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Imperial's new clothes

Café reopens after facelift and other decrees worth noting

By Dave Faries
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
August 29th, 2007 issue

KURT VINION/THE PRAGUE POST
Glitz, glamour and doughnuts: Café Imperial's stunning make-over is ready to view.
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From the look of things, Café Imperial doesn’t belong in Prague.
The newly refurbished dining room reeks of refinement, with polished tabletops and plush chairs. Faux-ivory vignettes cover the walls, tiles swarm across the ceiling and soft blues, and warm gold and soothing white tones create the sensation of high tea in Victorian England or ritzy Parisian cafés.
Wait staff even cut semi-formal figures as they flit around the room in crisp whites. It’s an impressive space.
But the food brings everything right back home. Three-egg omelets often carry too much salt and can be rubbery at times. The beef tartare resembles the ground patés served by Czech pubs — meaning slimy in texture — although they’re well-seasoned. And on one visit, the mushroom quiche separated from its deeply browned (read: almost blackened) crust.
But those are just the lowlights of the new-old haunt. On the plus side, Café Imperial makes its own pastries and serves café-style snacks. Breakfast choices include English, American and Continental. The classic French favorite, crepe suzette, succumbs to an “appeal to the masses” approach that smoothes out bitter edges with syrupy sweetness. Fortunately, the zing of citrus survives, so it’s likely to please.
Regional dishes — halušky in this case — also fare pretty well. The gnocchi mixture has a smooth, tacky mouthfeel and faintly sour flavor offset by the burnished caramel of deep-fried onions.
Overall, it’s better than the well-worn version of Café Imperial that shut down for renovation more than a year ago, though still not what the room deserves.
A reminder
The first Prague Food Festival kicks off Friday, Sept. 7, at noon and runs through the weekend. Thirty of the best restaurants listed in Pavel Maurer’s Zagat-style Grand Restaurant guide will cook up starters and entrees. Each day also features wine tastings, live music and other frills. Tickets cost 350 Kč ($17), with 250 Kč returned to you in the form of vouchers. It all takes place in and around Kampa Museum. Check  www.praguefoodfestival.com for more information.
Trade winds
Highly regarded chef Vito Mollica of Allegro in the Four Seasons leaves tomorrow for Florence, Italy, where he will take over food service operations at the yet-to-be-opened Four Seasons branch there. In his place, Andrea Accordi from, oddly enough, the Italian city of Florence.
Good service
In my continuing effort to acknowledge the unknown art of customer care, here’s a nod to the folks at Kabul Karolina for trying to accommodate patrons in their popular (and often-crowded) space. And more than one nod for the bartender from Krč baseball center’s pub, who took it upon herself to haul a couple beers over to the main stadium for guests loaded down with burgers.
Final (slurred) words
During journalism’s golden age, newspaper writers were a cantankerous, garrulous, hard-drinking lot — at least, according to Hollywood. PR types like Sidney Falco (as played by Tony Curtis) would bounce from shabby bar to seedy lounge trying to catch a moment with columnists, drinking their way toward deadline as cigarette butts piled up beside their notepads. But those days are over, I guess. The recent opening of cocktail bar UM Café across from our luxurious Prague Post offices prompted no headlong rush for a fill of booze. No, our newshounds remained in their chairs, huddled over museum-piece computers, pounding away — on keyboards. As for overflowing ashtrays, no dice; it’s a smoke-free joint.

Dave Faries can be reached at dfaries@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (29/08/2007):

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