Restaurant Review: Maitrea

There are no right angles at Maitrea. The solid-wood tables and chairs all have rounded edges, the doorways are arched, and the lamps are elongated and ethereal, like jellyfish in mid-swim. Even the point where the walls meet the ceiling has been softened with a tube-like rim and a neat row of colored stones.

Maitrea happens to be a vegetarian restaurant, but it is, first and foremost, beautiful. This has to be emphasized, because when a lot of people (myself included) think of vegetarian restaurants, we conjure up images of either unembellished, harshly lit cafeteria-style eateries or the kind of place where hippies sit on grotty carpets with their dogs and talk about marijuana marches.

Neither of these categories applies to Maitrea, which is creative but uncluttered, cozy but not dirty. It's actually spotlessly clean and, it has to be said, expensive-looking. All of the details – the sculptural fountains and custom-made furniture and mosaic tiles – couldn't have been cheap to put together.

And it didn't come quickly, either. The reconstruction of the restaurant and the building in which it is located was done in accordance with feng shui principles and took nearly three years to complete. The whole of the building is called Maitrea, too (a Sanskrit term that can be translated as "loving kindness") and is referred to by its proprietors as a "house of personal development." It hosts tons of vaguely Buddhistic gatherings: meditation seminars, spiritually-oriented lectures, and free-form dance classes. So it only seems appropriate to have a vegetarian-friendly eatery on the premises.

The Maitrea restaurant is run by Václav Stanislav and Martin Dobeš, who founded the veg hideaway Lehká Hlava three years ago. For fans of the original restaurant – which is fully booked on most evenings – the opening of Maitrea just off Old Town Square comes as a welcome expansion. The new place has two floors and seats ninety people, almost double the capacity of Lehká Hlava. Its upstairs space is airy, with high ceilings and large windows; the downstairs section is more intimate and features a couple of couches on a raised platform next to a modern-style fireplace.

Maitrea's menu is similar to that of its sister restaurant: a jumble of veggie-only dishes, from pasta and stir-fries to burgers and burritos. There's even a Czech option, a version of vepřo knedlo zelo (pork with dumplings and sauerkraut) – dumplings with sauerkraut and tofu pork. Sounds fascinating, but somehow I haven't felt the urge to try it.

I'm not crazy about meat substitutions, all those seitans and soy bacons; I generally find them weird and not particularly tasty. I'd rather just have a bunch of vegetables, with some beans or something to make up for the lack of protein. So I'm not sure why I ordered an okara burger (125 CZK), really (okara is a type of soybean pulp common in traditional Asian cooking). For a regular eater of real cow burgers like me, I could have expected that the non-cow version wasn't going to impress me much.

But for a veggie burger, it wasn't too bad. The bun was homemade, fluffy and dotted with sesame seeds. The toppings were decent – a nice slice of tomato, crunchy lettuce, and a garlic yogurt sauce. Turns out (surprise, surprise) it was the soy part that bothered me most. The patty was fried to crispiness on the outside, but kind of runny on the inside, like mashed potatoes that have too much cream in them. Coupled with the drippy yogurt sauce, the patty made the burger incredibly messy to eat. It actually did taste good, but because most of the dish was running down my arms and dropping onto my plate, I had to put it down pretty quickly.

The Mexican dishes seem to be better. I had a red bean chili (130 CZK) that came wrapped up with cheddar cheese in a cone-shaped tortilla. This wasn't especially authentic Mexican food – the chili was a little too sweet and lacked any sort of spicy seasoning – but it was beautifully presented and made with fresh ingredients. On the side was a scoop each of sour cream and red pepper salsa, along with a leafy mesclun salad. The guacamole (70 CZK) is listed as an appetizer and comes with a homemade brioche, but I ordered it as an accompaniment to my chili. It was tangy and made with real avocados, not from the bottle. Yay!

They're big on the homemade stuff at Maitrea, which is one reason why I like it so much. They have their own fizzy lemonade (mint or ginger flavor, 45 CZK) and bake their own chocolate chip cookies to go with mashed-up strawberries as a dessert (the cookies were a little on the tough side, actually, but you have to appreciate the effort).

Another reason to like the restaurant is that it's super-affordable, especially considering its location. There's nothing nearby like it – well, there is Beas, the vegetarian dhaba around the corner, but since they decided to change their system to self-service, it isn't what it used to be. Maitrea charges a comparable price for a lunch menu, 105 CZK, which includes the soup of the day (on my visit, a simple carrot soup with dill and yogurt) and an entrée (chickpea and peanut "perkelt" with bulghur wheat and rice). If you happen to have devoted your life to the spiritual side of things, you can do one better: monks, ordained clergy members, and "enlightened people" eat at Maitrea for free.

The expressed goal of Maitrea is to be "a pleasant place to meet people who are open to inspiration." I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I do find Maitrea to be a pretty inspiring place. Maybe next time I visit, I'll meet some inspiring people there, too.

Maitrea
Týnská ulička 6
Praha 1 - Old Town
map
Tel: 221 711 631

photographs Tomáš Krist for Lidové noviny; all others restaurace-maitrea.cz

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 07/11/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

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Restaurant Review: Lancia Café

Here's a riddle for you. It's lunchtime and you're hungry. Because you have a pretty distinguished palate, you don't want to eat just anything. It has to be decent. Up to international standards, even.

But there's a catch: you're in Bratislava. Besides hopping in the car and driving the 60 kilometers to Vienna, what can you possibly do?

You see, there isn't much going on in Slovakia's capital in terms of restaurants. They exist, but most of them are pretty pathetic, and not even very cheap. The situation is bad enough to make wishy-washy Prague look like a culinary Mecca. As a Czech businessman I once overheard on the Pendolino to Bratislava said (with admirable succinctness), "It's a hole. There's nothing there."

My parents would argue otherwise. They are Slovak and spend a lot of time in their homeland, testing out various second-rate eateries in the hope that they will find someplace worth revisiting. And after a while, they did find a place – three places, in fact.

It just so happens that all three of those restaurants are in the same building (the Erdödy Palác), owned by the same company, and presided over by a single chef. And it also happens that that chef is Czech. His name is Jaroslav Židek, and the restaurants are called Camouflage, Flowers, and Lancia Café.

I've been to all three establishments multiple times. Camouflage is the most expensive, with fancy French-inspired cuisine; I liked the food, but found it to be a little complicated for my taste – I vaguely recall a chocolate fondant that came with about ten different accessories. Flowers has upscale Italian food that is very tasty (try the saffron, shrimp, and asparagus risotto), but its best asset is its atmosphere: situated in an airy, glassed-over courtyard, its walls are plastered all the way up to the ceiling with original prints of Andy Warhol's "Flowers" series.

So why did I choose to write about Lancia Café, which is the least fancy of the three and a bit more of a bar and café than a real restaurant? I'm going to blame this one on my mom and dad, who are regulars there, and who swore up and down that I was going to absolutely love it. "Best restaurant in Bratislava," they insisted. "And there's nothing like it in Prague." Well, that was true at least. I can't think of a Prague restaurant that serves both crêpes and yaki soba noodles – a combination that I didn't necessarily find appealing, but I was going to try the place anyway.

When I visited, it was still warm enough to sit outside on Lancia Café's wood-plank terrace. The setup is great for checking out the hordes of people as they stroll up and down Bratislava's main pedestrian thoroughfare. The café is less appealing on the inside, where stark lighting, flat-screen TVs and black plastic chairs make the place feel vaguely futuristic and very cold.

The menu consists of a few Asian-inspired bar snacks and entrees, some soups and sandwiches, and the aforementioned crêpes and their savory buckwheat flour counterpart, the galette. My galette came with shrimp, hard-boiled eggs, leek, and crème fraiche (€8.80). It was also cold.

Maybe it was because I was sitting outside, but by the time it got to me, my galette was no longer fresh off the pan. It was the same story on a subsequent visit, when my companion ordered the spinach and mushroom galette (€8.13). It probably would have helped if the plates had been heated. Otherwise, the galettes were all right, but the dough was a little bland, as if it needed to be salted more. These were far inferior – and a lot more expensive – to the galettes at La Crêperie in Holešovice. So far, I was unimpressed.

I was happier with the tom yum gai soup (€3.82), which was both warm enough and had a sweet-spicy kick. Still, my mother claimed she'd had better versions of the soup there before, and after some thought, she admitted that the food was often inconsistent. Depending on who was cooking that night, it seemed, the dishes were always a little different.

If that is indeed the case, I hope the chicken with green curry (€12.12) is usually better. When I had it, it was incredibly greasy, with oil gathered in pools at the top, and tasted only of chili and nothing more. The chicken was tough and stringy, a surprise after the tender chicken sate appetizer (€7.47) I'd just had. Plus, we had to wait an absurdly long time for our main courses to arrive.

It's not all bad at Lancia Café. They have a fantastic salad comprised of papaya, celery root, green beans, and grilled shrimp in a spicy lime dressing (€10.79), and a simple but tasty chicken stir-fry (€13.11). And their desserts can be pretty great, too: the Thai classic sticky rice with mango, honey, and coconut milk (€5.48) and a range of homemade ice creams and sorbets (the chocolate sorbet is particularly wonderful). They also are the only restaurant in Slovakia to brew the top-quality "sustainable" coffee Tierra Lavazza, a blend harvested exclusively from three small communities in Colombia, Peru, and Honduras.

Was all this good enough to make me a believer? I will probably visit Lancia Café again the next time I'm in Bratislava. But I’m still not sure it could live up to the standards of a more cosmopolitan city and a more demanding clientele. Looks like all that time in the home country has made my parents soft. Nice try, guys, but next time you'll have to come up with something better.

Lancia Café
Ventúrska 1 - Erdödyho Palác
Bratislava, Slovakia
Tel.: +421 2 209 227 22

Open Mon-Sun 08:00-01:00

photographs 1, 3, 5, 6 Tomáš Hájek for Lidové Noviny; all others lanciacafe.sk

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 31/10/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

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Prague Burgers: A (Small-Scale) Investigation

What makes a good burger a good burger? Well, for starters, the burger can't be a karbanátek.

I've seen some people in these parts frown on the notion of a hamburger being anything more than a quick food alternative to a real meal. But across the ocean in the hamburger's adopted home, putting together the all-American meat sandwich has turned into something of an art. Top-notch chefs like Daniel Boulud and Hubert Keller are opening burger restaurants, and some are even making them with luxury ingredients like foie gras and truffles.

I suspect it'll be some time before we see those kinds of ingredients on our burgers here, but there are a few places making a solid effort (and some not so solid) at dishing out the classic American meal. I went to six different local establishments that reportedly have good burgers, and ordered a bacon cheeseburger where available. Here are the results:





Bohemia Bagel Holešovice
Weekends are Burger Weekends at the Holešovice branch of Bohemia Bagel, when their usual selection of burgers is doubled; variations include the Falafel Burger, the Greek Burger, and the Steak Burger. But their classic version, the Bohemia Burger (135 CZK, plus an extra 20 CZK for bacon and American cheese), is probably their best: a juicy-flame-grilled patty on a toasted sesame bun slathered with garlic butter and served with lettuce, tomatoes, and onions. The bacon was crispy and the cheddar cheese was plentiful – but alas, there were no pickles, and the fries were miserably limp and soggy.





Fraktal
Judging by the recommendations I'd gotten, I thought the Fraktal burger was supposed to be something really special. And it was special, but not in the way I'd hoped. This was one sad little patty (I chose the small 125g burger for 170 CZK; a 200g burger is also available for 195 CZK), black and shriveled on the outside and overdone and rubbery on the inside. The top layer of the sesame seed roll was crumbling, as if it had been defrosted after spending the last six months at the bottom of a freezer. Not recommended.






Hard Rock Café
I hate to give the Best Burger in Prague title to a big corporation, but this one was really good. The choice here is between ten different types of burgers in two different sizes: Legendary (285g of meat for 320 CZK) or Regular (starting at 220 CZK for 170g of meat). My HRC bacon cheeseburger had the telltale criss-cross marks of a flame-grilled patty, was perfectly medium-rare and came on a toasted brioche-style bun. The bacon was crispy, the meat was juicy, and there were potato peel fries on the side (not enough of them, though). The best part? The service at Hard Rock Café is simply stellar.





Jama
Jama's burger doesn't have pickles, but it does have tomatoes, red onions, lettuce, and… olives? To get a bacon cheeseburger here, you pay 175 CZK for a cheeseburger or a bacon burger, then add 40 CZK extra for bacon and 39 CZK extra for your choice of cheese (you can save a crown if you do the math). My beef patty was crumbly and thick, with nice grill marks, but it could have used a little more seasoning. The bun was American style (sweet and light with sesame seeds) and the bacon was Czech (fatty, with very little crispiness). Jama was the only restaurant I tried that had steak fries, but the service was excruciatingly slow. And I could have done without those olives.





Mozaika
Mozaika's is a cheese-less burger (199 CZK), topped instead with garlic mayo and sautéed onions and mushrooms. I liked the effort at ingenuity here – the string fries come with a homemade spicy tomato dip and the burger is served on spinach foccacia – but the execution was all wrong. This was a straight-up karbanátek, with the meat all mashed together into an unappetizing lump, and the focaccia was saltless and soggy. I remember this hamburger being a lot better once upon a time.





Potrefená Husa Dejvice
This Husa makes its 200g burgers (268 CZK) with beef tenderloin. That sounds good in theory, but tenderloin is really too lean a meat to make a juicy enough patty – and this one was under-salted, too. The toppings (American cheese, red onions, lettuce, tomato) were plentiful and fresh, and the shoestring fries were great, but they couldn’t make up for the white bacon and tasteless beef. It'll satisfy a craving, but you won't be dreaming about it.

photographs: 1 Tomáš Krist for Lidové Noviny; all others Prague Spoon

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

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Restaurant Review: U Emy Destinnové

It seldom seems to happen – in this country, anyway – that a restaurant's best asset is its kitchen. Lots of places are long on atmosphere, and nowadays you can even count on reasonably good service at most higher-end restaurants. But good chefs are still few and far between.

One of the exceptions is U Emy Destinnové, whose owner and head chef Steven Trumpfheller outclasses both his restaurant's location and its waitstaff. His menu is eclectic but not unfocused, a mix of mostly American and Italian-style classics.

I just can't get over the pumpkin risotto (180 CZK) I had there the other night. Creamy without being too heavy, the dish was a perfect balance of flavors. That was also because of one other crucial addition: bacon, fried to near crispiness (this is an American chef, after all, who knows how to cook his bacon) and folded into the risotto in small pieces. The fact is that bacon will make more or less any dish taste better – I recently sampled some bacon-flavored chocolate, and I loved it – but in the risotto, combined with the pumpkin's distinctive sweetness and the sharp tang of Parmesan, it was a truly inspired combo.

I couldn't say as much for U Emy Destinnové's interior design. Before the restaurant's recent renovation, it had a quirky, old-fashioned living room feel to it, with lots of strange knickknacks and some ratty gray couches left over from its previous incarnation as Czech restaurant JB Club. The getup felt a bit inappropriate for the food, to be sure, so a refurb was definitely in order. Now, the place has been tidied up and the couches have been reupholstered, but it's lost some of its charm. The beige walls are a little drab, and the maroon-colored runners over the tables feel out of date, like something you'd find in an old hotel restaurant in Communist-era Czechoslovakia.

On my second visit, there was a massive group dinner taking up the whole of the large front room (U Emy Destinnové offers several banquet menus), so my friends and I were seated in the little room in the back. That would have been perfectly cozy if we hadn't been within spitting distance of the bathrooms – they were separated from us by a partition wall, but every time someone left the toilet door open we were washed over by a familiar, unpleasant aroma. Because there was no self-closing mechanism on the bathroom doors, one of us would have to get up and shut them ourselves – and I don't especially like playing toilet porter on an evening out to dinner.

Then there was the problem of the lights being too dim, making it hard to read the menu and see the food properly. And although live piano music is a nice idea, this particular piano player didn't really do it for me. His style was aggressive and unpleasant, not fading gently into the background as it should have, but overriding our conversation. Moreover, he had a creepy habit of staring directly at me and my female friend for long periods of time as he played.

During earlier, pre-renovation visits to U Emy Destinnové, I remember being bowled over by the service. This time, it wasn't bad by any means – particularly on my first visit, when the waiter was impressively on point – but it did occasionally seem slightly amateurish. During the first evening, the server eagerly told us what dishes they had available as specials, but on the second, I had to ask if they had any specials before he thought to tell us. And I found their rattling off of all the aperitifs they had on offer (even when we had already declined) a little annoying.

Still, I was impressed with how timely the service was, even with that massive group in the front room. I had been dismayed when we first walked in that night – usually, kitchens get overwhelmed by the demands of the banquet and the timing of the smaller tables' meals suffers. But everything came out at just the right moment, and they even found the opportunity to show us the lamb and swordfish they had on special that night.

I had the swordfish in the form of a carpaccio (215 CZK), and it was great – fresh, beautifully sliced, and arranged around a small salad with capers and cherry tomatoes. They have a thing for raw meat here, with three kinds of carpaccio (including bison carpaccio with dried figs and pecorino cheese, 215 CZK), a lamb tartare, and often a couple of additional types of carpaccio on the specials list. But there are other tasty appetizers, too, such as the deep-fried calamari, zucchini, and lemon (155 CZK) or the wild French duck breast with blackberry port wine demi-glaze (175 CZK).

There are a lot of originals here, and having seen the same dishes over and over again on local menus, I can appreciate the ingenuity – especially when it comes out right. The golden capon chicken served over sweet corn relish (230 CZK) was tender and juicy, with browned, crispy skin, and its mildly creamy sweet corn sauce was a nice little bit of Americana to go with it. Paired with some fluffy garlic mashed potatoes (65 CZK), this was real soul food.

So, the American in the basement of famous Czech opera singer Ema Destinnová's birth house can really cook. I'm not totally convinced by his baking (the Philadelphia cheesecake, 105 CZK, had a very soggy crust), but I only managed to sample one dessert. The portions are big, and the prices are remarkably decent. I would urge you to give U Emy Destinnové a chance. Even if a few of the other elements are a little out of place, the food is definitely worth it.

U Emy Destinnové
Kateřinská 7
Praha 2 - Nové Město
map
Tel.: 224 918 425
Open Mon-Fri 11:30-23:30, Sat 18:00-23:30. Closed Sunday.

images 1, 2, 6 Tomáš Krist for Lidové Noviny; all others uemydestinnove.cz

This review originally appeared in Czech translation in the 03/10/09 edition of Lidové Noviny.

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Restaurant Review: 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.

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Las Adelitas to open restaurant in Vinohrady

Looks like Fosil will no longer be the only authentic Mexican restaurant in town.
The popular Mexican food delivery service Las Adelitas has announced it will open its first restaurant this month. There will be a grand opening party on Friday, October 16th -- but they are also holding a "pre-inauguration" party tonight at 8pm, at the new location on Americká 8 in Vinohrady. Delivery is on hold for now, but will restart as soon as the restaurant officially opens.

Margaritas and flautas... yum.

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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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