Czech Food and Beer in Prague: What to Order

Czech food is hearty, meat-heavy and best eaten at lunchtime, when many pubs and restaurants serve a cheaper daily menu (denní menu) of soup and a main course. The beer is the real reason to plan your meals: Czechs drink more of it per head than any other nation, and in Prague it is poured with great care.

Dishes to order

• Svíčková na smetaně: slices of marinated beef in a creamy root vegetable sauce, served with bread dumplings, cranberries and a spoonful of whipped cream. The national Sunday dish.
• Vepřo knedlo zelo: roast pork, dumplings and sauerkraut, the classic pub plate.
• Guláš: the Czech version of goulash, a thick beef stew with onions and paprika, mopped up with dumplings or bread.
• Smažený sýr: breaded, fried cheese with tartar sauce and chips. Unhealthy and very popular.
• Kulajda: a creamy dill and mushroom soup with a poached egg.
• Chlebíčky: open sandwiches topped with ham, egg, potato salad or fish, sold in delis for a quick breakfast or snack.
• Pub snacks: utopenci (pickled sausages with onion), nakládaný hermelín (soft cheese marinated in oil, garlic and chilli) and fried bread with garlic.

For something sweet, try koláče (round pastries filled with poppy seed, plum jam or curd cheese) or fruit dumplings. The chimney cakes sold all over the centre are a recent import for tourists.

How Czech beer is served

Pilsner Urquell, first brewed in nearby Plzeň in 1842, was the world's first pale lager, and most Czech beer still follows that style. Look for pubs advertising tankové pivo, unpasteurised beer delivered from the brewery into large tanks, which tastes noticeably fresher. Pouring style matters too:

• Hladinka: the standard pour, with a thick, creamy head.
• Šnyt: a smaller beer in a large glass, with more foam, for when you want one last drink.
• Mlíko: a glass of almost all foam, drunk quickly in one go. It sounds like a trick; it is sweet and creamy.

Beer is ordered by the half-litre, and the number on the label (10° or 12°) refers to the original gravity of the brew rather than its strength; 12° beers are fuller and slightly stronger.

Pub manners

Sharing tables is normal in busy pubs; ask "je tu volno?" (is this free?) before sitting down. A waiter will often bring a new beer as soon as your glass is nearly empty; put your beer mat on top of the glass to stop the refills. You pay at the end, with the tally kept on a slip of paper.

Where to go

Avoid restaurants on the Old Town Square and along the route from Charles Bridge, where prices are high and menus are written for tourists. For classic pub cooking, look for places run by the big breweries or the Lokál chain, and drink in Vinohrady, Žižkov or Karlín, described in our guide to local Prague. For a beer with a view, the Letná beer garden and Strahov's monastery brewery above the castle are hard to beat. Later in the evening, our nightlife guide picks up where the pubs leave off.