Czech cooking is unglamorous, filling and better than its reputation. It is built on pork, dumplings and cream sauces, served in quantities that assume you are walking uphill afterwards, and paired with the best cheap beer in Europe. Order these.
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Beef sirloin in a smooth cream sauce of root vegetables, served with bread dumplings, cranberry and a slice of lemon. The national dish, and the one to order first.
The sauce gets its body from vegetables cooked down and pureed, not from flour alone, which is why a good version tastes of carrot and celeriac rather than just cream. The cranberry and lemon are not decoration: the dish is deliberately sweet-sour, and the acid cuts the fat.
Roast pork with bread dumplings and sauerkraut. Three components, one plate, and the most common lunch in the country.
The dumplings are houskové knedlíky — steamed loaves of wheat or potato dough, sliced into rounds. They exist to mop up the juices, and a Czech cook will judge a restaurant by them before anything else.
Beef in a dark paprika sauce, served with bread dumplings rather than potatoes. Different from Hungarian goulash, which is a soup.
The Czech version is a thick stew, thickened with flour and heavy on onion. It is often served with a slice of raw onion on top and a beer alongside, and it is a pub dish rather than a restaurant one.
A thick slab of cheese, breaded and fried, served with tartar sauce. Vegetarian, cheap, and a genuine staple rather than a novelty.
Edam or Hermelín is used — something firm enough to hold its shape. It is the default vegetarian option in pubs that otherwise serve only pork, and it appears on every street-food stall. The tartar sauce is not optional.
A sour cream soup with mushrooms, potato and dill, finished with a poached egg. Sharper and lighter than the rest of the menu.
The sourness comes from vinegar rather than lemon, and the dill is added late so it stays green. It is a Bohemian forest dish, and the poached egg in the middle is standard rather than a garnish.
Open-faced sandwiches on sliced bread, topped with ham, egg, cheese, potato salad or fish paste. The correct thing to buy for a train.
They are a deli-counter item rather than a home dish, sold in every supermarket and in dedicated shops. The topping combinations are codified — šunková with ham and egg, or with potato salad — and they are eaten with a fork, standing up.
A hollow pastry rolled in sugar and walnuts and cooked on a spit. Everywhere in Prague, and worth knowing what it is.
It is a Hungarian and Slovak pastry — kürtőskalács — that became a Prague tourist staple, usually sold with ice cream inside, which is not traditional. Buy one plain if you want the real thing.
Pilsner Urquell and the other lagers are cheaper than bottled water, and Becherovka is the herbal liqueur from Karlovy Vary.
The Czech Republic drinks more beer per head than any other country, and the pub is the social institution. A 'desítka' is a 10-degree beer, lighter than the 12-degree lagers most visitors order.
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