Haute Asian

Visit the SaSazu website, and you're greeted with a smiling chef ready to impart "Shahaf Suggests," which can include recipes or photos of the executive chef's recent trips to the East.  

Shahaf Shabtay is the face of the website and of SaSAZu, a glitzy restaurant that just celebrated two years in Prague 7's Holešovická tržnice. The creator of SaSaZu's menu, Shabtay - who lives in London - also oversees a kitchen in India, recently helped open a SaSaZu in Rhodes and will open one in Cambodia next year.

That Shabtay finds the time to travel East to continue his culinary education while managing to spend time in his many restaurants is certainly impressive, but no matter what his secret, Prague has been happy to house one of his projects. SaSaZu is one of the few places in town offering Asian cuisine that veers off the beaten track of the typical Japanese, Korean and Chinese food. SaSaZu's restaurant recently defended its Michelin Bib Gourmand award and has been generally praised by critics and customers.

"I came up with an Asian concept that would be more than just Japanese or Thai, but we included countries' cuisines that weren't as developed here, like Cambodia and Vietnam," he said.

SaSaZu is Shabtay's first restaurant for which he didn't have to look abroad for cooks - the large Vietnamese community in the city allowed him to staff the kitchen with locals. Shabtay also makes it to Sapa, the large Vietnamese market in Prague 6, at least once a month to enjoy food he says rivals that in Ho Chi Min City. SaSaZu, he hopes, will connect that thriving market and know-how with Czechs as they discover the real diversity Asian cuisines can offer.

"This is the reason we came to the Czech Republic, it's one of the challenges," he said. "The image here of Asian food is not very high-class; you ask someone if they want to eat Chinese, and they think of cheap 100 Kč meals. You ask the same question in London, and it's a completely different reaction."

This developing market and taste for Asian cuisines is part of the reason Shabtay said SaSaZu is in Prague 7, as their target market is locals rather than tourists.

"This is a virgin market for Asian products, but slowly we're seeing more and more Asian restaurants open here. People here are starting to realize they like it, and they're quite excited about it."

The menu arrangement at SaSaZu is unique to the restaurant. Rather than appetizers and main courses or even cuisines, it's divided by cooking techniques: Roti Ovens or flavor combinations like Sambal. Dishes within each category vary in prices, so diners can pick and choose in an experience that's similar to eating Spanish tapas.

Shabtay won't pick any of his favorite dishes, but popular ones with customers include the Hong Kong Roll, a rice paper roll with cucumber, crispy sea bass, mint and apple soy, or the SaSa Crispy Roll, raw tuna and salmon wrapped in seaweed with wasabi and black sesame sauce. Customers hoping to bring these techniques home have signed up for a series of enormously popular cooking classes led by Shabtay. Classes at his other restaurants fill up enough for one class per month, but Prague has consistently filled two a month with a waiting list.

"I'm touched when I see people here travel an hour or more to come into Prague and eat at SaSaZu," he said. "Our target here is to have people come in and try us once. They're getting to know us slowly and slowly opening their hearts to us and coming in more and more every day."

Claire Compton can be reached at
ccompton@praguepost.com