Beer Stroll Around Prague's New Town

If you want to take a moment to go a few dozen or even hundreds of years back in time, you should go to one of the traditional little pubs in the New Town. Kolkovna Celnice will remind you of the mid-19th century with its interior, Pilsner lager, well-prepared potato soup or roast goose leg. Just a few steps away you will find the La Republica restaurant, where the 6-metre high bar is the highest in the Czech Republic. At the bar you can enjoy a freshly poured beer with Wiener schnitzel or Old Bohemian-style skewered meat. Classic home-made Czech dishes are also served at the U Matěje Kotrby restaurant.

Just a few steps from Wenceslas Square and the statue of St. Wenceslas you can have Pilsner lager at the Na Blbým místě restaurant. With your beer, they offer Czech and international specialties until late night hours. If it is warm outside, you can enjoy your beer in their summer garden. A “garden” can also be found at Kolkovna Savarin. Their terrace is concealed in a courtyard away from the city bustle. You can also sit in the open at Pilsner Urquell Art Restaurant Hybernia. The pub was established in a building dating back to the 12th century which is included in the list of UNESCO world heritage sites. If you are a schnitzel lover, you should make it a point to go to Hybernia on a Sunday as they offer special “schnitzel Sundays”, when you can order a Sunday schnitzel of your choice and preference and have Pilsner beer with it. If you fancy anything else, you can try to search via the Pilsner Urquell pub navigator at www.pilsner-urquell.cz.

An inseparable part of Czech pubs and Pilsner beer is truly so-called ‘na stojáka’ (standing up). This used to be popular in the past but even today you can find pubs in the centre of Prague where guests enjoy their beer right at the bar or simply standing up. Among such pubs is Jelínkova plzeňská pivnice, where Pilsner beer has been tapped from as far back as 1926, or Bredovský dvůr near Wenceslas Square. At the U Dvou koček restaurant, the traditional ‘na stojáka’ beer and Czech meals are accompanied with live accordion music.

In case you long for a good beer at a truly original place, you will find several of those in the new part of the Prague city centre. Worth mentioning is for instance the legendary U Pinkasů pub. Jakub Pinkas, the pub’s founder, was allegedly a tailor but when he tasted the new Pilsner beer in 1843, he liked it so much that he actually changed his profession and founded this Old Bohemian pub. A modern concept, in contrast, is offered by Čestr, where meals are cooked solely using Czech ingredients from farmers. If you like the steak from their offer, you can take home a piece of fresh meat from their own stud farm.