http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/ Welcome to Been there. Your tips on the places you know - that you love, live in or have just visited - are what make this guide. http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/34400 The coffee at Café Lounge is really excellent, and available to take away. Unusually for Prague, the menu features a flat white (67 czk) - served in a glass tumbler, with a heart drawn into the foam and a delicate biscuit on the side. Other coffee offerings include vacuum press coffee (95/125 CZK for a tricky arrangement that involved what looked like a high-school chemistry kit) as well as the usual cappuccino and espressos. Coffees and teas are all served with a suduko game to attempt while you sip, which is a charming touch. Café Lounge also offers a very extensive food menu from breakfast through to snacks and main meals, as well as daily options.
Service is impressive. Knowledgeable, friendly but unintrusive. A great experience and well worth the visit for something a little smarter than usual.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/34400 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/34355 An incredibly modern cafe frequented by tourists and Prague hipsters - the perfect place to rest gallery-wearied feet.
Offers tea, coffee and a small range of sweet snacks.
Open throughout summer 2012.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/34355 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/34124
Located 50m from Jiřího z Poděbrad metro station (on the green line), the “Laundry cafe“ is so named as the buidling previously functioned as a...laundry! Even today, the cafe retains that sort of friendly, clean efficiency you expect from a laundrette – the proporietor bakes cakes in the main room while taking orders and making cappucino. Prádelna offers a broad drinks menu and decent food options, including daily soups (from 38 CZK), pates (from 65 CZK), paninis (63 CZK) and homemade ice cream and desserts. Their fresh baked cakes come extremely highly recommended.

A great local business with friendly service.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/34124 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/33498 This bright white, airy, almost clinical space is a refreshing change to some of the more traditional Czech gift stores in central Prague and is still a great place to pick up a souvenir. How about a stylish Czech made mechanical pencil by Versatil or a Merkur construction set?
There’s a lovely café with outside seating, where you can admire your purchases afterwards. Oh yes, and a world class museum of contemporary art is downstairs. Just in case.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/33498 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/33026 Set in the Old Town, Choco Café offers the widest variety of chocolate and chocolate drinks I have ever seen. Its offerings include chocolate with quinoa or pineapple and hot chocolate served with ginger or chili.
Be prepared, the hot chocolate is pretty much just melted chocolate – rich, smooth and thick enough to stand a spoon in. 55 CZK for the standard. Whipped cream and other ingredients such as chili, fruit, and alcohol are extra.
Choco Café accommodates non-chocolate fanatics as well, offering a small non-chocolate menu including teas, and some food. A good central lunch stop.
Café Chocolate also operates as a postcard museum and shop and a chocolate shop. It sells some of the most beautifully presented chocolate bars you’ll ever see – mainly by Italian chocolate company Stainer. Each wrapper is a work of art in itself, and the chocolate is delicious.
Cosy and snug in the winter. The back opens onto a small garden for fresh air in the summer.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/33026 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32906 As well as a special location, Čajovna Ve Věži's boasts a lovely herbal smell throughout and a cosy ambience - decor includes mismatched chairs and tables, Persian rugs, a large Buddha and several small oriental wall hangings. Like a favourite teddy bear, everything looks a little tired but well loved.
The menu is only available in Czech, although as most teas have Japanese or Chinese names, this is not too tricky. Staff speak some English but a phrase book might be useful.
Čajovna Ve Věži offers over 80 teas (from 40 to 115 CZK) from India, China, Japan, Turkey, Nepal, Vietnam and Tibet, as well as some fruit teas and non-caffeinated teas. A small selection of soft drinks is also available, as well as wine.
Light snacks are also offered – nuts (from 30 CZK), sandwiches (35 CZK), corn on the cob (44 CZK) and sushi (85 CZK).
Slightly slow service is more than compensated for by the location, atmosphere, and the excellent teas.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32906 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32905 The menu (available in English and Czech) is fantastically informative and includes over eighty loose-leaf teas. With a three or four line description of each tea, the menu reads more like a novel and includes “a good tea to drink whilst reminiscing” (The Calling for Nepal), tea that is “suitable for drinking when returning from a walk in the park at twilight”, (Silver Monkey’s Paw), and tea “for a quiet meeting with close friends” (Sencha Kyoto). Dobrá Čajovna also has a small food menu offering snacks such as nuts and Japanese rice crackers. Savoury dishes including couscous and hummus are also available. Soft drinks are offered and are, happily, limited to exotic sounding chilled fruit juices – no crowd-pleasing Coca-Cola!
Dobrá Čajovna has inside seating as well as an outside area with bamboo sun umbrellas, low tables and stools, and is non-smoking throughout. Excellent service - attentive and very well informed.
Dobrá Čajovna also has a shop selling leaf teas, teapots and cups.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32905 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32766 Its largest café on Vodičkova off Wenceslas Square is always busy, its two stories frequented by locals, expats and tourists alike. Table service is offered by helpful staff who are will offer advice on their range of Ethiopian, Honduran and other coffee beans and Fair Trade Teas, which are all also available to buy. They are also happy to leave you to relax, or work on your laptop (offering free Wi-Fi upstairs).
MamaCoffee offers good quality snacks – cakes, brownies and sandwiches. I had the best spinach quiche of my life here, which was an unexpected perk.
Floor to ceiling windows and a non-smoking policy make this a lovely, bright place to relax or work, and offers high quality Fair Trade coffee at reasonable prices.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32766 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32502 Like a much-loved teddy bear, local favourite Dobra Trafika is a little worn around the edges, which makes local residents love it even more.
The menu includes several pages of teas and coffees, cakes and delicious stuffed pitta breads, at cheap-as-chips prices.
Delightfully scruffy, living-room-cosy and great value.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32502 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32398 Fast forward 150 years and the tea drinking, which took off at the end of the 19th century but subsided under the communist regime, has flourished once more. Prague boasts innumerate independent čajovny as well as one small tea chain, each with distinct character and appeal but all offering a wonderfully relaxed environment in which to while away a few hours.
Čajovny serve čaj in abundance – fresh loose teas from across the globe. Most offer extensive menus (around 60-80 tea varieties is a standard) and some offer hookah with flavored tobacco.
Čajovny are casual, hippified places, popular with Czech students, offering a relaxed, chilled-out vibe. A great antidote to an afternoon of sightseeing!]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32398 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32313 A very fresh interior with blocks of pastel colours on the walls is complemented by genuine Art Deco tables, chairs and light fittings.
Attracting Prague’s young hipsters, this café is a great place to relax any time of day, offering a good breakfast menu (including excellent scrambled eggs), salads, toasted sandwiches, pastries and generous portions of cake. Kaaba also offers an excellent range of coffee and other soft drinks and has a well-stocked bar.
Offers free WiFi and friendly staff.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32313 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32120 Although the café closed for several years under the communists, its interior underwent considerable reconstruction in the 1990s. Today visitors will still get a feel of the grandiose café scene that existed at the beginning of the last century, as they walk up the wide staircase with marble walls and an iron handrail. The main room of the café, overlooking Národní below, boasts high ceilings, large windows and huge mirrors, which makes this one of the most splendid locations to drink caj or kava in the whole of Prague.
Louvre does offer full savoury meals, including soups, salads and pancakes. However, the best reason for a visit is the magnificent coffee and cake menu. Their homemade cakes, strudels and waffles will satisfy even the sweetest tooth – the blueberry cake on linz dough with vanilla ice-cream (65 CZK) keeps me coming back again and again.
An impressive drinks menu makes Louvre a winter time favourite – hot chocolate with rum and whipped cream (59 CZK) will keep you warm when it’s cold outside.
For good quality coffee and dessert set in historic opulence, look no further.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32120 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32004 but in Café Montmartre you really believe it.
Walking through the door is like stepping back in time (aside from the laptops set out by the
modern crowd who now sit where Kafka used to) to the beginning of the twentieth century,
when the café regularly held literary events, debates and dances. Founded in 1911, the café
was closed in 1937 and only reopened fairly recently. Great care has been taken to recreate
the kavarna’s original character, with kitch, mismatched chairs, threadbare sofas and faded
photographs of the original clientele.
Good coffees and cakes and a well-stocked bar, for reasonable prices in the city centre. This
cosy gem will appeal to those looking for something authentic and not too sterile.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32004 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31641 The purple and green boutique interior is lovely, and the pastries excellent. Service could be quicker, but you’re here to linger so it doesn’t really matter.
Breakfast and brunch set menus are available every day, including “Parisienne” (croissant and coffee) or “Bonne Santé” (Greek yoghurt and muesli), as well as an a la carte menu offering a good variety of eggs – scrambled, poached and boiled. Café Armandiene also offers a weekend brunch special – a glass of something fizzy, coffee or tea, juice, and mini viennoiseries, eggs and breads for 295 CZK.
Quiche, tartines, sandwiches, hot dishes, salads, pancakes and blinis are also available throughout the day.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31641 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31341 Grebovka Pavilion is a great place to sit and relax following a gentle walk around the sloping park, which is also home to a vineyard, a Neo Renaissance palace and a grotto. It has inside and outside seating and offers coffee, tea, alcoholic beverages, and snacks including massive waffles and delectable ice-cream.
A wonderful place to spend a summer afternoon.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31341 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31283 This place serves top quality coffee, including Viennese coffee, Algerian coffee, Mafioso (cappuccino with Amaretto), and various types of hot chocolate, with coffee, with ice cream, with rum and whipped cream, with egg liqueur and whipped cream, you get the idea.
I ordered a double espresso and a warm apple strudel with vanilla and chocolate sauce and whipped cream – the pastry was light, flaky and not too buttery; the minced apples had just the right blend of cinnamon, sugar, and nuts, and the whipped cream, oh, the whipped cream! Light and airy, it melted in my mouth as soon as it reached my tongue. This dessert wasn’t sweet or heavy, and the mix of vanilla and chocolate sauce was perfect.
Café Louvre is open from 8am every day; and offers morning newspapers.
Free wi-fi is also available.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31283 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31282 Established in 1904, it quickly became a legendary sweet shop and continued into the communist era; but the building collapsed in 2006, and it took almost three years to renovate and restore it.
Although the extensive menu was not available in English, we were fortunate enough to sit within perfect viewing distance of where the the pastry chef created her magic.
I ordered a latte and an exquisite masterpiece that several people were ordering, the Wenceslas Crown: made of dark chocolate and filled with a trio of gelato: bittersweet chocolate with a lovely smooth texture and so dark it looks like tar, cappuccino so rich it can stand on its own, and vanilla bean, all topped with whipped cream made right before my eyes, a few berries, and a light drizzle of caramel sauce.
Our barista, an award-winning latte art master in Europe, made me the most original latte I have ever seen.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31282 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31281 Everything in the shop is baked daily, including their famous sourdough bread, with varieties such as walnut, potato dill, rosemary olive oil, and black olive.
Their display cases showcase loaf cakes, savory pies, canapés, quiches, sandwiches and even wedding cakes.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31281 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31280 This is a nice quiet place to get away from the hordes of tourists in the Old Town. The cosy café has tables and couches set in a relaxed atmosphere. You are encouraged to sit, relax and pass the time away. The long list of hot chocolate varieties include: spiced ginger, sea salt, chili, rum or fresh fruits. My favourite is the hot chocolate with chili. I love how the bittersweetness of the chocolate blends nicely with the hot chili kick - very nice. Try it!]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31280 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31239 The small but airy gallery space is well accompanied by a book shop and small café serving very good coffee as well as other soft drinks and wine.
Its very full exhibition schedule and central location means this is a great place to see the work of some Czech and international photographers and enjoy a drink and browse some art books.
Entry is usually 50 CZK.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31239