Prague's restaurant quality divides sharply between the tourist circuit and the residential neighborhoods. The Old Town (Staré Město) and Lesser Town (Malá Strana) are dense with tourist-oriented restaurants that serve Czech classics at inflated prices to visitors who don't know better — many of these restaurants are mediocre at best. But embedded within both neighborhoods are genuinely excellent places: Lokál on Dlouhá Třída in the Old Town is the definitive Czech pub restaurant, serving perfectly conditioned Pilsner Urquell in a converted 19th-century space alongside excellent svíčková, pork knee, and homemade bread.
Vinohrady and Žižkov, east of Wenceslas Square, are Prague's best residential neighborhoods for food. The Náměstí Míru square and the streets radiating from it — Mánesova, Blanická, Uruguayská — are lined with wine bars, bistros, and neighborhood restaurants that serve Prague's professional class. Eska on Pernerova Street in nearby Holešovice is one of the city's most celebrated contemporary Czech restaurants, serving fermented and preserved vegetables alongside Bohemian meat preparations in a converted industrial space that captures the city's architectural character. Field restaurant in the Old Town represents the New Czech culinary movement at its most ambitious.
The Farmers' Market culture is Vienna-quality in Prague — the Jiřího z Poděbrad market in Vinohrady (Wednesday and Saturday mornings) brings together Czech vegetable producers, artisan cheese makers, and bakeries in a neighborhood setting that feels like genuine community. The Naplavka Farmers' Market, held on Saturdays along the Vltava riverbank, is larger and more atmospheric, with excellent food stalls interspersed among the produce vendors.
Czech beer is its own profound food tradition. Bohemia produces some of the world's finest lagers — the original Pilsner Urquell from Plzeň, the dark Kozel from Velké Popovice, the Budvar from České Budějovice (the original Budweiser). The art of Czech pub service — maintaining the correct pressure, pouring the hnědé (brown) or bílé (white) foam head — is taken with extraordinary seriousness. Lokál, Zly Časy (Vinohrady), and U Fleků (the historic brewery-pub in the New Town, operating since 1499) are the essential experiences.
Czech cuisine in its best forms is deeply seasonal — spring brings trout from Bohemian streams and the first asparagus; summer brings wild strawberries and chanterelles from Bohemian forests; autumn means venison from the Šumava region, wild mushrooms in extraordinary variety, and the neue Wein grape harvest in Moravia. The Moravian wine region, producing excellent Welschriesling, Pálava, and Frankovka, is increasingly understood as a world-class wine destination, with producers like Sonberk, Dobrá Vinice, and Nové Vinařství bringing international attention.
