Traditional Czech food consists of hearty meat dishes with clear influences from neighboring Austria and Hungary. There is a wide selection of restaurants, beer taverns and wine cellars.
National specialties:• Svičkova (beef tenderloin with a sour cream sauce) is the national dish, typically served with cranberries and dumplings.
• Polevka (soup) is a common starter and comes in a variety of flavors including garlic (
česnečka) and onion (
cibulačka).
• Bramborák (a potato fritter
flavored with garlic and herbs).
• Kapr (carp) is the national fish, traditionally served at Christmas.
National drinks:• Pivo (beer, both pale lager, or
pilsner, and dark ales, or
černý pivo).
• Vino (wine, red, white and sparkling, from Bohemia and Moravia).
• Becherovka (herbal bitters from Karlovy Vary).
• Slivovice (plum brandy).
• Merunkovice (apricot brandy).
Legal drinking age: 18.
Tipping: It is customary to tip 10-15% for good service in a restaurant.
NightlifePrague has a diverse nightlife scene with everything from
theater,
ballet and
opera to
lap dancing bars and
casinos, and a seemingly infinite range of
cafes,
bars,
jazz joints and
nightclubs. The city-center districts of
Starě Město and
Malá Strana are crammed with pubs, clubs and music venues mostly aimed at the tourist market, while the area around
Wenceslas Square has a concentration of sports bars and strip clubs - stay clear of this part of town if you want to avoid drunken stag parties.
The up-and-coming suburbs of
Vinohrady, just east of Prague city center, and
Holešovice, to the north, have lots of cool cafes and hip cocktail bars, and are also home to some of the city’s top clubs, including
Radost FX (website:
www.radostfx.cz) and the
Cross Club (website:
www.crossclub.cz). The website
www.prague.tv has extensive nightlife listings.
Brno, the Czech Republic’s second city, also has a varied nightlife and has its own opera and ballet venue in the
Janáček Theater. Spa resorts such as
Karlovy Vary support a lively cultural scene, with a regular program of
classical concerts, and a stylish
casino.
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