Okay, we love carbs and gluten just like the other guy (Zuzi’s favorite dish ever? Bread, butter, slices of radishes, salt. Drops mike, leaves.), so let’s talk our favorite bakeries in Prague. This time around we will focus on bread bakeries. So without further ado, here we go: our favorite bakeries for bread in Prague.
Pekárna Praktika
Pekárna Praktika has been our favorite bakery in town ever since Tomáš Solák (listen to our podcast with him in Czech here) opened it just at the border of Vinohrady and Vršovice a few years ago. Tomáš works with freshly stone-milled flour (he mills it himself on the premises): it is harder to work with but carries much more flavour and nutritional value. He controls the entire process of bread baking - works with small farmers to get the grain, and wants to grow old heritage grains that existed here centuries ago.
That focus on small farmers and heirloom grain varieties also means that Praktika is running two operations at the same time: one is the production of bread that is being sold, but there’s a shadow production on the side - fine tuning the bread recipe for the next flour they will work with… in two weeks or so. And since small producers can’t produce that much flour, they do switch from flour to flour in a matter of weeks. Crazy? Yes. But they think it’s worth it and in line with the philosophy.
The resulting breads? Great nutritional value but, above all, great taste. The breads are heavily hydrated and will stay good and fresh-tastings for days and days. We like the spelt covered in sesame seeds and love their buns but honestly, whenever we come to their Karlín district shop (right next to Kro Bistro & Bar), we take whatever they have because all of the breads are great. (We also did one pizza night with them, and we think they should do more of those.)
Alf&Bet
We really like the place: the first flag of gentrification in the seemingly forgotten area of Palmovka is a former garage or industrial space that roasts and serves great coffee and, of course, bakes bread. We really like their kolache and buchta buns with coffee - we liked those even bore Alf&Bet opened because they form a heritage taken over from the now extinct Café Lounge.
As for the breads, we like the Američan bread with potato the best, while the Angličan is a second favorite. But their buns and poppy seed buns are great too. They are using an older, refurbished oven by Kornfeil, a Moravian company that makes ovens for the likes of the Tartine Bakery in San Francisco. But the nicest thing is to just get coffee, sit at the counter and watching the entire bread-making process happen in front of your eyes.
Where can you get it? If you want the bread with a side of deep cultural immersion and exploration, head over to the Alf&Bet bakery itself in the Palmovka area (it’s a five-minute walk from the Palmovka subway stop). Alternatively, they resell the breads in both locations of the EMA Espresso Bar, their sister establishments and specialty coffee pioneers in Prague.
Artic Bakehouse
Founded and opened by an Icelandic baker moved to Prague (allegedly he was told by his friends who had visited Prague that they couldn’t find nice bread in town), the multiple locations of Artic Bakehouse are probably the most famous bakeries in the „historical centre“. We usually opt for the Nutcracker (bread with nuts in it, duh), but the Old Charles is great too, and the bread with blue cheese and white chocolate is definitely interesting.
Where Artic Bakehouse excels is the sheer width of its portfolio: they also bake great baguettes, and a lot of sweet stuff: their rolls, almond croissants and… love balls are fantastic. Another great thing about Artic Bakehouse: they will toast a loaf of their bread with a selection of toppings (or is it fillings?) on the spot. Why don’t more bakeries do that?
Kro Bakery
The baking arm of the Kro Empire that also includes our beloved Kro Kitchen bistro and Kro Coffee bakes bread using stone-milled whole grain flour, and their sourdough breads are fantastic. Now they’ve added a version with seeds, and their rye bread is a show-stopper: rye breads are quite difficult to get in Prague, and this version is tasty and will stay good for days on end. The perfect vessel for healthy chlebíčky and such.
We really like their potato buns, and their baguettes are tasty too. (And the portfolio of sweet baking is large as well.) The breads are baked at a location at Moskevská in Vršovice - now reopened as “Kro Vrsovice” - but they also sell them in Vinohrady’s Kro Coffee, at Alma Café in the New Town, but we mostly get them at Letná’s location of La Formaggeria store, because they do resell them there (and all the other locations of La Formaggeria, too). Yay for us and carbs!
Eska
Eska is one of our favorite spots in Prague, period. It would rank high if it were separately reviewed as a modern bistro, bakery or coffee shop. We really like their 33 bread - they used to give it to you with freshly churned butter and lovage salt if you went for lunch and dinner, meaning you’d be inevitably full and very happy by the time the first course arrived - we just couldn’t keep our hands off of it. But that’s way back before the old Eska split into the bottom part, which is a bistro and shop, and Štangl, the fine dining restaurant upstairs.
Their bread most reminds us of the bread we used to eat as kids, so they do follow on the Czech bread making tradition, but with a flour that is more nutritional than most. They also bake tasty sweet buchta buns and kolache that we like. And as mentioned before, Eska now runs a small shop, which is handy: you come for bread and add some essentials for home cooking later on.
U Kalendu
When they reopened the U Kalendů pub, a place I spent many a shameful night in my college days (don’t ask; I won’t tell), we didn’t expect the ode to Czech pub cooking mixed with an homage to St John’s Fergus Henderson would include one of the best bakeries in town. But it does. They are smart with their sweet cooking: basically two types of dough render a full display of beautiful croissants and the like, and Danishes and the like.
How good is their sourdough? Well, we take their bread for our very own bistro, the Dejvice-based Šodó. Their focaccia is also very nice, and their toast bread is the best in town. If you want to make a katsu sando at home or just like toast bread, this sweet-smelling, buttery loaf is a piece of perfection. Make this a must-stop on your gluten tour of Prague.
Etapa
The 100% whole grain sourdough bread by Karlín’s Etapa is definitely worth a mention, too. Our friends Petr and Gabi and their team are all perfectionists and will not sell anything that is below their very high standards. They don’t bake a lot of bread: it was supposed to be part of their breakfast offerings, but given the current situation, they sell the loafs, too.
Worth a special mention are their loupák rolls: they make them every Wednesday and Sunday, and they are the best in town, showing that size doesn’t matter after all: it’s how you make it. And their seasonal breads for Christmas and Easter (vánočka and mazanec) are always top notch.
I don’t think we’re spilling any secrets here when we say Etapa is bound to open a proper bakery in the same block some time in the spring of summer of 2024. More carbs. Awesome.
Zrno Zrnko
Zrno Zrnko is a small chain of bakeries started by two friends who sold their foreign language school business and decided to invest their newly gained money into the sourdough baking business. They focused on fairly rapid expansion and now they sell bread in six establishments, which include the HQ in the Nusle district.
Now, I will be honest. The sweet stuff does not seem particularly appealing to us: it feels too big and a bit overdressed. And we will cover bakeries great for the sweet tooth in a different post. But their „ctyrka“ sourdough bread is actually really good, and we buy it whenever we run out of the U Kalendu loafs we buy for the bistro - it’s a quick and worthy alternative.
Slovenské delikatesy
You always want to find that old bakery that reminds you of your childhood and is run for a long time by seasoned professionals who are just regular old bakers, and not slick hipsters with bread and wheat tattoos (sourdough is notoriously hard to tattoo). Slovenské delikatesy is that bakery in Prague.
We really like their simple, traditional bread rolls, and their crackling sticks or twists, or whatever you want to call them… they’re just awesome. Their Slovak potato bread is nice, too. But the whole point of Slovenské delikatesy is that it’s a no-thrills bakery that is just all hard work and product and zero attitude. Bonus? It’s right next to Hall 22, the only market worth visiting in Prague right now… in the season.