p
late of roasted garlic heads and slabs of butter over to our table.
But when I tried to spread the clove across the bread with my butter knife, it didn't melt the way I'd remembered. And it didn't taste very good, either. What had gone wrong?
Pálffy Palác used to be a very sought-after place to go. Housed on the second floor of a 17th-century baroque palace in Malá Strana, it felt almost like a secret restaurant set up in somebody's grand, slightly run-down living room. For a long time, it was the only restaurant in town to serve fresh spinach. It was good and inexpensive, frequented mostly by expats and the likes of Karel Gott (a distinction that apparently elevates any old dive to must-visit status).
Then Prague became flooded with similarly-oriented restaurants, and although few of them had the natural charm of Pálffy, many served fresh spinach and were a lot easier to stumble across. Pálffy bumped up its prices significantly, too, making itself more of a high-end, special-occasion restaurant than an everyday stopover. And perhaps its owner, Roman Řezníček, was momentarily distracted by the opening up of his Holešovice dance club Mecca (since sold to new owners; Řezníček has now also owns longstanding local restaurant U Malířů). Pálffy Palác pretty much fell off the map.
That at least partially explains the stale garlic: a low turnover makes it hard to get the stuff piping hot from the oven for every customer. Nonetheless, Pálffy has a new chef, French-born Kevin Donneger, and it seems to be aiming for a comeback.
The restaurant is still stunning – even, in some aspects, better-looking than it used to be. Pálffy Palác's terrace is one of the most beautiful in the city, overlooking the castle gardens and now, having had some time to grow, lush with plant life. The tops of a set of vanilla trees have risen to eye level, their brown pods swinging in the breeze, while the terrace itself is covered in mismatched ivies and flowers, lending it the atmosphere of a wild garden.
Indoors, the small dining room is all antique furniture, elaborate candelabras, and pretty floral and fruit arrangements. It feels like just the right kind of place to warm up on a wintry evening with a glass of red wine and a newfound lover.
But that may be as far as you should take it. Pálffy is, for what it is, overpriced; main courses cost between 490 and 690 CZK, and I never quite felt I was getting my money's worth. The ravioli filled with goat's cheese and served with bacon cream (290 CZK) were not great: they reminded me of my grandmother's pirogies, only a lot worse, because the ravioli was undercooked and beyond al dente, leading me to suspect that the pasta wasn't especially fresh. I had been intrigued by the notion of "bacon cream," but it ended up being nothing more than regular cream sprinkled with bits of fatty bacon.
And although Mr. Donneger has professed his passion for using organic ingredients, he doesn't seem to put much stock into the seasonality of his menu. One of the two entrée options for lunch on a sweltering summer day was a venison steak in an oily brown gravy. The meat came with two little piles of green and yellow zucchini, but they tasted as if they had been doused in butter. My appetizer wasn't very summery, either: a clichéd combination of baked goat cheese on white toast over a pear compote, drizzled with balsamic reduction. I'm getting sweaty just thinking about it.
The glowing exception to all this nonsense was the perfect green bean soup (135 CZK), a snappy-tasting light cream that brought out all the flavor of its simple main ingredient. I also liked the rosemary crème brulee (250 CZK) that I had for dessert, although the vanilla millefeuille with red fruit coulis (290 CZK) was so frugal on the berries you almost had to squint to make out the little dots of sauce on the plate. For good measure, I guess, they also tossed in half a strawberry.
I was a little turned off when, on my way to the bathroom inside, I overheard the trio of waiters laughing loudly about the American family sitting on the terrace. Instead of exchanging ty voles, maybe they could have studied the menu. My companion ordered the seasonal sorbet selection (190 CZK), and the waiter wasn't able to tell him what flavors they had, even though the only ones available were strawberry and lemon.
It would be unfair to say that the service at Pálffy is bad; it was always friendly, to our faces, anyway. But we went through a whole meal without being given a napkin, and the weekday set lunch took almost two hours.
That probably doesn't sound too attractive to those of you who are in the market for a quick business lunch. If your inclinations are a little more romantic, however, Pálffy is a pretty good place for that kind of thing. Just don't set your expectations too high.
Pálffy Palác
Valdštejnská 14
Praha 1 - Malá Strana
map
Tel.: 257 530 522
Open Mon-Sun 11:00-23:00
photographs 1, 5, 6 Pavel Wellner for Lidové Noviny; all others palffypalac.cz
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 08/08/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.
