Anthea Gerrie Samples Prague’s Most Flamboyant Culinary Fireworks At Thrillingly Innovative Michelin-Starred Field Restaurant.
In a quiet back street in Old Town Prague, alchemy is brewing at a small corner restaurant called Field. No run of the mill eatery, despite the modest setting, but a place where culinary prowess and theatre come together as a glorious extended feast, echoing the city’s predilection for visual theatrics in its architecture.
For the multi-course tasting menus – the only dining option – dreamed up by chef Radek Kasparek, who has won one one of Prague’s only two Michelin stars for his efforts, are as much a treat for the eyes and nose as the tastebuds. Diners are prepared for thrilling visuals by the elaborate backlit coloured drawings decorating the ceiling above their heads, presaging a show not hinted at by windows dressed with farm implements which suggest simple farm to fork fare rather than the culinary fireworks set to ensue.
While in most restaurants bread comes to the table first, at Field the first presentation to guests is a tray of raw ingredients – everything which will be transformed into a glorious little bite over 10 courses, though thankfully not in the quantities presented of fish, seafood, meat and vegetables, all gleaming gloriously fresh on a groaning board.
It is only when the bread arrives, special enough to be served as a course of its own, that realisation dawns nothing as ordinary as the tray of victuals we have just admired is about to follow. On one side of the plate sits a fire-cooked flatbread, on the other a bun incorporating black pudding. If hazelnut butter cut with spring onion oil and flavoured with wild garlic does not appeal, there is curd cheese whipped with paprika and topped with horseradish crumble – we can’t wait to get spreading!
If it’s central Europe, beetroot has got to be on the menu, and Field transforms this humble vegetable into a gorgeous little amuse-bouche. Beetroot chips and picked beets are topped with a creme fraiche bonbon, and as fermentation is a thing now, there’s no surprise to find a little cup of kombucha on the side.
Fish makes its first appearance in a second amuse-bouche with gazpacho at its heart. But the real stars are a side bite of choux pastry filled with trout foam and a little salad topped with whitefish caviar. And by the time we reach the third amuse-bouche, meat has joined the feast as a delicate Wagyu tartare with pickled chanterelles and other condiments including a little confit egg yolk.
Caviar is to be a recurring theme, trout roe garnishing a little tranche of flamed char marinated in dessert wine and apple vinegar and the real thing constituting the second course proper – this being Field, stuffed into an oval of baked potato ice-cream shaped like a tiny spud and dressed with gold leaf. A hard act to follow? Crayfish used three ways ramps up the drama, especially in the shot of pressed crayfish head juice lent oomph with chili heat and sake to be supped from a ceramic claw.
One could definitely stop here, but there are meaty treats to come, from foie gras seasoned with yuzu and chocolate to sweetbreads and lamb, each served in their own multi-form declension. Dessert is mercifully simple – curd ice-cream with raspberry jelly as a palate-cleanser and a more elaborate confection around a rhubarb sorbet.
It’s important to say that the menu changes every few weeks and so, presumably, does the excellent wine pairing curated from some of the best vineyards in Europe. We started with a fresh Soave Classico from Italy, progressing to a sumptuous Riesling from Austria and an even richer Meursalt from Burgundy followed by its red cousin, a Pinot Noir from neighbouring vineyards, and finally a stonking Barolo.
While pricey, the 10-course feast would cost far more in London or Paris than the £163 charged for it in Prague (add £87 for the paired wines), and diners will not go hungry if they opt for the shorter degustation – six courses for £110. For a mere £96, a four-course edit is available at lunchtime, both served with less expensive pairings. And wine by the glass admirably starts at just under a tenner a pop.
To sum up, this is an experience rather than a mere meal, and one you might not have the time, inclination or pocket to repeat more than once a year. But a special and rarefied experience which lingers in the memory for many months to come, perhaps a lifetime.
Tell Me More About Eating at Field Restaurant
Field Restaurant U Milosrdnych 12 11 000 Prague 1
l: +420 725 170 583
