Restaurant Review: Století

Století is apparently a very popular restaurant. I discovered this as I was doing my research before writing this article: rave reviews were all over the internet, both from local critics and on tourist-oriented websites. On one of the most well-known travel sites, tripadvisor.com, Století ranks among the top restaurants in Prague, and reservations are a must on more or less any day of the week.

So, once again, I'm probably going to upset a few people. What is so great about Století? I just don't get it.

The restaurant is very reasonably priced, especially considering its location in Old Town, and its owner, Antonin Kinský (also the proprietor of Bar Bar, a pancake house across the river), has created a cozy little space. The brightly-lit front room has a small bar and a fireplace, atop which are various knickknacks. The more spacious back seating area is dominated by a black iron serpent hanging from the arched ceiling. Sketches of old building are framed on the walls, and (fake) potted plants sit on the window ledges. In the summer, there's outdoor seating with a view of the 11th-century Rotunda sv. Kříže (Rotunda of the Holy Rood) across the street. The overall effect is sort of rustic and homey.

You wouldn't be able to guess Století's theme from the interior design, but one look at the menu should clear that up instantly. Each of the dishes is named after a different notable person (usually some sort of artist) of the last century. There are dishes ascribed to Louis Armstrong and Fernand Léger. Ema Destinnová has a salad, and Agatha Christie her very own dessert.

It's actually a pretty charming concept. The only problem is that the famous people have little or nothing to do with their respective dishes. What does Lilli Palmer, the German actress, have in common with curried pork medallions and porcini mushrooms? Would her colleague, the American silent film star Gloria Swanson, really have tucked in to a hearty dinner of cheese nuggets in African tomato sauce?

It's not that the anachronisms matter so much, really. The idea just would have been more effective if the each celebrity were paired up with a classic dish from his or her era and geographical location. Gustav Klimt could have had something nice from Austro-Hungary, like a Tafelspitz or whatever. I don't know.

But that wouldn't correspond too well with Století's cooking style. Its website professes its cuisine to be "authentic Czech food in an international style." As far as I could tell, however, there's nothing "authentic Czech" or particularly "international" about it. The food is pretty much just a whole bunch of made-up nonsense.

I have nothing against a little culinary innovation, of course. But there are times when, no matter how good the intention behind the idea, certain pairings are just fundamentally wrong. Vegetable salad with frankfurters, for example. Or turkey breast stuffed with bryndza (sheep cheese) and sour cream. Even without having tasted these creations, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that they're probably pretty gross.

I can also make that judgment based on the dishes I did eat at Století, which were also based on some bizarre combinations. The "Lola Montez," or stuffed avocado with tomato escabache (98 CZK), sounded decent in theory. But the tomatoes had been folded into a cheese-based sauce – a drippier version of the bryndzová pomazánka (sheep cheese spread) you'd get at the deli – that didn't go well with the avocado at all. And the avocado was too unripe to be very flavorful. (As an aside, I'm not sure why the tomato mixture was called an "escabache"; that term usually refers to a Spanish-style marinated fish).

The dish's one redeeming quality was the accompanying green salad, a mesclun mix that was obviously very fresh. The same lettuce came with the Ema Destinnová salad (139 CZK), a completely random combo that included duck liver, pieces of toast, roasted apples, tomatoes, black and green olives, corn, peas, and whatever else they could find lurking in the back of the vegetable cooler. If I have to tell you why all those ingredients together (particularly the apples and tomatoes and olives) are a bad idea, then maybe you should earmark Století for your next evening on the town. You might actually like the place.

What I found most frustrating about Století were the occasional glimpses of good cooking – ruined, inevitably, by another strange concoction. The William Somerset Maugham (218 CZK) was a tender, well-seasoned piece of rump steak, covered in a creamy black peppercorn sauce. Sounds pretty good, right? It would have been if it wasn't for the bananas. Yup, that's right: bananas. On a steak. With pepper sauce. That's all I need to say about that dish, I think.

But W. Somerset Maugham was downright classic compared to Století's pièce de résistance, the Erich von Stroheim (139 CZK). I'm sure you're familiar with the sweet chili sauce that every Thai restaurant serves with spring rolls and shrimp chips. It comes from a bottle, which is why it always tastes the same. That's also how I knew that the sauce atop poor Mr. Stroheim's chicken breast, served with a couple slices of cooked pear, was from the bottle, too. Besides the fact that the flavor profile is heinous, it is also an incredibly lazy piece of cooking: grill chicken, dump pre-packaged Asian condiment on top, and serve. They didn't even bother to heat the sauce, even though it was so cold it had probably come from the fridge. Yuck.

The food is really a shame, because the ambiance at Století is very pleasant, and the service is good. Still, I would never consider it to be one of the top restaurants in town, even in its price range. But what do I know? The masses, after all, seem to think otherwise.

Století
Karolíny Světlé 21
Praha 1 - Staré Město
map
Tel: 222 220 008

Open Mon-Sun 12:00 - 24:00

photographs 1, 2, 5 Tomáš Krist for Lidové noviny; all others stoleti.cz

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 12/12/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

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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 get 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.

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Restaurant Review: Zlatý Anděl Fusion

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 16/05/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

Here's a handy rule of thumb to use when choosing where to have your next meal: when a restaurant has its lunch menu written on its windows in green and orange marker, it's probably a good place not to go. The marker-on-the-window thing stinks so potently of desperation that I've heard a friend of mine refer to it as "the mark of death" – something akin to the symbol they used to draw in chalk on the doors of infected houses during the time of the bubonic plague.

This tacky practice has become so popular that it's pretty difficult nowadays to find a restaurant in the center that isn't covered in fluorescent cloud shapes and the price of roasted pork knuckles. So I was willing to give Zlatý Anděl Fusion a shot despite its copious use of war paint – particularly because its head chef, Martial Clement, had wowed me last year at his previous post, Zahrada v Opeře.

A fully-renovated Dům U Zlatého Anděla had sat empty for over a year before finding an occupant, a local outpost of the Spanish chain Barceló hotels. The hotel might be filling up, but its restaurant has been largely ignored by locals and visitors alike; the long main part of the dining room, packed with closely-set tables and chairs, was empty and almost dark when we arrived. We sat in the front café area instead, a somewhat livelier space with large windows facing the street that nonetheless feels very much like a part of the adjacent hotel lobby.

I tried to speak with the maitre d' in Czech, but he apparently did not speak a word of the local language. His English was only so-so – he sometimes appeared to have trouble understanding us and explaining himself. I wondered if this was a restaurant meant exclusively for Spanish speakers. A few of them appeared during our meal, and the waiter chatted with them at length while we waited for our soup spoons.

They never came, so I used a fork to eat my coconut velouté with crab ravioli (190 CZK). I didn't care all that much because the soup was completely tasteless, like I'd imagine coconut milk to be if it was watered down and thickened with flour. The ravioli was filled with a solid mass that didn't seem to have much to do with crab, and the calamari it came with were rubbery. My companion's mozzarella salad (270 CZK) was even worse: it was nothing more than a pile of dry mesclun, a soggy half-ciabatta covered in melted cheese, a strip of uncooked bacon, and a thin slice of zucchini.

This was not what I expected from Mr. Clement, whose carefully arranged, flavor-packed dishes at Záhrada stand out in my mind as some of the best I've tried since I started writing this column. I would even venture to say that the main course I had at Zlatý Anděl was one of the worst dishes I've ever had in a restaurant above the III. skupina.

I'm talking about the veal tournedos (450 CZK), which were as tough as well-chewed chewing gum and completely unseasoned – unless you count the black charring that scarred both sides of the meat. The accompanying carrots, zucchini, and mushrooms had been burnt mercilessly, too. It was like eating a big lump of coal with little lumps of coal on the side.

Other culinary highlights included a freezer-burnt tuna steak (450 CZK) and a risotto "Arborio" (390 CZK) that was not made with Arborio rice. It did contain carrots, zucchini, and some waterlogged shiitake mushrooms, the same combo of vegetables that graced my dinner plate. The key ingredient to risotto besides rice, parmesan cheese, was missing entirely.

The one good dish we had all evening was the chocolate fondant (150 CZK), served with coconut ice cream, black currant foam, and mango sauce. Unfortunately for me, I had chosen the profiteroles for dessert. They were filled with a watery, unsatisfying vanilla ice cream. Because my companion's order of homemade gelato included a very different version of vanilla, I suspected the profiteroles hadn't been made in-house.

Along with these gastronomical atrocities came some almost comically incompetent service. When we asked for our Gavi to be chilled, the waiter put it in a bucket with a little bit of ice and no water, a method that ensured the wine would not have cooled had we sat there all night. He then proceeded to dole out the lukewarm wine, always first to the man and then to the women – a definite no-no in any half-decent restaurant.

The servers were pretty friendly, but seemed to lack any kind of common sense or courtesy. Two of us refused the slices of bread we were offered (it was just bone-dry Šumavský chleba, after all), only to find out a minute later that the bread was necessary in order to eat the amuse-bouche – a dish consisting of olive oil, two olives, and a slab of butter. When we started to get cold and tried to close the unwieldy French doors that were open right next to us, the waiter saw us struggling and didn't offer to help. And for a quarter of an hour I watched, fascinated, as he repeatedly walked around a customer's sweater that had fallen onto the floor from the back of his chair. At least he didn't walk through it, I guess.

You kind of expect these luxury hotel restaurants to be not all that great. But this bad? With that chef? Oh, Prague, dear Prague; the depths of your culinary hell never cease to surprise me.

Heed the window paint on this one: avoid it as you would the plague.

Zlatý Anděl Fusion Restaurant & Café
Barceló Old Town Praha Hotel
Celetná 29
Praha 1 - Old Town
map
Tel: 222 337 807

Open Mon-Sun 12:00-15:00, 19:00-00:00

photographs Pavel Wellner for Lidové Noviny; all others barcelo.com

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Restaurant Review: V Zátiší

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 25/04/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

I didn't expect much of V Zátiší. A tired restaurant that's been around for almost two decades? In this city, longevity is often less an indicator of consistent quality than a sign of stubbornness, of a refusal to either pack it in or move along with the times. Sure, V Zátiší was great back when it was pretty much the only nice restaurant around, but I doubted that it could compete with Prague's younger dining elite.

I should have known better. At the very least, I could have been tipped off by V Zátiší's radically remodeled aesthetic. Its outdated, colorful décor was stripped away last September by interior designer Barbara Hamplová and replaced with fanciful brown-on-slate wallpaper and comfy crushed velved armchairs. Sleek vases by local glasswear designer Rony Plesl are stuffed with feathers, cotton buds, and spotted eggs; framed botanical sketches and the carved birds perched on the drinks tables next to the bar complete the still life theme. The new interior is modern without being minimalist (many people would say anyway that done-to-death minimalism is no longer modern).

Any restaurant that undertakes such a bold shift after so many years must be making an effort. And V Zátiší really does make an effort: the staff was willing and cheerful from the moment my companion and I stepped in the door. The hostess who greeted us waited calmly while I spent a couple of minutes digging my mobile phone from out of my coat pocket before she carried our jackets away from our sight, and an equally patient waiter dispelled my confusion about the menu system.

"It's all very simple," he said, although it wasn't really as simple as he claimed. The menu's prices are listed like a regular à la carte, but if a customer selects two or more courses, he has composed for himself a "Deluxe Menu" with a set price ranging from 840 CZK (two courses) to 1390 CZK (five courses). Each of those can come with an optional wine tasting menu at additional price. But then doesn't everyone end up having a "Deluxe Menu" unless they only want one course? What's the point?

Then there was the matter of the Fish of the Day, which was priced as "Pay as you wish." Could I really pay whatever I wanted for that day's salmon special?

"Yes," the waiter assured me. "If you want, you can pay 20 CZK." Really?

"Yes, really, though most people end up getting one of the multi-course menus anyway." Aha, so I wouldn't really end up paying 20 CZK then, right?

The waiter started to look nervous. "If you like, we can agree on a price."

There was no need; I didn't want the fish special anyway. I had my heart set on the svíčková na smetaně (beef sirloin in cream sauce) (695 CZK), off the 'Bohemian Specialties' section of the menu. That small list is obviously catered to tourists who want to try Czech food, but I found it a bit of a shame that the Czech classics weren't integrated into the menu as a whole.

The svíčková was certainly good enough to stand alongside the other dishes. For the price, of course, one would expect a little more than a hospoda-style hotové jídlo version, and it was. The cuts of beef were thick and juicy, their sweet sauce bright yellow and obviously packed with vegetables. On the side was an herb-laden homemade Karlovarský knedlík (bread dumplings), cranberries over a dollop of crème fraiche, and green beans wrapped in bacon. Here, finally, is some of the local cuisine that a tourist could eat without going home and declaring Czech food to be inedible.

V Zátiší does have many tourist customers, apparently because the restaurant has worked out a deal with some of the city's hotels. But it is by no means a tourist restaurant, and is certainly not a "tourist trap," as I have labeled one or two of Prague's other veteran upscale establishments.

V Zátiší's head chef, Milan Hořejš, has a weakness for sweet, fruity flavors. The appetizer sampler (395 CZK) included a pumpkin and autumn pear soup with cinnamon cream (I couldn't taste the pear at all, but the cappucino-like cinnamon froth was a nice touch) and a green asparagus salad with pine nuts and a black currant dressing that also came with fresh red currants. The third sample was the oddly-named "seared beef carpaccio" – since carpaccio is by definition raw, the meat more closely resembled roast beef.

All of the above dishes were good, if unexceptional. What bothered me about them was their lack of seasonality. When I visited V Zátiší (at the end of March), it was not quite asparagus season, it was definitely not the best time for currants, and we were still a long way away from harvesting pumpkins. A seasonally-oriented menu not only allows a restaurant's dishes to complement the weather outside, but also (hopefully) indicates that their ingredients have been reared closer to home and are therefore fresher.

I also felt at times that there was too much happening on my plate. My dessert, the warm caramel gingerbread (245 CZK), came with three sauces: caramel, raspberry, and chocolate, plus a scoop of walnut-flavored ice cream. Apparently, V Zátiší is on some kind of sauce kick; each of their daily specials and many of their regular dishes come with the choice of two different sauces (the waiter recommended trying them both at once). There was wasabi beurre blanc sauce, squid ink sauce, mint aioli sauce, and more. There was an endless stream of little serving pitchers and dipping bowls and rectangular plates.

Why not just pick one great sauce for each dish and stick to it? The problem was similar to the menu's – there were too many variations. Limiting your customer's options doesn't have to be a bad thing. But I still came away from V Zátiší feeling that I'd had a nice meal served by kind people in a beautiful setting. And sometimes, the last impression is what ends up counting the most.

V Zátiší
Liliová 1
Praha 1 - Old Town
Tel: 222 221 155
map

Open Mon – Sun 12:00 - 15:00, 17:30 - 23:00

photographs 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Tomáš Krist for Lidové Noviny; all others vzatisi.cz

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Restaurant Review: Villa Richter

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 20/09/08 edition of Lidové Noviny.

Three restaurants, multiple terraces, an extensive wine cellar, and a newly-planted vineyard: no one could accuse Villa Richter of lacking ambition.

Anyone who'd undertake the necessarily substantial renovation of this castle-side Classicist summerhouse and its accompanying 7000 square meter property would have to prepare themselves for a formidable task. Built in the 1830s by architect Josef Peschka, the building was confiscated from the German Richter family in 1945 and eventually housed private apartments, the Cuban embassy, and the Communist Interior Ministry. After winning a ten-year-long restitution dispute during the 1990s, the Prague Castle decided to rent out the decaying Villa and its overgrown former vineyard to those who proposed the best project for the site's rejuvenation.

Just a couple of months ago, Villa Richter was opened to the public for the first time. Locals and tourists are free to walk its pretty grounds and enjoy either a Czech-style meal at the Piano Terra restaurant or a more upscale dinner upstairs at Piano Nobile. Or they can opt for coffee and a snack at Pergola, a vineyard-side outdoor café.

But will they want to?

At the very least, they'll come for the view. All of Villa Richter's restaurants boast stunning outdoor seating with vistas over Malá Strana, the castle, and beyond. Unfortunately, the Villa is also home to some pretty steep prices and a whole lot of uneven cooking.

Looking at Piano Terra's menu, it's hard not to immediately categorize it as a tourist trap. Although this is the less expensive restaurant option at Villa Richter, a 0.4l glass of Plzen will set you back 59 CZK. A bowl of kulajda (a traditional Czech soup made with potatoes, mushrooms and dill), meanwhile, is priced at 110 CZK. The prices are sure to scare off a few curious locals, but I wasn't put off right away. I've always wished there were more restaurants serving Czech food that isn't the usual hospoda grizzle – even if it would mean paying a little extra to get it (Café Savoy is one exception; another, apparently, is the Krogen Soldaten Svejk restaurant in Stockholm, where a friend of mine claims to have eaten better Czech food than she's ever had in a restaurant at home).
While the food at Piano Terra is of higher quality than you'd usually find at a Czech place, it doesn’t live up to the promise of its prices. The house specialty is a plate of Prague ham served with apple horseradish, gherkins, and pickled vegetables. The ham was juicy and the horseradish sweet and powerfully spicy, but for 290 CZK I'd hope for a čalamáda (pickled vegetable mix) that wasn't completely bland and bread that wasn't stale and crumbly. Although the Wienerschnitzel came with a great potato salad, the meat itself was chewy and dry and hadn't been pounded out thin enough. With a price tag of 390 CZK, one would expect the schnitzel to be damn near perfect.

Because of Piano Terra's sprawling terraces and lovely view, the food may not have to be perfect – at least for now. But when guests will have to retreat into the small, stuffy-looking indoor dining rooms in the wintertime, they may be less willing to overlook the flawed food and overblown prices.

The upstairs restaurant, Piano Nobile (not to be confused with Chateau Mcely's restaurant of the same name), seems to have accounted for this problem a little better than its neighbor. In addition to its outdoor terrace, it also features a gorgeous greenhouse dining room that takes full advantage of the city view. But the very nice atmosphere can't make up for the fact that the food here is expensive, pretentious, and not especially good.

Somebody in Piano Nobile's kitchen needs to have his or her palate checked. Dish after dish came out tasting strange – and not in a good or interesting way, either. When my companion ordered the cold cucumber soup with mint (210 CZK), I'd hoped it would be a crisp, refreshing summer starter. Instead, the distinctive taste of cucumber was muddled by some oddly sweet and vinegary flavors, and it was served lukewarm when it should have been ice-cold.

An entrée of smoked duck breast, served with corn, chanterelles, and a cognac sauce (650 CZK), was memorable only for the fact that the corn – which, by the way, was so dull and rubbery I had to wonder if it was of the freezer variety – had been mindlessly doused in that omnipresent crutch of the lazy chef: truffle oil. The fragrant oil completely overpowered the chanterelles, rendering them nothing more than a garnish when they should have been one of the dish's key components.

As in all art forms (and high cuisine is certainly one), the greatest masterpieces are born when the artist has the capacity to self-edit, to pare down his initial creative mess and let the essentials shine. A chef who insists on dumping lots of sugar and salt and vinegar and flavored oils into his food strangles the natural flavor of the main ingredient – and that, of course, is one we most want to savor.

The problem of the chef's heavy hand is one we see in local restaurants again and again, particularly in those that imagine they are serving upscale cuisine. Sometimes, the bells and whistles are designed to mask an inferior product, such as a slightly-stinky piece of fish; on other occasions, a chef lacking in confidence or skill hides behind too many ingredients and a plateful of fancy tricks. My guess is that a little bit of both is going on at Piano Nobile.

It's a shame about Villa Richter. It's a beautiful spot with solid service, good wine, and, naturally, that breathtaking view. But until they make the food worth my while – and my wallet – I don't think I'll be coming back.

Villa Richter
Staré zámecké schody 6
Praha 1 – Pražský hrad
Tel: 257 219 079

Open Mon-Sun 10:00 – 23:00

images: praguespoon.com, villarichter.cz

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Restaurant Review: Piano Nobile @ Chateau Mcely

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 30/08/08 edition of Lidové Noviny.

Since its opening in May 2006, much has been written about Chateau Mcely in the Czech press – and for good reason. Many have deemed the transformation of this crumbling 17th-century chateau into a glamorous boutique hotel to be nothing short of a miracle, and a look through the before and after pictures of the renovation makes it easy to see why.

But the real driving force behind Chateau Mcely's success is much more tangible than a supposed miracle, although in the Czech Republic it is no less rare. The hotel is a bona fide labor of love, the result of years of careful planning and passionate dedication on the part of owners Inez and James Cusumano.

The Cusumanos' meticulous attention to detail is clear from the first glimpse of Mcely's immaculate front lawn dotted with a small flock of picturesque wooden sheep. This couple knows that in order to create a truly special experience, it's not enough to simply shower a business with money and hope it will sprout customers. A lot of crowns have been spent on this project, to be sure, but more important is the palpable amount of time and energy expended on making visitors to Mcely as comfortable as possible.

Aside from its status as one of only two European five star "green" hotels, meaning that it operates with maximum consideration for the environment, the 24-room Chateau Mcely has also earned the distinction of being named one of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World. It's a true boutique hotel, with intimate service (a personalized welcome letter awaited us in our room) and unusual amenities (dogs receive first-class treatment here; they receive a toy, blanket, and pillow upon arrival and even have their own menu).

It's this heartfelt attitude that allowed even an old cynic like me to overlook the occasional sickly-sweet detail during my one-night stay at Mcely, such as the repetition of the hotel's printed motto ("honey, silk, and pearls") at every turn, or the mildly cheesy quotes written alongside each dish listed on the menu ("Dover sole served with health, flavor, and real SOUL"). My heart was positively melted by Chateau Mcely's natural warmth and charm.

Unfortunately, it hardened again slightly during my main course at the hotel restaurant, Piano Nobile. The food was by no means terrible, but it didn't quite measure up to the standard set by the rest of the chateau. My entrée of pigeon roasted in wine (610 CZK and apparently made according to "an old castle recipe") was unexciting at best. The bird itself was bland and dry, and the sauce it came with was so over-seasoned that the chanterelle mushrooms couldn't be tasted at all.

The pigeon did come with a nice herbed potato puree – so nice, I suppose, that the chef felt compelled to serve the same potatoes alongside my companion's entrée, the Argentinian beef sirloin (810 CZK). With their dollops of mashed potatoes and brown gravies, the main courses ended up looking very similar to one another. In a restaurant at this price level (and at a hotel of this caliber), that sort of repetition shouldn't happen. The beef, for its part, was of good quality and – amazingly in a country where steaks are so often overdone – cooked medium-rare according to my friend's specification.

As seems to be the case in many restaurants I've eaten at lately, Piano Nobile's appetizers outshone its entrées. The soup of the day, a carrot-orange puree (250 CZK), had a beautiful saffron-yellow color and a flavor just as bright, thanks in part to the fact that it was made without cream. A chanterelle risotto (330 CZK, or 590 CZK as a main course) was rich and cheesy and tasted strongly of forest mushrooms. And a roasted red mullet served with cucumber relish and green salad (330 CZK) was light and delicious.

So it wasn't all bad, though the desserts could have been better, too. The lime crème brûlée (210 CZK) was pretty dismal; for once, the sugar crust on top was nicely browned, but the consistency of the cream was too mushy, and the lime flavor should have been infused into the milk (there were overpowering slivers of candied lime rind in the cream instead). I wasn't a big fan of the poached pear dessert (240 CZK), either, which with its caramel, cognac, and clove flavoring seemed far too Christmasy for a summertime menu.

Like the rest of Chateau Mcely, Piano Nobile has a memorable atmosphere. The style is both classic and contemporary, elegant and relaxed. A dresser lined with custom-made plates by designer Oto Bláha sits against one wall, and a grand piano, covered in photo albums, rests in a corner. Plush fabrics, candelabras, and gentle classical music make for a romantic atmosphere. The lighting was a little too dim for my taste, but of course I was there to examine the food, not gaze into the eyes of my lover – though if that's what you're into, Mcely is definitely the place to do it.

To my relief, the service wasn't pompous or overbearing, as can sometimes happen in noble-esque establishments. All of the staff I encountered during my stay were helpful, polite, and relaxed, and seemed willing to go the extra mile to accommodate their guests' needs. Nothing, it seemed, was a problem.

That sort of thing is why, in spite of the problems with the kitchen, I am sure I will visit Chateau Mcely again. It is a uniquely beautiful place, and we are lucky to have it in such close proximity to our capital city. If the restaurant could kick it up a notch, it would be a truly phenomenal destination.

I'm confident that Piano Nobile's weaknesses will be overcome, mostly because I get the feeling that this is one restaurant whose owners aren't averse to a little constructive criticism. When somebody cares as much about their customers' satisfaction as the Cusumanos and their staff obviously do, they are constantly looking for ways to improve.

And that – at least for me – is the true miracle of Chateau Mcely.

Piano Nobile (Chateau Mcely)
Club Hotel and Forest Retreat
Mcely 61
Mcely
map
Tel.: +420 325 600 000

images: chateaumcely.com

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