Flaneur

A Little Light Relief

Actually there are two Café Ebel’s, both of them are good, and I don’t have any pictures of either of them. But I do have the picture below, which I’m just busting to share with you. It’s the view from one of the Café Ebels, the one opposite the Franz Kafka Museum. In a nice little courtyard that’s quite a suntrap, you can sit beneath parasols watching cultured folk come, look at the outside of the museum, point and take pictures of the er… statues (fountain? Installation pieeece?) and wander off again. 

Twice I’ve watched women lay on their backs in front of the pesseurs with their mouths open, using cultural perspective to get an unusual holiday snap. Both were Australian. On the eve of an independent Britain can you imagine such a commemoration being commissioned? To stand in front of the museum to one of its greatest writers? Come on; wander down to Café Ebel, order a nice long cool lemonade, sit outside and marvel. Oh, but allow a little extra time for queueing: Ebel lock their toilet and keep the key behind the bar.

Fish on the fly

Think of this as an exercise in irony, if that works. The thing is, I’ve been rubbish recently at getting some reports and photos up on all the lovely cafés out here – too much time sitting in them, too much time working late at home, and then suddenly it’s 5am, and I wake up inclined at a rakish angle on the sofa, still in my clothes, but now with cheese in my hair. (I don’t know; maybe someone else has keys to my flat. I don’t even remember eating cheese…) So. I’ve got a couple of photos of Café Rybka here and I’m just going to put them up, tell you something very quick about the place and I’m going to do that before I eat. Because I’m really hungry, and that’ll make me do this quickly. I hope. 

Here’s where the irony comes in: because as I’m dashing this report off, the first thing I should say about Rybka is that it’s probably the most chilled out café in Prague. Maybe even Europe. It’s licenced. They do some great slivovice. The coffee’s not bad at all – pretty damn strong. Succinct little cappuccinos. Can be a little tar and froth, but you might be glad of that.

The medovnik is surprisingly good. You know, straight up kind of stuff. And occasionally they do toasties. Don’t count on it; like I said, it’s a laid back place. They might do them when you drop in, but you know… maybe no-one’s been out for supplies. But they’re just right if they’ve got them. Pretty cheap tasty little snacks. But that’s about it.

So what’s the appeal, then? Well, it’s a locals place, and if you want a wooden floor, wooden tables kind of space to spend the entire day – anything less than an afternoon would be missing the point – just smoking, drinking, reading (they are a bookstore too – Czech tho, no English stuff – like I said, it’s a locals place), hanging out and smoking some more, well this is The Place. Oh and dogs. Lots of dogs hang out here, too. But you could tell that from the picture of the front, couldn’t you? And even the dogs smoke.

Some places make their money by being high turnover. You want a coffee, you buy one quick, you get freaked out on the intense red and yellow plastic veneer and you bugger off sharpish so your seat is free for the next consumer. It’s all worked out, and you find yourself blinking in the daylight in no time. Rybka (Little Fish, by the way) offers the other approach. If you stay there long enough – guess what? – you buy something else. And then your friends arrive and they stay because you’re there, and pretty soon you’re all eating, drinking and smoking (hey, they sell smokes too). Or your friends don’t come, so you buy a book and stay anyway. I mean, where else would you be? It’s one of the places that makes me most wish I spoke better Czech. But don’t think I haven’t met some characters here anyway… 

So, in a nutshell, that’s Rybka. I’ll get some better pics soon, and I will revisit it more fully later. It’s that kind of place. But right now I’m Hank Marvin’, and I can hear the Italian sauce calling my name from the kitchen. In a voice like Gina Lollabrigida – I’m that hungry. Oh – you’ll find Rybka in Prague 2 (of course) tucked just round the corner from Globe bookstore, about halfway between the river and Narodni Trida tube station. There’s lots of tiny streets – expect to lose your way, but expect to find 3 other cafés, 2 lovely designer clothes shops, a couple of bookshops, a film school, churches, countless antique shops…

A truly civilised start to the day

It had been a long journey, to be sure. Almost 24 hours by train from Lviv (or El Bob, as it became known), and that was after another day and night trek there from Odessa. My deodorant was working hard for its reputation and mine. I’d had to bribe the carriage attendant just to sleep in a couchette that was already paid for, and we’d discovered a whole new meaning to the term ‘stopping train’ after we were shunted into a siding in Krakow mid journey for SEVEN HOURS. So when Gordon, the intrepid cyclist I’d shared the compartment with offered to buy breakfast if I could recommend a good place in Prague – well: it had to be Café Savoy.

Situated just before Legii Most (the bridge) on the Ujezd side, even a first glance makes it clear that you’ve found civilisation. Beautiful classical facades, and a warm glow from inside, which, upon closer inspection, with humble nose pressed to their glass, reveals that the beautiful classicism extends throughout. Voila!

I’m expecting Gordon to be shuffling uneasily by this point. This is no cheap gaff. But no, he’s clearly as keen to shake the dust off his boots from the Wild East as I am. So we step inside, and despite our unshowered countenance and more-than-usually-hursuite visage the clean, pressed uniforms of the staff bustle us to a table. So let’s cut to the chase. Breakfast at the Savoy. Why? Because it looks like this.

Yes. Precisely. Because there are mornings when that’s absolutely what you want. And it’s horrifically expensive, right? Well, no, not really. That’s the beauty of it. It really is affordable. Sure, if you’re strapped for cash, there are cheaper alternatives – Trafika II just around the corner for instance. But for an affordable 2 hour extravaganza, Savoy is the place. I reckon this lot (and more) came to about £6 a head. We really were there about 2 hours, and we still couldn’t finish it all. No café is perfect for everything, because individual character is what makes each one worth going to, but Savoy is everything you could want from this type of establishment. The staff are courteous, efficient and seemingly unflappable. The décor is opulent, but not overly grandiose or gauche (though it has to be said, the ceiling is breathtaking). The food is… well, you can see for yourself.

And there’s just the right amount of hauter – a step back from arrogance into the domain of comfortable self-worth. On an early visit here I spoke with the maitre d’ on my way out. “I’ve visited many cafes here in Prague” I said “and Savoy makes the best Cappuccino in the city.” “We know.” He replied. So, only snobs and tourists here, then? Pas du tout, mes amis. Whenever I’ve stopped by, the majority of the patrons seem to be local business people, one or two middle class families… the emphasis seems to be on quality without fuss. Definitely somewhere for a business brunch or afternoon strategy meeting.

And business does tend to be brisk. Café Savoy: the benchmark for both cappuccino and breakfast. Well, there you are. Enough said. If a man who had cycled betwixt the pill-boxes of Albania, the pot-holes of Moldova and endured 48hours of trains to emerge into the civilised sunshine of Prague asked you where he should go for breakfast – where else would you take him?

Kava Kava Kava

 

Where better to start than where I started, just over a year ago? Kava Kava Kava. The name promises so much. Coffee in multiplicity. And that is actually one of its selling points; but more about that later. Details first. Kava is situated at Andel, on the yellow tube line, and a centre where many trams meet. It’s a thriving shopping area, with some big multinational names too, and more cinemas in one place than can easily be comprehended. As a result, it’s chock full of relatevely eager consumers, relatively wealthy expats and relatively well-behaved evening revellers. All things are relative at the end of the day. And Kava seems well set up to cater for this. So it’s a funny one for me, because it’s the best and worst of both worlds. It was the first café I discovered here, because: 1) it’s at the end of my street 2) the staff speak some English 3) they have internet access So if you’re a new expat, this place is a godsend.

It takes ages to get internet access set up at home here, and cafes like this can be your lifeline. And it looks familiar to eyes from further West. Which is as it should be, since the owner had a certain Starbucks firmly in mind when setting the cafés up (there’s two so far). So let’s cut to the chase. All things are personal; what do I like and what do I not? Well, if you’ve got a laptop with wifi and you’re eating or drinking here (even a long-drawn-out cup of coffee) they don’t charge for the internet access. Which is nice. The staff are friendly and most speak some English, but don’t expect bonhomie. For internet reasons alone I took coffee in here almost every day for three months and not once did anyone venture a “Hi! How are you?” in either language. That’s something that usually happens by my third visit to most cafes in London, that awfully unfriendly city. Which I thought was a shame, as one definitely sees familiar faces returning here often.  

Yes, yes, but is the coffee “The Best in Prague”? Well, technically the sign that proudly proclaims this in English outside says they sell the best coffee. And that may be true. But they certainly don’t make it. Oh, I don’t know, maybe that’s me being harsh, with my English distaste for people declaring themselves to be the best at something that is to some great extent subjective. Look, it tastes like…. Starbucks. If you like Starbucks, you’ll love this. Same mugs, different logo. Coffees from around the world. Kinda should be good. Nice idea. But blow it all, I’m a caffeinophile and I’ve yet to tell which coffee they’re using. In my humble opinion it’s a selling point, not a tasting one. Why are there only a handful of places where it really works? Monmouth Coffee House in London springs to mind. 

You’ll probably notice the quality of light in these pictures. Sorry about that. I’m not actually a bad photographer (honest!), but the lighting in Kava is subdued. That could make for a perfect hideaway, or a place to hatch caffeine-fuelled plans with fellow conspirators. But the furniture and layout seem to be at odds with that. The hard chairs seem designed to make you drink and go. Go on, get back to work. And it’s open plan; no wooden cloisters or hideyholes. I find it difficult to read or relax. And maybe that’s the plan. There’s certainly turnover. And so it’s not, in my book the ideal port de flaneur. It seems to say to expats “Come and hang out, man!” like the café in ‘Friends’. But then kind of encourages you to drink up and move on. No sofas here.

So why do I keep coming back? Well, apart from being my nearest café, it’s actually the food that draws me. The cakes are good, the Medovnik usually moist, and it’s one of the few places you can get a variety of breakfasts. The coffee is expensive by Prague standards, but the food is pretty reasonable. Good Czech fare, straightforward, no fuss, and a few American bits and pieces thrown in for good measure.  Nachos with all the trimmings is my recommendation to you. Here’s a decent bowl of broccoli soup and garlic ciabatta for 50kc. For an extra 15kc they gave me the whole ciabatta. A pound fifty and lunch is sorted. And then on with the pressing business of the day, to …er….lounge around somewhere else.