Restaurant Review: Kampa Park

Kampa Park's best asset is still its location. Positioned atop the Vltava in the shadow of the Charles Bridge, with sweeping views across Old Town and just a short distance from Malá Strana's storybook streets, it is hard to imagine a more attractive locale for a Prague restaurant.

But everybody knows that already – especially the hordes of tourists death-marching across the Bridge who spot Kampa Park's shiny terraces and decide to head on down for a classy meal. In recent years, in fact, the name Kampa Park has become so affiliated with its tourist clientele that few locals even consider it as a dining option. No one, it seems, plans a big dinner out at Kampa.

It wasn't always that way. When it first opened, and for quite a few years afterward, Kampa Park was the fancy restaurant; foreign movie stars who rolled through town always seemed to make pit stops there. A wall of faded celebrity photographs, taken with Kampa's owners, reads like a scrapbook of 1990s action heroes: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bill Clinton.

Kampa Park was the brainchild of partners Nils Jebens and Tommy Sjöö, who used to be the city's reigning restaurateurs. Their seemingly indomitable rule began in the early '90s, when Sjöö owned a restaurant in Obecní Dům called Brasserie Mozart (now the location of Francouzská Restaurace). Brasserie Mozart was among the first places in Prague to have a salad bar – a revolutionary concept, apparently, and enough to convince Jebens to partner up with Sjöö to open Kampa Park and the now-defunct Italian restaurant Segafredo on Na Příkopě.

Kampa Group, as the company was called, cycled through various ventures, some more successful than others. Eventually, the company split into competing fiefdoms: Pravda Group, lorded over by Sjöö and encompassing the Old Town restaurants Pravda, Barock, and (while they lasted) Aqua and Hot. Jebens, meanwhile, ruled the Malá Strana side of the river, developing Hergetová Cihelna, Cowboys, and Square (now replaced by Starbucks).

Jebens's flagship restaurant, of course, is still Kampa Park, even if it lacks the luster it had ten or fifteen years ago. The cuisine is in the French style, influenced slightly by Scandinavia and Asia, and sometimes by cliché – one of the starters is a beef carpaccio with arugula, Parmesan, and olive oil (395 CZK), the same dish you'd find in a Modrá Zahrada pizzeria, or almost anywhere nowadays.

But Kampa can also be pleasantly surprising, as in the case of their scallop appetizer. For two small scallops, 545 CZK is a bit on the steep side, but this dish was unique: the mollusks perfectly seared, served in a buttery lemon dill sauce with tiny niblets of cauliflower. Norwegian flavors, French technique.

The same description could apply to my king crab salad (645 CZK), a flavorful mayonnaise-based treat of fresh crab, chopped chives, and a mysterious spice I had trouble identifying. It was served atop a slick of tomato jelly (which was good but tasted a little like canned tomato paste) next to a small frisee salad with sprouts; some crispy fried bread sticks; and a little bit of salmon roe. The presence of dill was palpable here, too, which I appreciated – dill is common in Northern and Slavic cuisines, but I wish we could see more of it in French and Mediterranean cooking.

I had been skeptical of the place before I'd revisited it, but by the time the appetizers had been cleared away, I was beginning to think I'd judged Kampa Park all wrong. Maybe this was still one of the top few restaurants in Prague. Maybe, for all these years, miracles had been happening in its kitchen, and we'd all been too blinded by the flashy new establishments to notice.

Even the service, you see, had been exceptional up until that point. Our waitress had this amazing knack for glancing over at our table every time she walked by (something that should be second nature to every waiter, but I've found that most of them actually like to turn their heads away from your table when they approach, so as to avoid accidental eye contact with their customers). She never took away any plates before we were all finished, and she didn't pour water mercilessly into our cups. It seemed to me, as a matter of fact, that she had actually been trained.

So I was disappointed when the wait between our first two courses stretched into uncomfortable-silence territory. You know what I'm talking about – when you get so preoccupied with where your entrée might be that instead of talking to your dining companion, you repeatedly check your watch and look towards the kitchen doors. Our waitress, angel that she was, came to apologize. It was the soufflé, she said, that was taking so long.

I wish it had been worth the wait. Unfortunately, it was cheese overkill – cheesy black truffle soufflé (495 CZK) in a cheesy white sauce with cheesy parmesan chips, and the whole thing was very salty. I was happier with my lamb entrée (895 CZK); the meat was super tender and I liked the baby vegetables and sweet pea puree on the side, but the red wine sauce was one-dimensional and the little bits of sweetbread seemed more like an afterthought than an integrated part of the dish. Dessert, on the other hand, a strawberry cappuccino (295 CZK), served in a glass with meringue, vanilla ice cream, strawberry coulis and an edible forest berries skewer, was summery and divine.

So would I recommend Kampa Park now? Yes, with some hesitation. The outdoor seating is wonderful, the service is wonderful, the food is occasionally wonderful. You could definitely find better value for money; the water – some absurd Norwegian brand – costs 165 CZK for a 0.8l bottle. But keep Kampa in mind next time you’re in the mood to pay for a fancy dinner. You could do a whole lot worse.

Kampa Park
Na Kampě 8b
Praha 1 - Malá Strana
Tel.: 296 826 112

photographs 2, 4, 6 Jindřich Mynařík for Lidové noviny; all others kampagroup.com

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 19/09/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

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Restaurant Review: The Sushi Bar

I almost gave The Sushi Bar four spoons.

As my regular readers know, I don't give full marks very often. That's not because I'm trying to be difficult, or because I don't think this country has any great restaurants. I guess it's just that my standards are pretty high, and I haven't been met with a lot of perfect dining experiences lately.

Until, that is, I went to The Sushi Bar. Or so I thought. Then I looked at my receipt.

The Sushi Bar's been around since 1999, when it was, according to its website, the only sushi place in the Czech Republic. The little restaurant gets its most important ingredients from the partner shop next door called Seafood Shop, which also provides high-quality fresh fish to many local dining establishments.

The first, and still the best: that is The Sushi Bar's motto, and after eating their precisely crafted, unforgettable food – and comparing it to some of the more pathetic renditions of sushi available in this town – I can't argue otherwise. I would, however, add the qualifier that The Sushi Bar's sushi is not only The First and The Best, but also The Most Expensive. An eight-piece "exclusive" maki roll can run you as high as 1190 CZK, although you can also get a cucumber roll for 150 CZK or a salmon roll for 290 CZK. So if you're on a budget, order wisely.

But do order something here, at least once. They take the art of sushi-making seriously at The Sushi Bar. They're not doing it because it's trendy; they don't throw in a few maki rolls as an afterthought to a menu loaded with spaghetti and knedlík. They don't think, "most of our customers won't know the difference between good and bad sushi, so who cares if we use this borderline-rancid tuna fish?" And they don't offer Thai spring rolls and tom kha gai soups to appease people who aren't sushi-lovers – they do have a kimchi salad, but at least the menu makes it clear that the dish is Korean.

The menu, by the way, is a work of art in itself. An appetizing photograph of each dish is set against a background of matte white paper, next to loving descriptions typed in crisp fonts. Picking the right kind and amount of sushi can sometimes be tricky, but thanks to their carefully-compiled 'boat' sets and a clever graph system for the nigiri, it's easy to choose a well-rounded meal.

My table chose the nigiri sushi menu number 1 (990 CZK), a fairly straightforward six-piece combination that included salmon, tuna, and red snapper. But it also featured the less-common freshwater shrimp, as well as toro, or tuna belly, a highly-prized, fatty delicacy that melts upon contact with the tongue (only restaurants that order large whole tuna fish can offer toro, since the belly makes up such a small percentage of the flesh). Each piece of nigiri was just as it should be: small and easy to eat in one bite, with only a modest amount of vinegared rice covered by a cleanly-cut slice of raw fish. And it goes without saying that the fish was as fresh as fresh can be.

What's so exclusive about an 'exclusive maki,' besides the price? None of the sakana ura maki's (1190 CZK) ingredients – salmon, cucumber, seaweed, mango, and avocado – seemed especially luxurious. But bundled up together in a tight inside-out roll and draped with elegant slivers of salmon and cucumber, each bite was a gorgeous medley of tastes and textures: the cool, smooth salmon; the creamy avocado; the crunch of cucumber and the fragrant mango. The roll was not only sublime, but huge. I would order it again.

Throughout the meal, the service was fantastic – attentive, but unpretentious. Our table was wiped down after each course, and the waiters were happy to make suggestions. One of the fish that was supposed to be part of our nigiri set was unavailable that night, so it was replaced with two pieces of a different kind. We were also given full portions of tuna and avocado sashimi on the house, and each female customer got a red rose when she left. We felt like we were really being looked after.

I was especially impressed by what happened when my companion asked if they had any Czech beer. "We do," our waiter said, "but only bottled. If you like, though, I can bring you freshly-tapped beer from next door."

This was fabulous news. Next door, you see, is the gastropub Olympia, where they serve tanked Plzeň – that meant some first-rate beer to go with the first-rate sushi. The waiter promptly returned clutching a frosty mug of the good stuff, and set it down on a paper coaster in front of my friend.

Now comes the part with the receipt. When we paid the bill, I noticed that it seemed a little high. But it was only after I got home that I took a closer look and realized that the two next-door Plzeňs – the very same ones that cost 39 CZK at Olympia – had cost us 150 CZK each.

What. The. Hell. This was truly an outrage. Yes, charging a little extra – maybe even double – for the additional trouble is understandable. But charging four times the original price? Without any warning at all? Who's ever even heard of a 150 CZK beer in this town?

I posed that last question to my beer-loving brother. He thought it over for some time. "Once," he said, slowly. "When I was at a stag party at this strip club, Goldfingers. They charged us 150 CZK there." He shook his head, apparently distressed by the memory.

And I shake my head, too. Because I really wanted to give The Sushi Bar four spoons. But see? I can't go around saying the service is perfect and then have you dip into your savings fund to pay for a glass of beer.

The sushi, on the other hand – that might be worth going bankrupt for.

The Sushi Bar
Zborovská 49
Prague 5 – Malá Strana
Tel.: 603 244 882

Open Mon-Sun 12:00-22:00

photographs 1, 3 Lidové Noviny; all others sushi.cz

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

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Restaurant Review: Pálffy Palác

When Pálffy Palác was in its heyday, in the mid-90s, they used to serve whole roasted heads of garlic at the beginning of each meal. You'd pop a hot clove out of its shell and smear it on a crusty piece of bread, over a thick layer of butter. The garlic would dissolve into a soft puree at the gentlest touch of a knife.

I was only a kid when my family started going to Pálffy for dinner, but for some reason, the memory of the roasted garlic has stuck with me ever since. So upon returning to Pálffy Palác after what was perhaps a ten-year-long interlude, I was excited to see the waiter carrying the familiar plate of roasted garlic heads and slabs of butter over to our table.

But when I tried to spread the clove across the bread with my butter knife, it didn't melt the way I'd remembered. And it didn't taste very good, either. What had gone wrong?

Pálffy Palác used to be a very sought-after place to go. Housed on the second floor of a 17th-century baroque palace in Malá Strana, it felt almost like a secret restaurant set up in somebody's grand, slightly run-down living room. For a long time, it was the only restaurant in town to serve fresh spinach. It was good and inexpensive, frequented mostly by expats and the likes of Karel Gott (a distinction that apparently elevates any old dive to must-visit status).

Then Prague became flooded with similarly-oriented restaurants, and although few of them had the natural charm of Pálffy, many served fresh spinach and were a lot easier to stumble across. Pálffy bumped up its prices significantly, too, making itself more of a high-end, special-occasion restaurant than an everyday stopover. And perhaps its owner, Roman Řezníček, was momentarily distracted by the opening up of his Holešovice dance club Mecca (since sold to new owners; Řezníček has now also owns longstanding local restaurant U Malířů). Pálffy Palác pretty much fell off the map.

That at least partially explains the stale garlic: a low turnover makes it hard to get the stuff piping hot from the oven for every customer. Nonetheless, Pálffy has a new chef, French-born Kevin Donneger, and it seems to be aiming for a comeback.

The restaurant is still stunning – even, in some aspects, better-looking than it used to be. Pálffy Palác's terrace is one of the most beautiful in the city, overlooking the castle gardens and now, having had some time to grow, lush with plant life. The tops of a set of vanilla trees have risen to eye level, their brown pods swinging in the breeze, while the terrace itself is covered in mismatched ivies and flowers, lending it the atmosphere of a wild garden.

Indoors, the small dining room is all antique furniture, elaborate candelabras, and pretty floral and fruit arrangements. It feels like just the right kind of place to warm up on a wintry evening with a glass of red wine and a newfound lover.

But that may be as far as you should take it. Pálffy is, for what it is, overpriced; main courses cost between 490 and 690 CZK, and I never quite felt I was getting my money's worth. The ravioli filled with goat's cheese and served with bacon cream (290 CZK) were not great: they reminded me of my grandmother's pirogies, only a lot worse, because the ravioli was undercooked and beyond al dente, leading me to suspect that the pasta wasn't especially fresh. I had been intrigued by the notion of "bacon cream," but it ended up being nothing more than regular cream sprinkled with bits of fatty bacon.

And although Mr. Donneger has professed his passion for using organic ingredients, he doesn't seem to put much stock into the seasonality of his menu. One of the two entrée options for lunch on a sweltering summer day was a venison steak in an oily brown gravy. The meat came with two little piles of green and yellow zucchini, but they tasted as if they had been doused in butter. My appetizer wasn't very summery, either: a clichéd combination of baked goat cheese on white toast over a pear compote, drizzled with balsamic reduction. I'm getting sweaty just thinking about it.

The glowing exception to all this nonsense was the perfect green bean soup (135 CZK), a snappy-tasting light cream that brought out all the flavor of its simple main ingredient. I also liked the rosemary crème brulee (250 CZK) that I had for dessert, although the vanilla millefeuille with red fruit coulis (290 CZK) was so frugal on the berries you almost had to squint to make out the little dots of sauce on the plate. For good measure, I guess, they also tossed in half a strawberry.

I was a little turned off when, on my way to the bathroom inside, I overheard the trio of waiters laughing loudly about the American family sitting on the terrace. Instead of exchanging ty voles, maybe they could have studied the menu. My companion ordered the seasonal sorbet selection (190 CZK), and the waiter wasn't able to tell him what flavors they had, even though the only ones available were strawberry and lemon.

It would be unfair to say that the service at Pálffy is bad; it was always friendly, to our faces, anyway. But we went through a whole meal without being given a napkin, and the weekday set lunch took almost two hours.

That probably doesn't sound too attractive to those of you who are in the market for a quick business lunch. If your inclinations are a little more romantic, however, Pálffy is a pretty good place for that kind of thing. Just don't set your expectations too high.

Pálffy Palác
Valdštejnská 14
Praha 1 - Malá Strana
map
Tel.: 257 530 522

Open Mon-Sun 11:00-23:00

photographs 1, 5, 6 Pavel Wellner for Lidové Noviny; all others palffypalac.cz

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

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Restaurant Review: Café de Paris

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 13/06/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

There's only one reason to go to Café de Paris: the beef entrecôte.

The menu doesn't leave its patrons with too many other options. The choices are as follows: French onion soup, a foie gras terrine, the beef entrecôte, a vegetarian version of the beef entrecôte, and a goat cheese salad. Two appetizers, two entrees, and a salad. That's it. Pretty ballsy, if you ask me.

Well, there are the daily specials, which seem to be more of a fixed menu than they first appear. Those give you a little more breathing room, although they hardly seem necessary, given the quality of Café de Paris's star entrée.

The entrecôte (279 CZK) comes with a green salad, drenched in a deliciously mustard-y French vinaigrette. The salad is brought out first, and they recommend that you eat half of it immediately and the other half with your meat. Your table is then presented with two miniature grills, lit from below with candles to keep the food warm. On one goes a platter of French fries; the other is reserved for the entrecôte. Some slices of fresh baguette come with all this, too, in case the fries don't fill you up.

The beef is cooked medium rare (unless you specify otherwise) and is sliced into thin strips. You can choose whether you want it with Béarnaise sauce, red wine Parisienne sauce, or the special Café de Paris sauce, which is made according to a "secret family recipe" that has been around for seventy-five years.

My best guess is that the secret sauce contains butter, tarragon, and Dijon mustard – not entirely dissimilar to the Béarnaise, which is usually made with butter, tarragon, egg yolks, and vinegar. It is herb-laden and wonderful, a perfect accompaniment to the juicy grilled meat. On occasion, the beef can be a little chewy, but that is pretty typical of an entrecôte, which is a fattier cut of meat than some others. I would challenge anyone to show me a better example of steak frites in Prague.

Now lest you think that this whole delicious setup is a homegrown invention, I'm going to regale you with a little history (of which I myself was not aware until my faithful friend Wikipedia spelled it out for me while doing my research). The original Café de Paris is located in Geneva, where in the 1930s a certain Mr. Boubier developed a buttery sauce to accompany his restaurant's entrecôte. The sauce came to be known as "Café de Paris sauce" and the dish became the only dish on the restaurant's menu. Today, the name and the secret sauce recipe have been licensed to various restaurants around the world, one of which is the Café de Paris in Prague.

A similar concept – with a similar sauce – has been espoused by the unaffiliated L'Entrecôte chain of restaurants in France, the first of which opened in 1959 and was modeled after the original Café de Paris. Two years ago, a reporter from the magazine Le Monde claimed to have chemically analyzed L'Entrecôte's secret sauce and discovered its ingredients: a combination, he says, of fresh thyme, thyme flowers, full cream, white Dijon mustard, butter, and strained chicken livers. L'Entrecôte insists that this analysis is incorrect.

Prague's Café de Paris is understandably tight-lipped about their sauce's makeup. And even if their other dishes are less mysterious, they are often just as good. The French onion soup (45 CZK) was made from a delicate white wine broth and not broiled in a ramekin, but decorated with a single slice of crispy baguette and a modest amount of melted cheese. This made the soup much lighter and more appropriate for the summer season than the cheese-encrusted versions we are more used to seeing.

The foie gras terrine (159 CZK), too, was small but satisfying – a buttery slice of foie topped with toasted sesame seeds and surrounded by a potent sour cherry and plum coulis. Unfortunately, the special soup they had on offer, a lukewarm chicken broth "strengthened with gin" (65 CZK) and served in a martini glass with a wedge of lime, was as salty as seawater. I was also a little underwhelmed by the vegetarian version of the entrecôte platter (259 CZK), with its slightly overcooked eggplant and zucchini drenched in a goopy Béarnaise sauce. But the smoky tofu fritters that came with it were surprisingly tasty, if not quite as good as the beef my companion was tucking into.

A good part of Café de Paris's charm comes from its atmosphere – its quiet location on Maltézské náměstí, the small tables out front and in the courtyard, and the two tiny rooms decorated with red leather seats and postcards from happy customers. It's also nice to have your food served at the table by the waiters, who come around to fill up your plates with meat and French fries once you've polished off your first helping. The general feeling is of a homey little family-run place, where they don't pretend to be anything they're not.

And because this is a French restaurant, they have a thoughtful selection of wines from the home country – reasonably-priced – as well as some delicious sparkling cranberry, ginger, and elderflower lemonades (a little less reasonably-priced at 69 CZK for a small bottle).

I've written before that crème brulée is a bit of a cheap trick, but the one at Café de Paris (95 CZK) is worth ordering anyway. It was crusty on top, super-creamy below, and served with a scoop of mango ice cream and a dusting of salted cayenne pepper. It's a perfect finish to a meal at this soulful little restaurant.

Café de Paris
Maltézské náměstí 4
Praha 1 – Malá Strana
map
Tel: 603 160 718

Open Mon-Sun 12:00-24:00

photographs: 1, 4, 5, 7 Tomáš Krist for Lidové Noviny; all others cafedeparis.cz

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Restaurant Review: U Modré Kachničky

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 04/10/08 edition of Lidové Noviny.

When U Modré Kachničky (At the Blue Duckling) was in its heyday, the restaurant was locally famous for its romantic atmosphere, home-style food and, at least among my family, its wonky Czech-to-English translations.
The only menu gaffe I can remember now is the name of a certain side dish – "lubricated potatoes" – though there must have been many more (on one visit, a friend of my parents' who could understand the German and French translations as well almost peed herself laughing).

Alas, U Modré Kachničky's menu has by now been tidied and polished to a perfectly comprehensible (if not always strictly correct) standard of English. And something else has happened here, too. Over the years, Kachnička's once-elegant interior has become worn and shabby, and the quality of the food has dropped to a pathetic low.

Now before you start composing your letter of complaint to my over-burdened superiors at Lidovky, do me a personal favor and try to picture the following situation in your mind.

After arriving at U Modré Kachničky for a special dinner with your significant other, you peruse the menu and decide to forgo the traditional duck. Instead, you order vepřo knedlo zelo (roast pork with dumplings and cabbage); it's a Czech classic, and one that has disappeared from many pubs and restaurants, so you're delighted to see it on offer.

Unfortunately, by the time the plate reaches your table, the food is almost cold. It includes two very small portions of cabbage, one white and the other red. Both are fairly tasteless and have been thickened by a slimy clear gravy. The špekový knedlík (bacon dumpling) is decent, if a little dry.

But the vepřo itself is the real insult. The meat is of poor quality, stringy and hard to chew. It is also so salty that you can't help but suspect it has been marinated in the stuff, perhaps in an effort to keep the meat fresh. And when you slice into it, you see that the inside is pink: raw, which, of course, cooked pork should never be.

Let's assume you don't have a particular fondness for contracting trichinosis in fancy restaurants. How much would you pay for that vepřo knedlo I just described? 150 CZK? No?

Try 420 CZK.

Those poor American tourists sitting in the other room. If they'd only saved their hard-earned $24 and spent it on an entrée back home, they would be enjoying a meal of an entirely different caliber. But since their dishonest hotel or guidebook must have told them that this was the place to go for authentic Czech fare, they're stuck here. And when they return home, they're bound to tell their friends in America that the food in Prague is expensive and terrible.

No wonder foreign visitors have been keeping their distance from the Czech Republic lately – a bad reputation, after all, spreads quickly.

But for some reason, U Modré Kachničky has managed to keep up a good name, even among locals. Could it be the yellowed newspaper clippings posted outside the door proudly announcing Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's visit to the restaurant back in 1995? Or maybe Czech people enjoy drinking their Plzeň from 0.33l-bottles for 80 CZK apiece? I'm Slovak, you see, so it's hard for me to be sure.

Seriously, though: a Czech restaurant specializing in roast duck that doesn't serve tapped beer? Either Kachnička is playing some kind of joke on its customers or it really just doesn't give a damn.

I did try one of the duck dishes, by the way. It was served on a sauce of dried plums and slivovice (480 CZK, pictured above). There wasn't much to it – just some stewed prunes that had been marinated in alcohol – so it tasted very boozy and sour. The duck meat was all right, but its skin was bunched-up and soggy, wet rag style. And the potato pancakes served on the side were nothing more than some mashed potatoes (obviously belonging to another dish) that had been pressed into patties and fried on a greasy pan.

I wasn't bowled over by the famous atmosphere, either. Maybe that was because I was seated in a kind of anteroom to the kitchen and toilets and I was treated to the comings and goings of waitstaff printing out checks at the register beside me and noisily gathering cutlery from the sideboard. Sometimes, as servers went in and out of the kitchen, I would catch a glimpse of a bunch of clutter and a dirty-looking tiled floor and hear the yelling of the cooking staff.

Even the main rooms didn't strike me as especially pleasant. The antique furniture and painted murals do lend the place a sense of old-world authenticity, but there is something unattractive about the cold quality of the lighting and the way the tables are all crammed in very close to one another.

Given all this amateurishness, it was surprising to find a service staff so on point. They were professional and friendly even with customers who were obvious tourists. I did have to wonder about the water, though. Non-sparkling mineral water was served from a glass pitcher (for 180 CZK) and tasted suspiciously like the kind you'd find coming from your kitchen tap.

Or maybe the tap water was just my imagination, now biased from having endured that painful vepřo knedlo. Still, the waiters should be pouring water from the bottle into the pitcher in front of their patrons so they can be sure they're not being cheated.

It doesn't really matter, though. Customers are being cheated at U Modré Kachničky either way. And if you don't believe me, try it for yourself. If you can justify those prices for that food, go ahead and write that letter.

Just don't say I didn't warn you.

U Modré Kachničky
Nebovidská 6
Praha 1 – Malá Strana
map
Tel: 257 320 308

images: umodrekachnicky.cz, praguespoon.com

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Restaurant Review: Luka Lu

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 27/09/08 edition of Lidové Noviny.

Every week, I have the task of figuring out which restaurant I'm going to review next. I take into consideration the kinds of places I did recently, what people might enjoy reading about, and any interesting tips I may have received.

Once I've made a decision, I schedule my visits. I like to go at least twice to each restaurant, preferably for both lunch and dinner. Eating at the same spot two or three days in a row can be kind of boring, so I try to leave some time in between.

And then I need to work out who's coming with me.

Believe it or not, it can be hard to recruit people. Friends and family who once saw eating out with a restaurant critic as an exciting novelty have started angling for a little more choice in the matter, realizing that they'd prefer to eat at the restaurants they already know and love. "Can't we just go to Café Savoy again?" they say. "We know it's good." One friend has even become convinced that her presence is a curse and the food turns out to be bad every time she comes along (it has, but I'm pretty sure it's not her fault).

Although trying out restaurants that I otherwise might never set foot into is part of my job, eating alone isn't all that fun. That's why I occasionally do my restaurant-going companions – and myself – a favor and pick a place I know they're going to love.

This week, that place was Luka Lu. When I wrote about it for a different publication some time ago, I brought my brother along to dinner and he fell in love with a certain octopus dish he tried there. So he was very happy to have an excuse to visit again.

As his luck would have it, of course, the restaurant didn't have any octopus left. After the waitress informed him of this, my brother promptly shot me an accusatory look, as if I was the one who'd done Luka Lu's grocery shopping that day. He reluctantly picked another dish.

Fortunately, it's hard to make a bad choice at Luka Lu. The menu features a nice selection of Balkan- and Italian-inspired meals, including čevapčiči, pastas, and various fish entrées. It's not the most sophisticated food in the city, but that's partly why I like it. This is straightforward, family-style fare, the kind you might find in a tucked-away little restaurant in Sarajevo, or, better yet, on the dining table of a Balkan home.

Luka Lu describes itself as the child of an adventurous Italian father and a calm, simple Bosnian mother. This assessment makes perfect sense: the unpretentious food is, naturally, the work of the mama. And you only need to take one look at the interior design to see where the boisterous Italian side comes in.

Owner Veso Djorem's long culinary career has seen him open ten different restaurants in Prague and Sarajevo, including the now-defunct Dolly Bell in Vyšehrad and another Malá Strana spot called Gitanes. His ventures are known for their signature decorative style: colorful and cluttered, with the occasional upside-down table hanging from the ceiling.

Glance upwards in Luka Lu's front room and you'll see a fully-laid-out sewing table, complete with machine, half-finished garment, and a pair of fluffy slippers. Bright murals depict a cartoon-ish harbor, and wooden windows and a little balcony are superimposed on the walls. It's playful kitsch, warm and welcoming and entirely different from the morose minimalism espoused by so many Prague restaurants.

But the best part of the interior isn't even visible until you turn a corner and walk down a narrow hallway. That's where you'll find Luka Lu's winter garden, a beautiful, airy room with a glass ceiling, pretty tiles, and plenty of plants. There were a couple of new additions here on my last visit, neither of which I'm too sure about: a big soda fridge and a birdcage full of squawking parakeets. The fridge detracts from the atmosphere for obvious reasons; the birdcage does add some liveliness, but assorted avian debris had ended up on the table and chairs we were led to by the waitress. We ended up changing seats.

In the very back of Luka Lu is a beautiful outdoor courtyard with wooden plank floors and glowing lanterns. I discovered this gem of a garden a little too late for the summer season, but I'll be sure to remember it for next year. The service can be a bit slow – especially if you're sitting in the rear areas – and there's been the occasional mix-up on my visits there, but at least everyone's friendly and relaxed.

Luka Lu (which translates as Harbor Lu) has been designed to evoke a konoba, or traditional Croatian-style seaside restaurant equivalent to a Greek taverna. Fittingly, seafood is the specialty here. Besides the aforementioned traditionally prepared octopus (350 CZK), there are also fried anchovies and fried sardines (175 and 180 CZK, respectively), and various fresh fish prepared on the restaurant's lava grill.

Red meat lovers will appreciate some of the Balkan specialties, such as the tasty kebab-like čevapčiči (160 CZK for 10 pieces; they're not as good as some I've had in Sarajevo, but are still worth a try) and the rich pljeskavice (something like a hamburger patty) stuffed with cheese (195 CZK). I was especially impressed by a traditional lamb dish (285 CZK) made in a special pan called a sač – the meat was so juicy and tender it was falling off the bone.

The broken English on Luka Lu's website says that "Wicked tongues say that most people cross the Vltava river and stay in the Lesser Quarter because of [Luka Lu]'s untameable beauty and not because of good food and wine." They're selling themselves a little short. The atmosphere might be the big initial draw, but there's more to like than the pretty décor.

Just ask my brother. Octopus or no octopus, he's already itching to go again.

Luka Lu
Újezd 33
Praha 1 – Malá Strana
Tel: 257 212 388

images: lukalu.cz

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