Looking for someplace to take your (potential) lover for Valentine's Day? On February 14th, Prague's restaurants will be awash with special menus, red ro
ses, and in one case at least, complimentary condoms.
Here's a fairly exhaustive list of the kitschy goings-on to be held around town this Valentine's:
Alcron / La Rotonde - Each of the Radisson SAS restaurants will offer different four-course "his 'n' hers" menus. Highlights: At Alcron, raw oysters (for him) and scallops and crayfish in champagne soup (for her); at La Rotonde, beef tournedos Rossini with seared foie gras and truffle sauce (to share). Price per couple: 4000 CZK (Alcron) / 3400 CZK (La Rotonde).
Allegro - Choose between a four- and five- course Valentine's Day menu at this upscale Italian restaurant in the Four Seasons hotel. Price per person: 2500 CZK (four courses), 3600 CZK (four courses + wine pairing) / 2900 CZK (five courses), 4300 CZK (five courses + wine pairing).
Brasserie M - A special three-course menu for two. Highlights: An "aphrodisiac" duck fillet with ginger and Middle Eastern spices, chocolate fondant with passion fruit. Price per couple: 1750 CZK / 2250 CZK (with two glasses of champagne).
Chateau Mcely - The luxury castle retreat outside of Prague is offering a Valentine's Day package that includes a four-course dinner at their restaurant, Piano Nobile. Price per person: 1600 CZK, including dinner, welcome drink, chocolates and flowers, plus an invite to a screening of a romantic movie.
CzecHouse - A romantic five-course meal will be available at the spacious Hilton restaurant. Highlights: A trio of Valentine desserts - chocolate parfait with orange cream, mini pear tatin with po
rt wine ice cream, and marinated pomegranate on honey yoghurt. Price per couple: 2950 CZK.
Essensia - The Asian-inspired restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel is putting together a five-course meal that includes a welcome cocktail (the "Valentini") and a small present for the lady. Highlights: Gratinated Fine de Claire oysters and caviar, crispy Peking duck and langoustine. Price per person: 1900 CZK.
Flambée - Two Valentine's menus will be offered from the 14th to the 17th of February: an afternoon dessert and champagne menu, and a six-course dinner. Highlights: B
aked langoustine with truffle cream and caviar, and a selection of veal entrées. Price per person: 890 CZK (dessert and champagne) / 2990 CZK (dinner).
Kampa Park - Sit by the river and enjoy a candlelit three-course dinner. Highlight: Monkfish wrapped in bacon with celery-dill purée, leek confit, and salmon roe beurre blanc. Price per person: 1665 CZK.
La Provence - The French brasserie will serve a three-course Valentine's Day dinner. Highlight: Poached halibut with shrimp and asparagus risotto with vermouth sauce. Price per person: 1125 CZK.
maze - Gordon Ramsay's Prague outpost is preparing a seven-course menu for lovers' day. Highlights: Poached lobster with apple and fennel salad, pan-fried John Dory with crushed potatoes and white bean velouté. Price per person: 1700 CZK.
Monsoon - Three special courses will be available at the Dejvice fusion restaurant. Highlight: White chocolate Grand Marnier mousse in pistachio tuille cups. Price per person: 595 CZK.
U Emy Destinnové - No set menu, but special Valentine's Day dishes, red roses for the ladies, and live music will lend this cozy below-ground restaurant an even more romantic to
ne than usual. Highlights: Grilled scallops wrapped in bacon with red currant wine sauce, fresh-grilled lobster, shrimp, and langoustines.
V Zátiší - The long-standing Prague restaurant is planning a four-course menu, including a "sweet surprise." Highlight: Roasted Barberie duck breast with foie gras and mashed potatoes in bresaola, spring onion, and lavender sauce. Price per person: 1295 CZK / 1995 CZK with wine pairing.
For romantic after-dinner drinks, look no further than Bar and Books: both locations will be holding Valen
tine's Day celebrations. Buy a bottle of champagne and the lady will receive a strawberry fondue and cigar on the house; her man gets a flavored Durex condom. Formal attire is required.
And if you're in the mood to just stay at home and cuddle or whatnot, Bakeshop will be making all of its well-loved cakes in heart shapes next week. Especially recommended are the perfectly pretty marzipan-and-raspberry princess cake and the frosted heart butter cookies (see picture above). Happy canoodling!
images: williamssonoma.com, chateaumcely.cz, mandarinoriental.com, flambee.cz, gordonramsay.com, vzatisi.cz, praguespoon
Friday, February 8, 2008
Valentine's Day Dinner
Monday, January 21, 2008
Food news: Starbucks and Gordon Ramsay come to town (separately)
Despite half-hearted threats of protest from the Association of Residents and Friends of Malá Strana, Starbucks will be opening its doors to the Czech public on Tuesday. A spokesperson for the mammoth coffee shop chain says it has "carefully and thoughtfully rehabilitated the Palác Grömlingovský retail location and returned it to its historic use as a coffeehouse and gathering place for the local community." More on that later...
On the other end of the culinary spectrum, English chef Gordon Ramsay will be in Prague Tuesday to promote his latest venture, maze. The surrounding festivities are to include a press conference and dinner at the restaurant for invited members of the local media.
The Dejvice location of organic grocery store Country Life has been temporarily shut down in order to make way for a "vegetarian bistro." The shop should re-open within the next couple of weeks.
Around the cor
ner from Country Life, Asian fusion restaurant Monsoon has announced its new Saturday Family Lunch special, which offers a three-course menu at 199 CZK per person. Children under 8 eat for 10 CZK per every year of age (a seven-year-old eats for 70 CZK, etc.), and a surpervised play area is provided.
images: starbucks.com, telegraph.co.uk, monsoon-restaurant.cz
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Black Truffle Days @ CzecHouse
Feeling fancy? Head over to the Hilton during their annual Black Truffle Days. The highly-prized fungi are at their most fragrant in January, and the staff at CzecHouse will be whipping up a feast to celebrate. Here's a sampler of what you can expect:
- marble of foie gras and pheasant with black truffles, crispy brioche, and fig chutney
- Perigord truffle risotto with oysters, roasted tomato and fava beans
- braised veal cheek with burgundy wine glaze on black truffle oil mashed potatoes
- fig tatin with truffle ice cream
You can check out the full menu here.
Black Truffle Days
18 - 27 January
CzecHouse Grill & Rotisserie
Prague Hilton
image: hiltonprague.cz
Monday, January 14, 2008
Restaurant Review: Maze Prague by Gordon Ramsay (CLOSED)
There's been a lot of twittering over Michelin stars in Prague lately. Will we see one in the next year? And if so, which restaurant will be the first to receive the famous French accolade?
Much of the hype can be attributed to the recent arrival of Gordon Ramsay's Maze, which boasts sister locations in London and New York. Ramsay may be best-known to the masses as a hot-tempered TV celebrity chef, but he is a culinary master in his own right, having earned no fewer than twelve Michelin stars over the course of his career.
Do Ramsay's world-class standards hold up even in Prague? Well, kind of.
It's hard to find much fault with the kitchen; the food is every bit as good as you'd expect. A frothy Jerusalem artichoke velouté (250 CZK) is paired with a luscious duck ragout so supple that the meat almost seemed to dissolve upon contact with the tongue. A side of 
buttery cep (porcini) brioche that had been cleverly molded into little mushrooms was just right for absorbing this very rich and wintry appetizer.
No less filling was a hearty entrée of braised beef short rib with bacon, mushrooms, and baby onion (700 CZK). There isn't much ingenuity on display here -- this is more or less a classic beef Bourguignon. But it's beef Bourguignon at its very best: incredibly tender cubes of meat in a velvety red wine reduction, enlivened by the sweet pop of pearl onions and a few satisfyingly smoky chunks of bacon. Unfortunately, the mashed potatoes served on the side were overwhelmed by too much heavy cream and butter, resulting in a drippy, sauce-like concoction that didn't taste or feel like potatoes and would have been better off eaten with a soup spoon.
The sea bass (650 CZK), on the other hand, was a joy to eat. The flaky hunk of fish was lightly seasoned and perfectly cooked, topped with a layer of skin so crisp and salty that it reminded me of dried seaweed. Dotting one side of the plate were one-inch squares of sweet and sour infused bell pepper as bright and juicy as red Jolly Ranchers. And the ever-so-slightly-spicy couscous was just moist enough when tossed with a smattering of fresh tomatoes.
I could write an entire post about maze's desserts. I still might, one day; pastry, after all, is head chef Philip Carmichael's specialty, and it shows. A super-moist sticky toffee pudding (250 CZK) drowns in a bath of hot caramel and roasted nuts, a dollop of crème fraîche spooned over the cake to dilute its sweetness. A warm, vanilla-specked rice pudding (250 CZK) is served atop cooked raspberries in a picturesque, heat-resistant glass jar. A hot chocolate fondant with honey and milk ice cream (250 CZK) is an exemplary version of what is now a very common dessert. And don't be put off by the idea of the peanut butter and cherry jam sandwich (250 CZK, pictured below). It's wonderful, and probably different from what you might expect.
I wish I could say that the service at Maze is just as good as the dishes I've described above. Sadly, it's not even close.
The food always arrived promptly, there were no mix-ups, and the staff was courteous enough. But there are some serious gaps here:
1) On one visit, our party of five had two large bottles of water on our table, one still and one sparkling. Although our initial server had marked the labels with numbers to keep track of who was drinking which, he and his colleagues repeatedly doled out the wrong type of water to each person. They seemed to have a knack for swooping in to our table and dumping water in our glasses so quickly and confidently that we didn't have enough time to tell them that they were, once again, giving us still instead of sparkling and vice versa. "Oh, I'm sorry," the server would say. A couple of minutes later, the same mistake would happen again.
2) During the same dinner, a server leaned over one of us to fill another's glass, thus bringing his armpit intrusively close to my companion's face.
3) The servers appear to have a system of whisking away bottles that still have a centimeter or two of wine left in them, as if they were empty. Presumably, there's a staff leftovers bar somewhere in back lined with the remnants of our Sauvignons.
4) I don't like to use other people's anecdotes in my reviews, but I feel obliged to mention the experience of a dear friend of mine who, incidentally, is very knowledgeable about food and wine and has made a successful career for herself in the culinary world. She recently dined at maze with a large table made up mostly of other women. The sommelier, assuming that my friend didn't know what she was doing, hovered over her shoulder invasively as she scanned the wine list, despite the fact that she was clearly unnerved by his presence.
When my friend told the sommelier that she'd opted for a Russian River Valley Cabernet to accompany their meal, the wine waiter promptly informed her that she had chosen badly. "That," he sneered, "is not a good wine for women."
Um. What?
Is that really what we're dealing with here -- service that is capable of being not only amateurish and dishonest, but also condescending and sexist? How very embarrassing for Maze. And how unappetizing for the rest of us.
Michelin and its stars would be well-advised to keep a safe distance from this particular branch of Maze, or they run the risk of soiling their hard-earned reputation. If Mr. Ramsay were to have consulted me while he was considering opening a restaurant here, I'd probably have given him a similar warning about the city of Prague. Many foreigners running a business here will tell you that, for whatever reason, it's very, very difficult to train local staff, especially in the area of service.
But it's certainly not impossible, as a handful of establishments has shown. Until Maze figures out how to fix its weak service standards, the delectable accomplishments of the kitchen will be soured by a nasty flavor that's put on the table far too often around here. And that, as they say, would be a damn škoda.
Maze by Gordon Ramsay
V Celnici 7 (in the Hilton Prague Old Town)
Prague 1 - New Town
Tel: +420 221 822 300
map
images: gordonramsay.com
