Progressive Prague
Laboring to add culinary prowess to its considerable list of attractions, a picturesque mittel-European city rifles its pre-communist past for inspiration. Sylvie Bigar reports.
Sylvie Bigar reports.
"Pivo," exhaled the heavyset woman seated on the aisle next to me, as the steward pushed the rickety cart past our row. "Pivo," she repeated when he delivered a gnarly excuse for dinner. "Pivo," she clucked when he offered croissants for breakfast, a few hours later. Happily, she wiped the foamy elixir from her lips and, finally, smiled at me.
Pivo, Czech for beer, was my introduction to the Czech Republic. I was on my way to Prague, intrigued by mounting rumors that a serious culinary scene was brewing.
This year, Prague celebrates the 20th anniversary of the so-called "Velvet Revolution," the period of several weeks during which the Czech people peacefully rose to overthrow 40 years of communist rule. In Prague I learned that the Communist Party imposed not only what to do and what to think, but also what the nation could eat and how it was supposed to be cooked.
"At culinary school before 1989, we all worked from one state-approved cookbook," says Roman Paulus, executive chef at Prague's celebrated Alcron Restaurant in the deco Alcron Hotel. "It was the most boring cookbook you can imagine-it taught us how to destroy traditions."
Paulus, whose skills once won him a stage at the Savoy in London even though he didn't speak a word of English, is one of several Czech chefs who have made it their mission to search archives and libraries to unearth the homegrown cuisine of the First Republic (1918-1938)-a sophisticated tradition with Austro-Hungarian influences-and reinterpret it for the 21st century.
"Under the communists, people ate pork, mushy dumplings, and lots of cabbage," says Paulus. "They forgot that the lush forests of Bohemia [the western part of the Czech Republic] were full of deer, pheasants, and wild mushrooms."
Last March, Paulus teamed up with Oldrich Sahajdák, co-owner and executive chef of La Dégustation Bohęme Bourgeoise, one of Prague's most talked about restaurants, to cook a gala dinner celebrating modern Czech cuisine. The menu included kulajda soup, the traditional poor man's potage with a potato base, now a light stock holding slow-poached organic eggs with just a hint of sourness from vinegar and sweetness from dill and caraway. A crispy pike perch served on a green lentil salad alluded to the steady resurgence of the freshwater fish in the country's innumerable rivers and lakes. "The challenge today," says Paulus, "is to find a reliable supplier who understands the quality level I'm looking for but can also deliver the quantity we need."
Another highlight came in the form of braised pork cheeks and cutlets. Communist propaganda heralded a daily ration of meat as a symbol of wealth, but the pork served every day in the school cafeterias and factory canteens had little to do with what I tasted. As a wink to the "head to tail" concept, Paulus paired a satiny cheek braised in red Moldavian wine with a slice of fried pig's foot terrine, also adding an elegant wedge of loin poached in local honey.
I met Sahajdák at his clubby eatery in Prague's Old Town. With its open kitchen and tasting menus only, La Dégustation Bohęme Bourgeoise was the first restaurant to flaunt new Czech cuisine and consistently score top marks in Pavel Maurer's Grand Restaurant guide. A bit shy, Sahajdák held a ripped yellowy book in his hands, explaining, "This is my bible, Marie Svobodová's cookbook from 1880."
Sahajdák offers a daily chef's menu and another called Dégustation "Terre et Eau" (land and water), but gourmands flock for cubes of perfectly cured smoky Prague ham, for a large paper-thin ravioli hiding poached diced veal lungs with hints of marjoram or for a white vaporous cumulus cloud that turns out to be Jerusalem artichoke puree. His barley gnocchi, puffy and light, take the place of the ubiquitous dumpling, one of the absolute staples of Czech cuisine. He also plays with other traditional Czech ingredients: horseradish (foam), poppy seeds (on noodles for dessert), and preserved fruits (pickled plums).
"We have a lot of young customers," says the chef, "but I love when older people come in because they remember the old recipes or they remember what their parents said about the old recipes, and they really understand what I try to do."
In the past five years, Prague has seen an explosion of serious interest in food. Martin Kuciel, a slight blond man who trained as a physician, gave in to his passion and started the widely popular food blog Pan Cuketka (Little Zucchini). "We now have two food magazines, and newspapers have added food pages," he says. "There's a dining radio program, an annual Prague Food Festival, and even a television reality show with chef Zdenek Pohlreich from Café Imperial, based on Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares."
Among the stunning columns and recently renovated Art Nouveau mosaics of Prague's grandest cafe, Pohlreich, a stout, fashionably bald, and testy personality, oversees an international menu. Caesar salad shares the page with French onion soup, but he's just added a Czech Specials section. The roasted rabbit with garlic, spinach, and potato dumpling was tender, light, and redolent of rainy underbrush. Stewed venison flavored with juniper berries was presented atop a crunchy noodle gratin.
A venison saddle wrapped in a delicate pancake with pickled mushrooms also finds its place in Eva Filipová's latest cookbook, Czech Cuisine: A Modern Approach, a compilation of recipes from local chefs. "The culinary revival we are experiencing," says Filipová, "led me to decide it was time to write a cookbook rooted in traditional Czech cuisine, but with modern techniques and presentation." She adds, "After the revolution, people were eager to try new cuisines-Chinese, Italian, and French-but now we can return to our past."
In her gorgeous monthly magazine F.O.O.D., editor-in-chief Jitka Rákosníková presents international cuisine and travel as well as reinterpretations of Czech dishes. "I hope that Prague will soon be considered a food destination. I used to be a Spanish teacher, but now I live and breathe our new foodie world."
With an eye to the traditions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the heyday of the First Republic, and a nose dipping into foams and locavore movements, chefs, cookbook authors, bloggers, and gourmands have created a new culinary scene. Tourists travel to Prague for the culture, the beauty, and let's face it, for the pivo. Now, they can also come for the freedom, passion, and creativity that teem in Czech kitchens.
Sylvie Bigar is a New York City-based food and travel writer.
CZECH CLASSICS
Kulajda South Bohemian wild chicken soup with poached quail egg, dill, and pigeon dumplings
Filatko z Candata Pan-fried fillet of pike perch with green lentil ragoűt
Kure na Paprice Chicken fricassée with creamy paprika sauce and homemade noodles
Veprove Variace Braised cheek, fried trotters, and cutlet of suckling pig poached in honey with apple puree and spring onions
Svícková Poached beef oyster blade with cream sauce, dill, and barley gnocchi
