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.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Restaurant Review: La Finestra
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.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Restaurant Review: Grosseto
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 03/01/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.
It had been a long time since I'd visited Pizzeria Grosseto.
I knew I had blacklisted the place a few years ago, but I couldn't remember why. A rude server, or overcooked pasta, perhaps – one of the usual Czech suspects. With so many bad restaurant experiences under my belt, it can get hard to keep track of what offense happened where.
On a recent Wednesday evening, I passed by Grosseto's original location near Vítězné náměstí. The pizzeria was overflowing with customers, as it has been since the day it opened back in 1996. At that time, th
e neighborhood had only a few restaurants; now, although Dejvice is still pitifully lacking in dining options compared to Vinohrady or Žižkov, there are plenty of other options. So why does everyone still flock to Grosseto?
For one thing, it's a pizzeria, and everyone likes pizza. And Grosseto really does make good pies; many credit the restaurant with being the first to bring Italian-style pizza to the Czech masses. As the story goes, two Czech would-be restaurant owners, on a visit to the town of Grosseto in Tuscany, approached a pizza chef named Gianfranco Turbanti and asked him to move to Prague. A few weeks later, Mr. Turbanti arrived in Dejvice, son in tow, and set about the laborious task of constructing a wood-burning pizza oven to his very exact specifications.
Before Grosseto, "pizza" largely meant poor-quality dough covered in Eidam, párek, and a ketchup-based sauce. A few real Italian pizzerias, such as Rugantino, were around, but they were largely patronized by expats and tourists, not locals. There were a couple of American-style pizza joints, too: Pizza Hut and New York Pizza, both now defunct, as well as Chicago's Famous Pizza, formerly located in a prime spot on Malé Náměstí but now downgraded to a delivery-only service based out of Pankrác.
True Italian pizza is almost a different dish entirely, and it's the type of pie that has turned out to be most appealing to local tastes – although it, too, varies from region to region and from one pizzeria to the next. Grosseto's crusts are thin but not quite crispy, and have the inimitable smokiness that comes from a good wood-burning oven like Gianfranco's. The selection of toppings is, to my taste, a little heavy on meats, cheeses, and cream (the signature Grosseto pie comes with chicken breast, mozzarella, gorgonzola, and Parmesan) and low on vegetables (they do, however, put arugula on some of their pizzas, as do lots of Italian restaurants nowadays, and they use fresh mushrooms, which many do not). And although their pizza sauce is not very interesting – it tastes as if the tomatoes were taken straight from the can with no added seasoning – the overall quality of the ingredients is good and the pizza is well-made and tasty.
So why is so much of the other food so bad? The pastas were dismal, thanks not to their being overcooked (all of the pasta dishes I tasted were surprisingly al dente), but because they had been boiled in unsalted water. I have written about this particular problems many times before, including, I believe, in my last review of an Italian restaurant. But I will repeat these words again: you must salt the pasta water. Unless a person has cirrhosis of the liver and is following a strict no-sodium diet, there is no reason why any of us should suffer unsalted pasta.
Which I did, when I ate the pappardelle ai funghi porcini (195 CZK) at Grosseto. The tasteless noodles were homemade, at least, but they stuck together in messy clumps; luckily, the unexciting cream sauce contained plenty of porcini mushrooms that partially offset the dish's general blandness. It was a similar story with the spaghetti con aglio, olio e peperoncino (125 CZK), a dish so simple in flavor that it is almost unbearable to eat without salt.
According to the law of inept seasoning, of course, missing salt in one dish must be compensated by too much salt in another. And so it was with Grosseto's terrible tomato soup (48 CZK) and its otherwise good bruschette al pomodoro (69 CZK). The minestrone con verdure (45 CZK), meanwhile, was full of overcooked veggies and too-soft pasta shells; the tiramisu (79 CZK) might have been a winner if the ladyfingers had been soaked in espresso as they should be. Basically, everything other than the pizza was a just a little bit off.
And that included the service. When the waiter brought me the wrong pizza, he argued with me about what I had actually ordered. "You asked for number 27," he insisted. I told him that I had not ordered by number, but by name – I wanted the pizza Parma (185 CZK), which came with tomato sauce, Parma ham, fresh tomatoes and basil, not one with regular ham and a cream sauce. He had obviously guessed at the number and written it down incorrectly. Grudgingly, he took the pizza away, saying the replacement would come in ten or fifteen minutes. It came in 30 minutes, with no apology, long after the rest of my table had finished eating.
Mistakes happen, of course, but when they do, the waiter should be nice about it and try to accommodate the guest as soon as possible. That, however, would have involved him asking the pizza chef to rush the order and therefore acknowledging that he had done something wrong. But admitting to and apologizing for one's mistakes is not, I've noticed, the national forte.
Neither, apparently, is peripheral vision. As I tried to ask for the check, waiter after waiter walked by without a glance in our table's direction, like horses with blinders on. A few meters away, a bored-looking waitress stared off into space as she massaged lotion into her hands. Aha, I thought, so this was why I'd blacklisted Grosseto. Mystery solved.
Now if only they would let me leave.
Pizzeria Grosseto
Jugoslávských partyzánů 8
Prague 6 - Bubeneč
map
Open Mon-Sun 11:30 – 23:00
Tel.: 233 342 694
photographs: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 Tomáš Krist for Lidové Noviny; all others grosseto.cz
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Food news: the Food Fest sets up, Zinc debuts, and Kogo and Kolkovna make a baby
The weekend forecast doesn't look too promising, but I'm hoping the sun will come out for the third annual Prague Food Festival, organized by Maurer's Grand Restaura
nt Guide. This years' indulging will take place between Mánesův and Charles bridges on the Old Town side of the Vltava, with some booths located on land and others set up on waterside pontoons. Participating restaurants include Aromi, Café Imperial, and V Zátiší, among many others.
The Hilton Prague Old Town has officially opened the new version of its restaurant, following the departure of Gordon Ramsay's Michelin-starred venture Maze Prague earlier this year. The new concept, called Zinc, is headed up by Ari Mun
andar, former executive chef of Essensia at the Mandarin Oriental Prague. His menu is described as "modern European cooking with an Asian twist," and includes dishes like crab cake and sweet corn sorbet, miso-glazed Chilean sea bass, and baked pineapple with star anise and cinnamon.
Jean-François and Nadine Musso, formerly of Passion Chocolat in Vinohrady, are back to making their i
rresistible pastries and bonbons. This time, they're located in the U Nováků pasáž off Vodičkova, and their shop is called Pâtisserie St. Tropez. Meanwhile, Mama Coffee has opened up a new, roomier location on Korunní, and Aromi offshoot La Finestra is now in full, delicious swing.
Kogo Group's lackluster sister, L'Angolo, is being remade yet again -- this time with the help of Kolkovna Group, which is collaborating with Ko
go to form a third local dining superpower, Koko Group. Under Koko's management, L'Angolo will be transformed into Fragola, a high-end combination sushi/Mediterranean restaurant/bar/club/"art cafe" that will have live DJs, serve food into the wee hours, and offer a Sunday brunch.
A little complicated, maybe, but it just might work.
images: praguefoodfestival.com, zinc.cz, musso-praha.com, kogofragola.cz
Monday, March 30, 2009
Restaurant Review: Aromi
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 21/03/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.
It's almost lunchtime, and I'm hungry. So writing about Aromi is about to be a little torturous, especially when I have one particular, magical dish on my mind.
I am an unabashed fan of pasta; most days, I'd take a bowl of good spaghetti over almost anything else. When a restaurant makes its pasta itself, I get pretty jazzed up about it. And right now, I'm very jazzed up about Aromi's ravioli.
For one thing, they are beautiful. My plate, piled up with bright yellow, perfectly round ravioli, looked like it had been covered in little suns. They were firm on the outside and filled with eggplant and burrata, a type of mozzarella that is mixed with cream to produce a luxurious, soft consistency. On top of the ravioli was some butter, fresh basil, and a few slices of peeled raw tomato.
This simple, sophisticated delight cost 345 CZK – a fairly steep price tag for a not-too-large portion of pasta – but I would go back for it anytime. And by anytime, I mean right now, if I didn't have to write this damn article and visit some other restaurant for my next one.
Lots of people come back to Aromi. One friend absolutely swears by it and refuses to take her business contacts anywhere else; other people must feel similarly, since the place is packed nearly every night. When he opened the restaurant nearly four years ago in the buzzing Vinohrady neighborhood, head chef and owner Riccardo Lucque couldn't have hoped for a much warmer reception.
Mr. Lucque hails from the Marche region of Italy, from which he imports many of the ingredients used in his kitchen. Some of these can be found up the street from Aromi in its deli offshoot, Aromi La Bottega. On offer are various prosciuttos and salamis, cheeses, olive oils, wines, and fresh pastas. They will let you sample almost anything you want before you buy it, and even do made-to-order hot sandwiches on Tuscan bread.
The Bottega also sells the same fresh fish available in the restaurant. It is outstanding, and one of the major reasons why Aromi has garnered a lot of attention on the Prague dining circuit. Each day, servers present patrons with a tray full of various piscine delights: sea bass, sea bream, turbot, live lobster, and so on. Most of them are recommended for two or more people, and the staff will suggest methods of preparation for each one – although they are happy to follow your special wishes as well.
On an evening visit, I shared a whole ombrina baked in sea salt (1870 CZK) with two of my companions. A waiter cleaned and portioned the fish at the table, disrobing it of its thick salt crust, removing the skin and bones, and arranging the steaming white meat on three plates. Tableside service is a rarity in this city – perhaps because it demands additional time and skill of the servers and forces the kitchen to be honest about its ingredients. But it's a nice little show for the diners to look at and adds to Aromi's homey atmosphere.
The ombrina itself was moist and stuck slightly to the teeth – the hallmarks of a well-cooked fish (I would suggest eating it without the olive oil offered by the waiter, since its flavor is excellent on its own). Unfortunately, nearly all of the side dishes we'd ordered, including a potato and cauliflower puree (65 CZK), braised artichokes (95 CZK), and lentils with pesto (65 CZK), were only lukewarm.
Other issues crept into the food here and there, too. A blue cheese and beetroot salad (215 CZK) lacked acidity, and a pumpkin risotto with sausage and balsamic vinegar (275 CZK for a starter portion; 335 CZK for a main course) was overly sweet. But the only dish I tried that I thoroughly disliked was the crab salad (365 CZK). It was served in a martini glass (a presentation probably meant to play off the salad's Martini Bianco jelly cubes), which made the salad very difficult to eat without dumping half of it onto the surrounding tabletop. There was fresh crab in mayonnaise, but its pairing with chopped olives, a very oily mesclun salad, and the bits of Martini Jell-O didn't do it any favors. Stick to the simple stuff at Aromi, and you probably won't go wrong.
Unless, of course, you are unlucky and have a bad experience with your server. In general, the service at Aromi is very good, if a little brusque (though I would still much prefer a slightly brusque waiter to one that hovers over the table all evening). But I did recently receive an email from an old friend detailing a very frustrating evening there, and I have been the victim of some inattentiveness at Aromi myself. At the end of a leisurely and expensive meal more recently, our waiter plucked the dessert plates and coffee cups off our table before we were finished in an apparent attempt to rush us out the door.
I did, however, appreciate the fact that Mr. Lucque himself had come over to each table earlier to ask if everything was all right. It's that sort of personal touch that will keep his restaurant full – despite its occasional faults and rather inflated prices.
So what's next for Aromi? Starting in February, they have begun holding monthly four-hour cooking classes, each focusing on a different type of food (sea bass, asparagus, and pasta are some of the selections). And people are already talking about La Finestra, the new restaurant Mr. Lucque plans to open in April on Platneřská in Old Town. That one, he says, will be more meat-oriented, and he will be importing special cuts from Italy.
If Aromi is anything to go by, La Finestra will be a great success, and Mr. Lucque won't need any well-wishers. But I am crossing my fingers for him anyway.
Aromi
Mánesova 78
Praha 2 – Vinohrady
map
Tel: 222 713 222
Open Mon-Sat 12:00-23:00, Sun 12:00-22:00
photographs 1, 2, 3, 5 Tomáš Krist for Lidové Noviny; all others Aromi.cz
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Restaurant Review: Divinis
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 14/02/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.
I like a restaurant that does specials.
A chef who creates new dishes on a regular basis shows he isn't a slave to his menu, that he has a willingness to take the best ingredients available on any particular day and experiment with them. But to do that properly, he really has to be able to cook well.
At Divinis, the tiny Italian wine bar/restaurant recently taken over by prominent Czech chef Zdeněk Pohlreich, they do special dishes – and nearly everything else – to perfection. I visited during the t
ruffle season, and a few of the muddy-looking nuggets were displayed in a glass case on Divinis's bar. On offer was a beef carpaccio and taglioni pasta served with white truffle shavings (both 200 CZK, plus 200 CZK per gram of truffle) that our waiter grated onto the food tableside.
I often harp on about the lack of simple cooking in these parts. Now I've found at least one restaurant to use as a counterexample. Besides the truffles, the carpaccio was nothing more than a plate of bright pink, translucent slices of raw beef, lightly seasoned with salt and pepper. The tagliolini were cooked al dente and tossed in butter with finely diced porcini mushrooms. Both dishes, despite the sparseness of their components, were phenomenally flavorful. When ingredients are top-notch and cooked properly, extra flavorings and garnishes can become not only unnecessary, but offensive.
That's something Mr. Pohlreich understands well. Another special that day was the cinta senese, an heirloom breed of Siennese pig (and the only native Tuscan strain to have survived extinction) recognizable by the white band around its shoulders and prized for its well-marbled, fragrant meat. It was cooked both as a pork chop and a plump, juicy sausage – the two variations were served together on the same plate along with some roasted potatoes. It was as if we were eating at someone's home, a feeling heightened by Divinis's cozy rustic décor of pale woods, dim yet ample lighting, and glass-topped tables filled with curiosities like dried pastas, fruits, and flowers.
Standouts from the regular menu included the deliciously salty linguine with clams (280 CZK) and a warm octopus salad (250 CZK) made with green celery, potatoes, and a drizzle of pesto sauce. For dessert, I had a very well-executed chocolate fondant (180 CZK) that came with a thick raspberry coulis and a scoop of vanilla crème fraiche.
Divinis's menu is small, but I was nonetheless impressed by our waiter's ability to remember the orders of five people each having four different courses. This guy was a pro in other ways, too. He was able to explain the dishes with both passion and succinctness, he was flexible and personable, and he was comfortable making recommendations (it was obvious, too, that he was suggesting dishes he actually liked, not ones the kitchen had told him to get rid of – or if that was the case, I certainly couldn't tell). And when he made a tiny mistake in forgetting to bring me a plate for my clam shells, he immediately corrected it without my prompting along with a brief apology.
For the quality of the food and service, the prices at Divinis are very reasonable. The Italian wine list is excellent and fairly priced, and a shot of espresso is just 50 CZK compared to the 100 or so they like to charge at some of Prague's other restaurants. You don't get the feeling here that they're trying to trick you out of your money.
There really isn't too much to complain about. I couldn't figure out how to work the faucet in the ladies' toilet, for example, but I'm sure that is only a symptom of my idiocy when it comes to technical gadgetry. I also wasn't thrilled that the smoking section seemed to be in the main part of the restaurant, which could have been a real annoyance if there had been more than one person puffing away. The back seating area, with its proximity to the toilets and rack for the guest's coats, didn't seem like a very enticing place to eat, anyway.
I am often asked to name which restaurants are the best in Prague. If there is no question of price, I usually mention two: Angel and La Dégustation Bohême Bourgeoise. There are other places I like too, of course, but most of them lack consistency – only some foods, or some waiters, or some lucky evenings are good. Or they are only great until they receive a few positive reviews, and then they become too relaxed or too confident. That's when I start getting emails and comments about somebody's bad experience at a particular restaurant.
It can be frustrating. But I am ready to make another whole-hearted recommendation. Although I haven't spent too much time at Divinis, I still think it's really something special.
There's just one thing I'm confused about. If Mr. Pohlreich is capable of this kind of restaurant, why can't he do the same with the hit or miss Café Imperial?
Of course, that restaurant is obviously geared more towards tourists, while Divinis seems like the kind of place a chef would invite his friends to sample his food at its best. And invite them he should: this is truly a restaurant to be proud of, a rare example of fresh, minimalist cuisine made with top-notch ingredients. It is subtle, elegant, and unpretentious. It is good value and a pleasant place to spend one's time.
And yes, it is one of Prague's very best restaurants.
Divinis
Týnská 21
Praha 1 - Old Town
map
Tel: +420 222 325 440
Open Mon-Sat 17:00–01:00. Closed Sunday.
photographs 1, 2, 3, 6 Viktor Chlad for Lidové Noviny; all others divinis.cz
Monday, December 15, 2008
Restaurant Review: L'Angolo by Kogo
This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 22/11/08 edition of Lidové Noviny.
There are more difficult jobs than writing restaurant reviews: coal mining, for example, or pediatric neurosurgery. I'm not one to complain.
But when I have to write about a restaurant like L'Angolo, my work suddenly starts to feel kind of hard.
It's always more interesting to write either about a fantastic dining experience (food so good it brings tears to my eyes) or a horrific one (greasy sauce being poured into my shoe by an idiotic waiter). Some people might think I look for things to criticize about a restaurant, or that I invent quirky details to make my articles more readable. I don’t. I try to give as honest an opinion – and yes, for those who 
are still in doubt, my articles are opinion pieces, not factual reports – as I possibly can.
What am I going to say about a restaurant that's not great and not terrible, that doesn't seem to have a distinct identity or particular specialty? Well, I'm going to say exactly that, I guess.
L'Angolo is a sister to the Yugoslavian-owned Kogo restaurants, which are known for their high-quality Italian food, consistent service, and sleek yet unintimidating settings. Unfortunately, this new venture (or semi-new, since L'Angolo recently reopened following a kitchen fire last spring) doesn't quite match the standards of the original.
I've been a fan of Kogo since the first location opened on Havelská in 1994. Back then, there were very few restaurants in Prague that wouldn't leave a sane person annoyed, if not completely enraged, by the end of the evening, either because of obnoxiously rude service or terrible meals or some nasty combination of both. Kogo's owners understood that to keep customers coming back, their food needed to be reliably good and their staff had to be properly trained. It helps that they have an apparent policy of hiring only waiters from the former Yugoslavia, who seem to be more naturally inclined to friendliness than their Czech counterparts (the Yugo dudes also tend to be very nice to look at, which might earn Kogo a few bonus points for atmosphere).
But it was only after the Slovanský dům location opened in 2000 that Kogo became a local institution. Suddenly, the huge, airy restaurant with the spacious garden at the back of Prague's newest shopping mall became a must-visit destination for politicians, czelebrities, and businessmen. In 2002, one would-be customer even told MF Dnes that he avoids Kogo out of principle because every time he visits, he runs into so many people he knows.
No matter that menu prices have spiked considerably since the restaurant first opened, or that patrons have to walk through the unappetizing stench of Palace Cinema's bacon-flavored popcorn to get to the restaurant. There's just something about Kogo that people love.
Still, not every Kogo enterprise has been as successful as the Havelská and Slovanský dům spots; the owners have been forced to close branches of Kogo in Karlín and on Karlovo náměstí (they also plan to open a Kogo in the new Albatross golf resort outside of Prague). And although L'Angolo has a much better location than those failed ventures, I'm afraid it may end up having to struggle a bit before it finds its customer base.
The major problem, as I see it, is that the food at L'Angolo just isn't quite as good as at the other Kogo restaurants. It's certainly not bad, and there are definitely some high points, like the homemade tiramisu (90 CZK), for example, or a wonderful dorado fillet with thinly sliced, almost chip-like potatoes (495 CZK) that was on special one evening. And the tomato soup (90 CZK), sweetened by red bell pepper and decorated with a swirl of pesto, was thick and satisfying.
But there were mistakes, too. Another special, the maltagliati with homemade sausage (245 CZK, pictured above), would have been excellent if the pasta had been salted more in the pot. The spaghetti with garlic, olive oil, and chili peppers (245 CZK) suffered the same problem. A salad of arugula, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, and parmesan (280 CZK), on the other hand, was so salty it was close to inedible – the parmesan had been grated into very fine pieces, making them impossible to separate from the rest of the salad.
Then there were the grilled lamb cutlets, served with cipollini onions and a Barolo wine reduction sauce (680 CZK), that didn't have any sauce at all other than a thin gravy. The lamb was cooked well, but it was full of fat – not the best cut of meat. For such an expensive dish (made more expensive by the 80-CZK side dishes that must be ordered separately), it was very unremarkable.
L'Angolo's décor is not especially memorable, either, even if it is quite tasteful. White wooden panels line the walls, starched white table cloths cover the tables, and black chairs are upholstered in cream-colored leather. Oversized black lampshades hang from the ceiling, and a special lighting system allows the restaurant to change the colors of the lights overhead (orange, on both of my visits). Most interesting, perhaps, is the enormous mirror against the back wall that gives visitors a view of the freshly-renovated Lexus Lounge in the basement below.
The restaurant has been decorated expensively, and it shows. But for me, there's something missing, something that even the large windows and spotless bathrooms can't make up for. Maybe I'm bothered by the kitchen's lack of sophistication, or the slightly cold feeling I get from the atmosphere.
Or maybe the restaurant just needs some time to settle. Perhaps in a couple of months or so, L'Angolo will have figured out how to live up to the second half of its name. At the moment, though, Kogo's little sister has some growing up to do.
L'Angolo by Kogo
Dlouhá 7
Praha 1 - Old Town
map
Tel.: +420 224 829 355
Open Mon-Sun 8:00–24:00
photographs 1, 2, 6: Tomáš Krist for Lidové Noviny; 3, 4, 7: mgmont.cz; all others: praguespoon
