Restaurant Review: U Petrské Věže (CLOSED)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read More...

Summary only...

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.

Read More...

Summary only...

Restaurant Review: La Finestra

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.

Read More...

Summary only...

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.

Read More...

Summary only...

Restaurant Review: Céleste

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 30/05/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

The freshly-posted instructions on the outside of the Dancing House are very clear: if you want to get to the top of this icon of modern architecture, you'll have to pay a visit to Céleste first.

The Dancing House is a tricky sort of building. Its towers, nicknamed "Fred and Ginger" for their abstract resemblance to a pair of dancers, are oddly shaped – Ginger, the one made out of glass, is tapered to mimic a woman's form – and its windows are staggered in a wavelike pattern. But Frank O. Gehry's and Vlado Milunić's deconstructivist masterpiece is a risky restaurant location for a different reason: it doesn't get much foot traffic, and there's plenty of the other kind.

To get to the restaurant, you pass through Céleste's small ground-floor bar, where the bartender hits the elevator button and calls upstairs to announce your imminent arrival. And once you're up on the seventh floor, the view is wonderful: the river, the castle, the far-off greenery of Petřín. You'd even forget about the traffic jam downstairs, if you couldn't see a half-kilometer-long line of cars stretching up to Karlovo náměstí.

Céleste is sister to one of Prague's best restaurants, Angel. But here the cuisine is French, not Asian, and the mood is more upscale – white tablecloths, fussier waiters, and slightly higher prices. By all appearances, Céleste is not dissimilar to the previous tenant, La Perle de Prague, which closed recently after having operated since the Dancing House's completion in 1996.

Yet anyone who has visited both restaurants would surely agree that Céleste is a major step up from the overpriced, uninspired La Perle. The new head chef is Gwendal Le Ruyet, a Frenchman from Brittany who spent five years working under Michelin-starred chef Alain Ducasse, among other prestigious international posts. His cooking – much like that of Sofia Smith, who helms Angel's kitchen – is bold and self-assured, with an emphasis on seasonal ingredients.

One of the waiters recommended that I try the lettuce soup as an appetizer, but there was no need; I had been planning on ordering it anyway. I really like cold soups, and this one sounded especially intriguing: a velouté of spring lettuce with pan-seared escargots and tarragon foam (275 CZK). The soup itself turned out to be a rich spinach-green color, full of the snappy flavor of fresh lettuce but slightly under-salted – which didn't really matter because the escargots were very savory (they also, for some reason, seemed to taste mildly of bacon). Some fresh shredded lettuce leaves and a few crunchy miniature croutons added texture to this well-balanced dish.

This is modern French cooking at its best. Le Ruyet has preserved the classic culinary techniques and rich sauces of his predecessors, but the dishes are lighter, more pared-down. He often does away with carbohydrates completely: the preparation of a pan-seared cod fillet (450 CZK as part of a two-course lunch menu; 550 CZK for three courses) cleverly evoked a classic beef Bourguignon, with its thick red wine sauce, pearl onions, and button mushrooms, but there were no potatoes to weigh the meal down.

Another fish dish, the sturgeon fillet (625 CZK) was similarly fresh-tasting and very appropriate for the spring season. It was served with pink grapefruit and fresh radishes, along with a green pea puree that was a nice homage to mushy peas (typically found next to fish and chips in English pubs). The sturgeon was perfectly cooked, but the citrus sauce it came with had an unpleasantly bitter aftertaste, as if some lemon rind had gotten in there by accident.
If you are a die-hard carbohydrate lover, don't worry: Céleste makes their own bread, and it is excellent. We were offered a choice of rosemary, white sesame with onion, black sesame, and rye flavors. Finally, an upscale restaurant that doesn't get its bread from the Mansson bakery like everybody else.

Céleste seems determined to do things differently, and better. Their dessert menu is full of unusual surprises, like the heavenly purple pears with red wine granita, mascarpone, and salted Brittany biscuit (195 CZK). My dinner companion said his roasted lamb with daikon radish and artichokes (595 CZK) was the best he'd ever had in this country, and the server proudly explained that it was organic Moravian lamb, not meat that had been shipped in from New Zealand or elsewhere. And they even offer Mattoni and Bonaqua along with the pricier imported waters.

On both my visits, the service was very good, if a little over-eager. Because I was recognized by a waiter who knew me from my frequent visits to Angel, I can't say for sure that it would be the same for other customers. But I have no doubt that the servers at Céleste will be professional and friendly to everyone who walks into their refined purple and gray-themed dining room.

When you do visit, ask to sit in the "Ginger" section of the restaurant, which is surrounded by glass and has a clearer view. Or, better yet, arrange an evening in their private dining room upstairs, which is absolutely stunning and can seat anywhere from two to twenty people. From there, you can walk out onto the circular terrace that crowns the Fred tower and look out across the city in the fresh air.

When you leave, of course, you'll be walking back into that big intersection. Not the most inspiring setting for a post-dinner walk – but by then, you'll be so drunk on lovely food and magical views that you won't even care.

Céleste Restaurant & Bar
Tančící dům
Rašínovo nábřeží 80
Praha 2 – Nove Mesto
map
Tel: 221 98 41 60

Open Mon-Sat 12:00-14:30, 18:30-22:30. Closed Sunday.

photographs: 1, 3, 4 Tomáš Krist for Lidové Noviny; all others celesterestaurant.cz

Read More...

Summary only...

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

Read More...

Summary only...