Restaurant Review: U Petrské Věže (CLOSED)

Note to readers: As of 30/11/09, U Petrské Věže is no longer in operation.

There's something old-fashioned about U Petrské Věže. You'd think I was talking about the 14th-century building in which it resides, with its vaulted ceilings and Gothic cellar, or the restaurant's crystal chandeliers and antique-style furniture. But the kind of history I have in mind is a little more recent: waiters suited up in ties, black vests, and tangerine-colored dress shirts; menus laminated and bound in padded faux leather. It's 1995 all over again.

That, after all, is the year U Petrské Věže opened, and there don't seem to have been too many updates since. The dishes are still mostly scaled-up, if not exactly modernized, Czech classics, in a style that used to be popular among a certain segment of locals. Nowadays, when people want a fancy meal, they go for Italian or French or Asian; the Petrské Věžes and Modrá Kachničkas have been left for the tourists, or the very occasional Czech who wants to take foreign visitors to a nice local restaurant that isn't a pub.

The fallout from this shift in tastes was obvious on my visit to U Petrské Věže. The only other guests all evening were four older British tourists, who seemed happy enough with their restaurant choice. The wild boar in rosehip sauce sounded "fabulous," and they puzzled good-naturedly over the fresh rye bread and bowlful of sádlo that the waiter placed on their table at the start of their meal. They might have been even more confused if they'd known that they were about to be charged 40 CZK each for that bread and lard, even if they didn't touch any of it.

I wasn't confused, though. This was Flashback 1995, and couverts were very trendy in 1995. Was it also trendy to heinously overcharge for beverages? It must have been, otherwise U Petrské Věže wouldn't be selling 0.5l bottles of Vittel for 140 CZK and beers for 70 CZK.

The beer, it must be said, is actually one of U Petrské Věže's strong points; it is from a small brewery, Rohozec, and is tapped into frosty mugs. It's nice to see a restaurant that has managed to resist Pilsner Urquell's strong-armed tactics, even if it has to charge a lot of money to make up for it (the restaurant also has a cellar full of Czech and Moravian wines, but I didn't get to try any of those).

So the beer at U Petrské Věže might be worth its price, but the food – at least for the most part – definitely isn't. As my starter, I had the beef broth with sherry and Celestine noodles (120 CZK), and it was so salty that I couldn't eat more than a few spoonfuls. The sherry flavor was pretty overpowering, too, although I did like the dill-flavored, pancake-like homemade noodles.

Then there was my main course, the wild duck breast with "old Bohemian black sauce" and potato pancakes (440 CZK). I actually liked the sauce, a thick and sticky (and indeed nearly black) stew, fragrant with prunes. The problem was the meat itself: it was brutally overcooked, to the point where there was no pink hue left in the center of the breast at all. It was just a fat, gray, incredibly tough lump of meat. I realize that cooking duck breast all the way through is sort of the local way of doing it (as opposed to the French, who like theirs pink and tender), but judging by this example, the local way is just not very good. This was a waste of a perfectly decent piece of meat.

Another part of the dish seemed a little bit off, too: the potato pancakes. They were very small and thick, which is fine, but they were also quite sweet, which was not fine. They tasted not as if they should be served next to a roast duck breast, but covered with jam and powdered sugar. Later, I would find out why.

Chefs often repeat elements from dish to dish – the same little salad here, the same celery puree there. It makes their lives easier, and most of the time, it doesn't really matter too much. But it's only happened to me once before that I ate the same thing for my main course and my dessert (at the Mexican restaurant Cantina, where I was given the same chocolate syrup over both chicken breast and chocolate cake).

You can see where this is going. I ordered the old-style Czech pancake (180 CZK) for dessert. When it arrived, it was not one pancake, but a few small ones – the exact same kind that had been served with my duck dish. They came drenched in a similar sauce to the duck's, also made of prunes, although this one tasted strongly of alcohol. Some crumbled gingerbread was sprinkled on top. The pancakes definitely made more sense in the sweet version, but by that point, I'd already had my fill.

Not everything was bad at U Petrské Věže. My companion ordered an unusual appetizer, a fruit salad with crayfish tails (280 CZK) in a light mayonnaise dressing, that was actually very fresh and tasty. The service was attentive, and I liked that all the food was served on pretty porcelain plates.

But meat is definitely not this restaurant's strong point – even if it makes up most of the menu. When I tried a bite of my friend's roasted pheasant breast (430 CZK), it was so dry and stringy that part of it instantly became lodged between two of my back teeth. Upon further mastication, I realized that the piece was full of tendon, or cartilage, or something. So I did the old unchewable meat trick: I retrieved a tissue from my purse and discreetly spat out the offending bite.

Not the most elegant thing to do in a nice restaurant, I know. But as it turned out, this restaurant wasn't all that nice, anyway.

U Petrské Věže
Petrská 12
Praha 1 - Nové Město
map
Tel.: 222 329 856

Open Mon-Fri 12:00-24:00, Sat-Sun 18:00-01:00

photographs Tomáš Krist for Lidové noviny; all others upetrskeveze.cz

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 28/11/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

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