The Eatery — Restaurant in Prague

I finally chose The Eatery to celebrate my mum’s birthday after thoroughly going through the Michelin Guide recommendations in Prague. I really wanted the evening to be special but unfortunately, our experience was deeply disappointing from start to finish.

Upon arrival, no one greeted us with a smile or even made eye contact. When the staff eventually noticed us he didn’t look happy or welcoming at all. He offered to take our coats, I politely asked if we could keep them. He looked confused and almost annoyed, asking, “You want to keep them?” before exchanging a dirty look with his colleague and shrugging. It made us feel uncomfortable straight away and my mum also noticed, especially since we noticed several other guests keeping their coats.

After being seated, we weren’t given menus until I waved someone over to ask. In a restaurant of this level, you’d expect menus to be presented upon seating. It also took quite a while before anyone came to take our order. The waiter eventually apologised for the wait, which I appreciated, but when taking the order, he didn’t ask if we had any allergies which is a necessity and we saw him do for the table next to us, which made us feel overlooked, as throughout the experience.

Our starters arrived before our bottle of wine, even though a table that arrived after us had already received theirs. I had to call the waiter over to ask him, he replied ‘oh yeah’. When he finally brought it, he didn’t show the bottle or offer a tasting — just poured and walked away. Small details like this matter, especially in a Michelin-recommended restaurant. My glass was empty for a while and waited to see if it would be refilled but eventually had to ask for it to be refilled, and have the bottle kept on our table as I felt like they were not attentive.

As for the food: The beef tartare was fresh and I really liked it, however my mum thought it was nothing special.

The foie gras was extremely mediocre and nothing special.

For mains, we had the veal and duck — both meats were very tender and well-cooked, but the overall dishes lacked flavour and balance. I felt like the flavours on the dishes clashed and didn’t compliment eachothee at all, to be honest it just wasn’t nice and felt almost forced to finish it.

By the end of the meal, we felt completely unwelcome, unhappy and disappointed. I had planned to order dessert for my mum’s birthday, but we were both so let down by the experience that we decided against it. When paying for the bill, we were not given our change, it wasn’t a lot but regardless of the amount, it’s the principle, we should have received it, especially after such poor service.

I have visited several Michelin Guide restaurants, in Prague as well and always had wonderful experiences — but sadly, this was the first that truly missed the mark. The food was underwhelming, the service cold and inattentive, and the atmosphere uncomfortable. I left feeling upset that such a special occasion was treated with so little...

This restaurant is far from tourist area where we live near Charles bridge.

Uber is very reasonable and get there in 25 minutes during traffic hours.

Service - Either we got lucky or that's just how European hospitality is, very professional, knowledgeable about the dishes and attentive. We were also went there at 6:30 slightly before dinner rush.

Food: impressive, sophisticated, great value.

Home made Elder flower lemonade. I actually don't like drinks that are too sweet. But while my wife get a glass of wine, I've decided to get this lemonade. I was very impressed. The Elder flower was very refreshing and the lemonade wasn't even that sweet. Nicely done. And I stressed, very refreshing.

Mushroom with fried egg. The egg was done almost perfect. The yolk was cooked but not well done, I'd prefer it to be more yolky but that's just me. The texture of the crispiness of the fried egg was good as well.

Maize cream soup. The pop corn was a little weird but the corn soup was magnificent. Sweet and most importantly flavorful.

Carp - excellent job. Crispy on the outside and the fregola was done perfectly. Honestly, I expect more on the sauce but then I just noticed I mistaken this as the 1 star Michelin restaurant. So I was writing a review based on Michelin star resident. Hence, they did a wonderful job already.

Pork belly - I'm especially impressed with this dish. I supposed, the quality of the pork belly just have something to do with it. This is nothing like those I had at Michelin star restaurants in SF Bay area. The pork belly was not fatty, it's crispy on the outside and not a lot of greasy fat but crisp meat texture. These are all grilled unlike the traditional pork belly where they roast it to crispiness. This is much better… Not as heavy. The baked carrots were flavorful and I liked the curled carrot roll which taste a like sweet and sour. Again, the sauce can be improved.

Pana Cotta - delicious, not carat about the grilled pear or peach. But finessely done with the rum yogurt ice cream.

All in all, I'm quite impressed with the food and the value. Haven't been to other Czech restaurant yet but this place sure idea great value...

We went for lunch and ordered a rabbit and a carp dish. The ambience is great, it is very beautiful, it looks and feels like a top restaurant. The service is very good too. We decided to sit on the bar to see the kitchen which is fun. However that's when the great first impression started to fade a little bit. Some ingredients we saw were great quality, some not as great, but bigger problem than that was that nobody had their hair covered, for example one chef she had a glove that she went to the back of the restaurant with, then returned and served tatarak (raw beef) then started cutting vegetables, all with same glove. There were various things that the restaurant could get closed down for in other countries. The food arrived quickly and looked very good. We had a couvert, some bread and butter, it was very good. The main dishes, even though they were beautifuly presented, didnt quite deliver on the taste you would expect. My rabbit was with mustard sauce and eating the dish all you tasted was mustard, just with a background texture of meat and dumpling, the mustard was way too overpowering. It wasn't bad, but for a place like this I expected more than mustard taste and pretty much nothing else. My wife's carp dish was however even a bit worse in terms of taste. It was deep fried, and it was delivered pretty oily. I tried it and almost thought I have covid, there was almost no taste. It was super bland. Of course being carp it was also full of bones. And we found hair in the food twice... So, sadly not terrible, but not a place we would seek...