Entertainment in Czech Republic
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Jáma
Jáma (‘the Hollow’), southeast off Vodičkova, is a popular American expat bar with vaulted ceilings plastered with old rock gig posters ranging from Led Zep and REM to Kiss and Shania Twain. There’s a leafy little beer garden out the back shaded by lime and walnut trees, smiling staff serving up Pilsner Urquell, Gambrinus and Velkopopvický Kozel on draught, and a menu that includes good burgers, steaks, ribs and chicken wings.
reviewed
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Cross Club
This is an industrial club in every sense of the word: the setting in an industrial zone in Holešovice, the throbbing music (with both DJs and live acts) and the interior, an absolute must-see jumble of gadgets, shafts, cranks and pipes, many of which move and pulsate with light to the music. The programme includes occasional cabaret nights, theatre performances and art happenings. There’s drinking on two levels, plus a few picnic tables outside in case it gets to be too much. It’s easy to find despite the location: after exiting Nádraží Holešovice metro station, walk 100m to the east along Plynární street. You’ve arrived once you see the enormous industrial sculpture out…
reviewed
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Riegrovy Sady
There’s a good-natured rivalry between this beer garden and the one across the river at Letná as to which one is best. The answer depends on where you live, and on summer nights the folks in Vinohrady can be counted on to come out and enforce their claim. Order drinks at the bar and carry them to one of dozens of picnic tables. The big-screen TV takes away from the atmosphere, but is a welcome addition during the Euro or World Cup football matches, when the tables are lined elbow to elbow. The easiest way to get here is from Polská, turn up Chopínova, and then enter the park across from Na Švíhance. The beer garden is 30m up the path.
reviewed
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Radost FX
Though not quite as hot as it once was, Prague’s slickest, shiniest and most self-assured club is still capable of pulling in the crowds, especially for its Thursday hip-hop night, FXbounce (www.fxbounce.com). The place has a chilled-out, bohemian atmosphere, with Moroccan boudoir–meets–Moulin Rouge décor, and there’s an excellent lounge-cum–vegetarian restaurant that keeps serving into the small hours. DJs spin tunes in the ground floor gallery on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
reviewed
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m1 Secret Lounge
An American-owned, industrial-chic cocktail den where polished concrete and stainless steel contrast with candlelight and plush purple sofas, M1 attracts lots of English-speaking expats, well-heeled locals and the occasional visiting celeb (absolutely no stag parties). Wednesday nights are ladies’ nights, while Fridays see a regular set from US DJ Big J, a dance-floor-filling mix of R&B, house and hip-hop.
reviewed
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U Malého Glena
‘Little Glen’s’ is a lively American-owned bar and restaurant where hard-swinging local jazz or blues bands play every night in the cramped and steamy stone-vaulted cellar. There are regular jam sessions where amateurs are welcome (as long as you’re good!) – it’s a small venue, so get here early if you want to see, as well as hear, the band.
reviewed
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Zvonařká
Sitting at the far end of a quiet residential street where Vinohrady spills over into the Nusle valley, Zvonařká has a stylish, minimalist interior, but its biggest attraction is outdoors – a broad, tree-shaded terrace overhanging a steep hill, with expansive views across the valley to Vyšehrad, a great place for a beer on a summer evening.
reviewed
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Saints
Sealing the deal on Prague's booming 'gay quarter' in Vinohrady, this British-run bar is laidback, friendly and serves decent drinks. With a multinational staff speaking many languages, for newcomers it's the perfect entrée to the local scene.
reviewed
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Le Clan
A decadent French-accented after-party club, with DJs on two floors, lots of bars, cosy armchairs and myriad rooms stuffed with ‘VSPs’ (Le Clan’s own acronym for Very Strange People). It’s usually got a good, racy vibe.
reviewed
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Laterna Magika
Laterna Magika has been wowing audiences, both at home and abroad, ever since its first cutting-edge multimedia show caused a stir at the 1958 Brussels World Fair. Its imaginative blend of live dance, opera, music and projected images continues to pull in the crowds. Nová Scena, the futuristic glass-block building next to the National Theatre, has been home to Laterna Magika since it moved here from its birthplace in the basement of the Adria Palace in the mid-1970s. Some agencies (which charge 735Kč a ticket) may tell you it’s booked out, but you can often bag a leftover seat at the box office on the day before a performance, or a no-show seat half an hour before the sho…
reviewed
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Rudolfinum
This complex of concert halls and offices built in neo-Renaissance style in the late 19th century is the home turf of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra – the impressive Dvořák Hall, its stage dominated by a vast organ, is one of the main concert venues for the Prague Spring festival. The building served as the seat of the Czechoslovak parliament from 1918 to 1938. The northern part of the complex (entrance facing the river) houses the Galerie Rudolfinum, a gallery that specialises in changing exhibitions of contemporary art. There’s also a sumptuous cafe with tables ranged amid the Corinthian splendour of the Column Hall.
reviewed
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Letenský Zámeček
No accounting of watering holes in the Holešovice area would be complete without a nod towards the city’s best beer garden, situated at the eastern end of Letná park. If it’s beer you’re after, you have two choices: one, known euphemistically as ‘business class’, is to pull up a chair at the grill–garden restaurant towards the left, where you can get a half-litre Pilsner Urquell for around 30Kč a glass, plus pretty good pizzas and burritos. The other option – ‘coach’ – is to line up at the beer window and get a 28Kč half-litre in a plastic cup and sit at the picnic tables along the ridge. Though it’s open only in nice weather, it’s the best game in town on a warm summer e…
reviewed
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Bunkr Parukářka
Only in Prague… A graffiti-covered steel door in the hillside at the west end of Parukářka park leads unexpectedly to a vast circular staircase that descends 15m underground into a 1950s nuclear bunker where a makeshift bar serves cheap beer in plastic glasses. This is the unlikely setting for one of Prague’s most unusual clubs, a claustrophobic shrine to electropunk, industrial, psytrance-electro-acid and any other weird and wonderful avant-garde electronic music genre you can think of (winners of the most eccentric label so far are Vložte Kočku, whose music is promoted as ‘psycountryemotriphoprap’). See the website for what’s on when you’re in town.
reviewed
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Bokovka
Owned by a syndicate of oenophiles who include film directors Jan Hřebejk and David Ondříček, this quaint little bar is named after the movie Sideways ( bokovka in Czech), which was set in the California vineyards (the bar makes an appearance in Hřebejk’s 2007 film Medvídek ). The main attraction (other than the chance of being served drinks by a famous film director – they occasionally work behind the bar) is the extensive menu of top-notch Moravian wines – we can recommend the 2004 Tanzberg Rýnský Ryzlink (390Kč a bottle).
reviewed
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Kuře V Hodinkách
This rock music–themed pub is named after a 1972 album by Czech jazz-rock band Flamengo, which was banned by the communist authorities (it means ‘Chicken in the Watch’ – hey, it was the ’70s, psychedelic drugs and all that…). Decked out in rock memorabilia, and with a choice of buzzing street-level bar or more intimate brick-vaulted basement, it’s more upmarket than most Žižkov pubs and has a classy kitchen to match – the menu includes pasta with buttered sage and pecorino, tofu burgers, barbecued chicken wings in ginger and soy sauce, and a rich, dark and tasty goulash with bacon dumplings.
reviewed
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U Medvídků
The most micro of Prague’s microbreweries, with a capacity of only 250L, U Medvídků started producing its own beer only in 2005, though its beer hall has been around for many years. What it lacks in size, it makes up for in strength – the dark lager produced here, marketed as X-Beer, is the strongest in the country, with an alcohol content of 11.8% (as strong as many wines). Available in bottles only (48Kč for 0.33L), it’s a malty, bitter-sweet brew with a powerful punch; handle with caution! There’s also Budvar on tap at 33Kč for 0.5L.
reviewed
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La Bodega Flamenca
La Bodega is an atmospheric, red-brick cellar, painted and plastered to look like an adobe shack. With the Latin music turned down low, the buzz of conversation and the flickering candlelight, the crowd seems a bit more reflective (well, at least compared to the crew at Fraktal next door). Most people come for the sangria or the beer, but there’s also a nice selection of tapas on hand, including tortilla español, chorizo al vino tinto (chorizo sausage stewed in red wine) and gambas pil-pil (prawns in garlic and chilli). There’s also live music and dance some nights.
reviewed
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U Vystřeleného Oka
You’ve got to love a pub that has vinyl pads on the wall above the gents’ urinals to rest your forehead on. ‘The Shot-Out Eye’ – the name pays homage to the one-eyed Hussite hero atop the hill behind the pub – is a bohemian (with a small ‘b’) hostelry with a raucous Friday night atmosphere where the cheap Pilsner Urquell (29Kč for 0.5L) pulls in a typically heterogeneous Žižkov crowd. There’s no need to worry about the language barrier – everyone here speaks the international language of booze.
reviewed
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Pivovarský Klub
This bar is to beer what the Bodleian Library is to books – the wall-to-wall shelves are lined with myriad varieties of bottled beer from all over the world, and there are six guest beers on tap (the fresh and hoppy Štěpán ležák and the citrusy Primátor yeast beer are both excellent). Perch on a bar stool in the street-level no-smoking area or head downstairs to the snug, smoky cellar, and order some of the pub’s excellent grub to soak up the beer (authentic guláš with bacon dumplings for only 85Kč).
reviewed
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Bukowski’s
Like most of the drinking dens that are popular among Prague expats, Bukowski’s – the city’s latest barfly magnet – is more a cocktail dive than a cocktail bar. Named after hard-drinking American writer Charles Bukowski, it cultivates a dark and slightly debauched atmosphere – the décor is self-consciously ‘interesting’ (when you can see it through the smoke-befogged candlelight) – but it peddles quality cocktails and cigars, and has friendly bartenders and cool tunes.
reviewed
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Klub Újezd
Klub Újezd is one of Prague’s many ‘alternative’ bars, spread over three floors (DJs in the cellar, and a café upstairs) and filled with a fascinating collection of handmade furniture and fittings, original art and weird wrought-iron sculptures. Clamber onto a two-tonne bar stool in the agreeably grungy street-level bar, and sip on a beer while you watch a thick rope of herbal-scented smoke uncoil across the ceiling beside the scaly, fire-breathing sea-monster that dangles over your head. Trippy.
reviewed
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Palác Akropolis
The Akropolis is a Prague institution, a labyrinthine, sticky-floored shrine to alternative music and drama. Its various performance spaces host a smorgasbord of musical and cultural events, from DJs to string quartets to Macedonian Roma bands to local rock gods to visiting talent – Marianne Faithfull, the Flaming Lips and the Strokes have all played here. DJs do their stuff in the Theatre Bar (Divadelní Bar) and Small Hall (Malá Scéna), spinning everything from house to hip-hop, and reggae to breakbeat.
reviewed
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Čili Bar
Hidden in the crook of a narrow Old Town alley but only a few paces from Old Town Square, this tiny cocktail bar could not be further removed in atmosphere from your typical Old Town drinking place. Cramped and smoky – there are Cuban cigars for sale – with a couple of battered leather armchairs competing for space with a handful of tables and the crowd at the bar, it’s friendly, relaxed and lively. Don’t miss the speciality of the house – a shot of rum mixed with finely chopped red chillis.
reviewed
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První Holešovická Kavárna
This sterile, street-level coffee house is about as intellectual as it gets in the far eastern end of Holešovice. The name means ‘First Holešovice Coffee house’, but it isn’t quite accurate. The old Globe Bookstore & Coffeehouse on Janovského (now Ouky Douky, above) was technically first, but this is a true survivor. Average coffee drinks, indifferent service and minimal food offerings don’t seem to diminish the charm; it’s packed most afternoons and evenings. Excellent original art occasionally features on the walls.
reviewed
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Reduta Jazz Club
The Reduta is Prague’s oldest jazz club, founded in 1958 during the communist era – it was here in 1994 that former US president Bill Clinton famously jammed on a new saxophone presented to him by Václav Havel. It has an intimate setting, with smartly dressed patrons squeezing into tiered seats and lounges to soak up the big-band, swing and Dixieland atmosphere. Book a few hours ahead at the box office (open from 5pm Monday to Friday and from 7pm Saturday and Sunday), or through Ticketpro.
reviewed
