Best of Prague

In 2008, Allegro, at the Four Seasons Hotel Prague, earned the first Michelin star in the former Soviet Bloc.

Address:
2a/1098 Veleslavinova, Four Seasons Hotel Prague
Prague
Czech Republic

Phone:
420-221-427-000

Sleek new bar and restaurant in Frank Gehry’s Dancing Building.

Address:
Tancici Dun, 80 Rašínovo Nábřeží
Prague
Czech Republic

Phone:
420-221-984-160

The buzzy contemporary-arts center that opened in October 2008. One of the first exhibits in this sprawling 1920’s metal factory (redesigned by the contemporary Czech architect Ivan Kroupá) was the enormous installation called Entropa, by Czech artist David Cerný. A 40-foot-high mosaic suspended on a pipe system, with steam whistles and moving parts, it’s a wild sort of map of the 27 EU member states: Romania is a Dracula-themed park; the Netherlands a flooded plain dotted with half-submerged mosques; Italy one enormous soccer pitch on which players run chaotically in all directions. It was commissioned to be exhibited at the European Council building in Brussels for the duration of the Czech presidency, but generated so much controversy that it was dismantled and sent back to Prague—to the mixed dismay and amusement of art-savvy Czechs, who could have told any well-meaning Eurocrat that Cerný, a self-styled enfant terrible and Prague celebrity, was not the guy for such a serious-minded job. (In the immediate aftermath of the Velvet Revolution, he painted a Soviet tank cotton-candy pink and affixed a huge raised middle finger atop it.) Post-controversy, Cerný admitted that the 27 artists he’d listed as collaborators—one from each EU country—were all fictitious; the work was entirely his and that of two associates.

Address:
34 Osadní
Prague
Czech Republic

Phone:
420-774-145-434

Four buildings from different architectural eras (Baroque; Neoclassical; Neo-Renaissance), on the east bank of the Vltava River. The hotel also features the Michelin-starred Allegro restaurant (still the best in the city, serving that pitch-perfect northern Italian).

Address:
2a/1098 Veleslavinova, Charles Bridge
Prague
Czech Republic

Phone:
(800) 332-3442

The café is on the second floor of the House of the Black Madonna, originally constructed in 1912 as a department store by the Czech Cubist architect Josef Gocár and, as of 2003, home to Prague’s Museum of Czech Cubism, an architectural and design movement that emerged, flourished, and faded away here in the course of about 15 years. After being neglected for decades, the Orient was restored in spring 2005 to its original, rigorously angled splendor. Everything is a faithful replica of what once was: immense polished-brass and silk-shaded lamps are suspended from the glossy, white-beamed ceiling; the ornate geometric woodwork surrounding the mirrored bar is finished to a high shine; the half-octagon banquettes flanking the tables are covered in a perfect reproduction of the original green-and-white upholstery. Once visited almost exclusively by scholars and aficionados of its architecture, today the café is a map-marked stop on many a hipster’s list.

Address:
19 Ovocný
Prague
Czech Republic

Phone:
420-224-224-240

A 1904 neo-Renaissance-style building has been meticulously transformed into the modern, luxury Hotel Kings Court, situated on Republic Square across from the Palladium shopping centre. The hotel includes 133 guestrooms, conference facilities, and a ballroom. The fuchsia accented Eating Point Cafe, with a summertime terrace, extends into the vodka lobby bar, which holds one of the largest vodka collections in the city. The hotel’s Zen Asian Wellness Spa (employing Thai and Balinese therapists) pampers guests in four treatment rooms, a special pool with a reverse stream, Finnish sauna and Turkish steam room. The fitness room is available 24/7.

Address:
3 Obecniho Domu
Prague
Czech Republic

Phone:
420-224-222-888

The first Cubist building in Europe, the House of the Black Madonna is located in Old Town, its stark façade and geometric windows contrasting with the surrounding Baroque structures. Designed in 1912 by Josef Gočár, the building was named for a nearby polychrome statue of the Madonna and Child. Today, the house contains the Museum of Czech Cubism, which showcases work dating primarily from 1910—19. In addition to paintings by artists like Emil Filla and Josef Čapek, the museum also houses Cubist sculpture, furniture, and ceramics. Downstairs, the café is a replica of the building’s original Grand Café Orient.

Address:
19 Ovocný
Prague
Czech Republic

Phone:
420-224-301-003

La Degustation Bohême Bourgeoise (or Degustation, as it is known), was a revelation for Czechs as well as visitors to the city when it opened in Old Town in 2007. Executive chef and co-owner Oldrich Sahajdák assembled a nine-person team comprising some of Prague’s top internationally trained talent, variously poached from the city’s best restaurants (sous-chef Marek Šáda came from Kampa Park; chef du pâtissier Lukáš Pohl was formerly at Café Savoy) and lured home from abroad (sommelier Kristýna Janicková has worked at Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s and Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester in London). Their mandate: Revive and add a contemporary twist to the haute cuisine traditions of late-19th-century well-to-do Bohemia.

Address:
18 Haštalská
Prague
Czech Republic

Phone:
420-222-311-234

The 16th-century Lobkowicz Palace underwent a multimillion-dollar restoration ending in 2007, returning the palace’s 60 rooms, including a handsome music salon that hosts daily concerts to their Baroque and Rococo opulence. Beneath its frescoed ceilings, the building holds a treasure trove of European cultural heritage: original scores of Beethoven’s Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, two painting by Italian master Canaletto, and Pieter Brueghel the Edler’s 1565 masterpiece Haymaking, possibly the finest example of the artist’s work still in private hands. And now for the first time in history, it’s all open to the public.

Address:
3 Jiřká, Prague Castle
Prague
Czech Republic

Phone:
420-602-595-998

The youthful staff is helpful to the point of exuberance. The spa is set in a former Cistercian monastery (with a transparent floor revealing Gothic ruins beneath); the restaurant serves both pan-European cuisine—including a delicious pata negra ham appetizer and lots of game—and Asian dishes.

Address:
459/1 Nebovidska
Prague
Czech Republic

Phone:
(866) 526-6567

Janek Jaros has, for almost a decade, been championing Czech Cubism from his downtown gallery Modernista. Set somewhat incongruously among the treacly gift boutiques and garnet sellers along Celetná, a popular tourist road in Old Town, Modernista is Prague’s original Czech design emporium. The fortysomething Jaros manufactures reproductions of furniture, kitchenware, and porcelain by the best-known Czech Cubists, such as Vlatislav Hofman, Pavel Janák, and Josef Gocár (of the House of the Black Madonna), and sources hard-to-find originals for a handful of prominent clients, among them London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.

Address:
12 Celetná
Prague
Czech Republic

Phone:
420-224-241-300

The warmly lit and cheery space stocks traditional craft techniques made thought-provoking with healthy doses of irony.

Address:
3 Rámová
Prague
Czech Republic

Phone:
420-222-313-151

Luxury hotelier Rocco Forte spread the 101 Cubist-inspired guest rooms at his latest property throughout seven historic buildings in central Prague. The results are a testament to how an international hotel brand can achieve an authentic sense of place in one property. Few European hotels can match the Augustine, with its still-active ecclesiastical libraries and 18th-century frescoes, for pedigree (the Mandarin Oriental, Prague, just blocks away from the Augustine and also housed in a former monastery, is one). Some of the textiles in the rooms are faithful reproductions of archival Cubist and Modernist designs; others are more playful interpretations of them. The Tower suite, situated on three floors, is set inside the observatory of the 14th-century St. Thomas Monastery.

Address:
12/33 Letenská
Prague
Czech Republic

Phone:
(888) 667-9477