Čajovna Assamica

Assamica is the newest of the four teahouses in Olomouc. Its entrance is a little hard to see as you approach but it is there at Kateřinska 15, between St Catherine's church and the outdoor market, next door to U Morousů and almost opposite the entrance to the Olomoucká Krčma.

Just inside the entrance is a staircase leading down through the wafting scent of fruit tobacco to the first of the teahouse's three rooms. Beside and beneath the stairs is a seating area with sofas arranged around two or three small tables. The second and largest room is furnished with cane armchairs around glass-topped tables and the third is filled with a large podium divided into five seating areas with low tables, floor mats as thick as mattresses and large cushions so plump you could almost play ball games with them.

One of the teahouse owners is from Morocco, the other from Egypt; all three rooms are decorated with suggestions of the Middle East and North Africa. Hanging from the exposed brick ceilings are perforated metal light fittings with coloured glass panels, much of the furniture features the oriental dome shape from the teahouse's logo, and the richly ornamented upholstery, patterned carpets and cushions worthy of a sultan's harem suggest that when you leave you might need to face the billowing sands of the Sahara rather than the cold grey cobblestones of central Europe.

The hommus, baba ganouche and couscous snacks are outstanding and there's a full range of shisha pipes and flavoured tobacco. Despite the north African theme, all the usual teas from all the major tea-producing regions of the world are available. So far we've tried the Vietnamese green tea, the Yogi spice and the Rooibos caramel, which can be sweetened with honey and milk on request. Most of the teas suitable for repeated brewing offer the choice between a teapot or gaiwan cup.

One of the best things about Teahouse Assamica is that it's open seven days a week until midnight, which is at least an hour longer than most other places and just the right amount of time to enjoy a leisurely brew in the evening after dinner. With those opening hours, the comfort, friendly staff, location and quality of the tea and snacks it's bound to become the favourite teahouse for a lot of people in Olomouc.

Čajovna Assamica
Kateřinska 15
604 441729

Himalaya

Himalaya is a Nepalese restaurant that shares space in the old water barracks with the Irish bar 'The Crack'. If you've been in Olomouc a few days and are looking for a change from the excellent but heavy traditional local food, Himalaya is the place.

At lunchtime, everything except the entrance foyer is a smoke-free zone, and that's good for non-smoking travellers on a budget, because lunchtime is the best time to go.

Every week day between 11am and 2pm the Nepali chefs serve up a buffet of meat and vegetarian curries, dhal, naan, and home made chutnies to transport your tastebuds to another continent. All you can eat for 100Kč!

The buffet table is in the first main dining room and the usual procedure is to help yourself to a metal tray and cutlery, load up as much as you like and find a seat. It's possible to return to the buffet for more helpings, so there's no need to overload your plate on the first visit. Unfortunately some people confuse all you can eat with all you can waste, so please don't embarrass yourself by joining that club.

There's also an especially good range of drinks, including the renowned Lobkowicz beer from North Moravia, bottled Guinness, Svatovaclavský wheat beer from the microbrewery across town, and an outstanding non-alcoholic Jamaican Ginger beer that's likely to dampen the brows of all but the fieriest spice lovers.

Nepal Himalaya
Mlýnská 4
Tel: 585 208 428

Belmondo

Belmondo is upstairs from the Irish bar, The Crack, in the historic water barracks building. Entry is from the Třída Svobody side, upstairs to a large hall with a generous dance floor in its centre. The rest of the space is taken up by long bar and low seating booths, some with wooden benches and tables and some with sofas and armchairs, but all designed for a clear view of the action on the dance floor. It’s an excellent layout for a nightspot let down only by the tacky decorations.

Belmondo is a very popular dancing place with students and young Olomoucians. It’s open three nights a week; Wednesday night is more subdued, and there is no cover charge for anybody. Friday and Saturday nights are busier, and the hefty bouncers might request a 50Kc admittance fee from guys, which ensures that girls make up the vast majority of Belmondo’s weekend clientele.

Unlike most other bars in Olomouc, you have to pay for your drinks as you receive them. The wait staff are generally pleasant and professional and it doesn’t matter too much if they don’t speak English or you don’t speak Czech because it’s too loud to hear anyway.

Belmondo is open Mondays and Wednesdays (student night) from 20-04.00 and Friday and Saturday nights from 21-05.00

Belmondo
Mlýnská 4,
Tel: 777 799 607 ‎

Blues Bar Garch

The best of Olomouc’s suburban bars is looking a bit tattered these days but still has a good atmosphere and more bar-games than you knew existed; darts, air hockey, table football, billiards-with-no-pockets, and even sewing machine races, although the last might see you asked to leave.

There’s a decent fondue menu; either bread and croutons dipped into cheese or eight different flavours of spiced chicken fried in oil. Occasional live music too.

Garch is a rambling underground bar on the corner of Mozartova and Litovelská just outside the centre of Olomouc. Everyone knows it just as Garch, but the full name is Galimatiašův Archiv. In Czech to speak Galimatiaš is to speak rubbish, so I guess the name of the bar means something like “The Archive of Junk”.

A smaller room at the back has a table that looks like it was once part of a coolroom door, about twenty six-inch steel meat hooks, some fake trees and a functioning air-hockey table. The air hockey is 40Kc an hour- the staff will mark your drinks-ticket with your start and finish times. The table football works exactly the same way, but is calculated at 50Kc per hour.

Blues Bar Garch
Mozartova 761/3
Tel: 585 414 098

The Crack

One of two ‘Irish’ pubs in Olomouc, the Crack is housed in several brick arch-roofed rooms connected by more exposed brick archways. Full of armchairs and couches, the only problem will be finding a vacant one since, as well as locals, the bar is very popular with international students from Olomouc’s Palacky university.

It’s true that Crack should be spelt Craic, but if you pronounce ‘Craic’ in the Czech way, it doesn’t sound like the kind of place you would go willingly. The owner is a Scottish bloke and would have spelt it the Gaelic way if he’d wanted to.

The bar serves Guinness and Kilkenny, but only from bottles. Probably a better option is to try one of the local brews, such as Kelt (36Kc), a dark, thick, creamy, Guinness-like substance. A second choice is Velvet (32Kc) which is an English-style bitter.

The bar is open from 11am to 1am Monday to Thursday, till 2am on Friday. On Saturday and Sunday from 4pm to 2am and 1am respectively. The kitchen is only open on weekdays, from 11am- 2pm and 6pm to 11pm.

The Crack is also the home of Himalaya, a Nepalese restaurant run by Nepalese people, which means authentic food; No “Czechalese”! See ‘Himalaya’ for more info.

The Crack Irish Pub
Mlýnská 938/4
Tel: 585 208 428

Café/Restaurant Caesar

Inside the town hall building is one of the best situated restaurants in Olomouc. Caesar serves Italian food under the gothic vaults of the 14th Century radnice. Prices here are the same as any other restaurant in town of the same standard.

There is a non-smoking section to the left as you enter the restaurant. In the main hall there is a view through to the interior courtyard of the town hall where summer time concerts are sometimes held. Exhibitions of local artists’ works are often colouring the walls.

In summertime Café Caesar has a large beer garden comfortably sitting beside the astronomical clock. Food is available here as well. The wait staff of Café Caesar are well known for their surliness; don’t take it personally.

We can highly recommend the pasta dish Penne con Melanzane (tomato/eggplant) for 105Kc, pizza Capricciosa for 144Kc (480g) or 170Kc (640g) or Insalata Thessa (chicken, fruit and nut salad) 75Kc.

The kitchen is open until 22.00 daily and the restaurant closes at 24.00.

Cafe Caesar
Horní náměstí - radnice, Olomouc
Tel: 585221472

Drapal

Drapal has a long history in Olomouc. During communism it was one of the nicest restaurants in Olomouc. It suffered a few years as a dingy, old fashioned staple after the 1989 revolution but has recently been turned into a Pilsner Urquell themed restaurant. Consequently, although you could find the same offerings in any Pilsner Urquell restaurant, the menu is very good and the beer good quality and the prices standardised.

The left hand section of the pub is always non-smoking and the right hand is non-smoking until 14.00. Both sides have lofts to maximize the capacity. The openness of the rooms and large windows contribute to a cheery atmosphere. Typical customers are in the mid 20’s to mid 50’s age range.

Pilsner Urquell’s cheaper cousin, Gambrinus, costs 22Kc but if you’re after the real thing, a Pilsner Urquell is 28Kc. Sometimes they offer speciality beers too. Vegetarian risotto is good value at 80Kc and Pork Steak Lostice which is served with the local Olomouc smelly cheese, Tvaruzky, costs 165Kc.

Drapal is a popular pub and is open until midnight every day except Sunday when they close at 23.00.

Drápal
Havlíčkova 1
Tel: 585225818

15 Minut Club

15 Minut Club is a student club run by students with a regular program of dance nights, concerts and events during the semester.

Set in a cavernous basement beside the Morava River down near the pink and green Orthodox church, the space can accommodate a lot of people and a lot of different events.

There’s a large room at the far end of the venue with a small stage where bands and DJs will perform. There’s a large space for dancing there but the ceiling is low so don’t jump too high!

The centre room is filled with booths for a place to chat and rest from the music. At the front entrance is the big bar. It’s normal in this club (as opposed to most places in Czech Republic where you’ll get table service) to order drinks from the bar.

You can find info about 15 Minut’s program of events on their website, www.15minut.net, but you can almost bet on there being something happening there every night except Sundays during the university semester.

15 minut club
Komenského 31
Tel: 777059150

Hlava 21

Hlava 21 is a funky modern restaurant/bar/club tucked away in a backstreet (Uhelna) behind the lower square near Olomouc’s old brewery. The décor ranges from cool to scary, depending on the artworks that are hanging in the main dining area. Service is generally good and the crowd is mostly people from their 20s to 40s.

Food here is usually very nice and the lunchtime menus offer an interesting selection of meals for under 100Kc but bring a menu decoder as they don’t have an English menu.

One of the best things about this bar is its cocktail menu and their prices. They sometimes have a happy hour for cocktails after 11pm week days or after midnight on weekends. There might even be happy hour in the afternoon between 15-19.00 (that’s more than an hour!). A non-alcoholic cocktail will cost under 40 Kc and the real thing is usually priced between 80Kc and 130Kc.

There is also the chance to wow fellow punters on karaoke nights. The selection of songs in English or languages other than Czech isn’t huge but there are enough standards with badly spelled names to get you rockin.

Opening times are 11-24.00 Monday to Thursday and 11 – 03.00 on Friday and Saturday nights. Sundays 12 – 23.00.

Hlava 21
Uhelná 21
Tel: 776662330

Jazz Tibet Club

Jazz Tibet Club is a non-smoking venue that holds regular concerts ranging from jazz, blues and rock to reggae and funk. There are concerts most Thursday nights during the academic year. When there is no live performance they tend to play good music on the sound system.

The Jazz club is a long open hall with an arched ceiling and murals on the walls and the furniture is all wooden. The bar is under the mezzanine floor opposite the stage, but there’s always table service and the wait staff eventually find their way through even the thickest crowds.

If you’re seeing a concert there, you’ll get a numbered slip of paper at the door. It’s very important not to lose it. Your drinks will be marked on it by the waiters and the security staff will not allow you to leave if you cannot present it with the imprint of the club’s PAID stamp. It’s clearly explained at the bottom of the slip (in Czech) that if you lose it, they will calculate your drinks bill at 2000Kc. That’s enough for one main meal and 85 glasses of beer.

The Jazz Club is also a quite reasonable restaurant. It has a good menu; Turkey skewer is ? Kc and chicken with lemongrass is . The coffee is well made and there’s an extensive drinks list, as the owners of the Jazz Club also have a small wine store.

Tibet Jazz Club is open Monday through Saturday until midnight, but the kitchen closes at 10pm.

Jazz Tibet Club
Sokolská 48,
Tel: 585230399

Kratochvile

Kratochvile is a blend of a teahouse, café, wine bar and bookstore, tucked away on Sokolská, one of the historic centre’s most interesting and overlooked streets.

There are more than 100 different types of black, green, spiced, and herbal teas from across the world. A favourite of many is the Yogi tea. According to the menu, the black tea spiced with cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and cloves supports “mental alertness and leads to a mildly euphoric state, pleasant and warming in all seasons”. It comes served with soy milk and cane sugar, and a wonderful addition is a plate of the homemade shortbread biscuits.

Kratochvile is not all about tea, though. There are coffees from three continents, Melta barley coffee, and cocoa which can be served cold, hot, with cream and/or flavoured with cinnamon. There are also some interesting bottled beers, a short list of wines and the smokers’ corner offers two dozen flavoured tobaccos for the shisha pipes. Sweet and savoury snacks are available and if you’re properly hungry, they may be able to whip up a bowl of cous-cous or some toasted sandwiches.

The three main rooms on Kratochvile's ground floor have quite different characters. The front room is light and busy, the old gothic arches of the second room form two private nooks which are filled with cane furniture and low round tables. In the large rear room, you can sit on sofas, cushions on the floor or swing from one of the hammocks suspended from the ceiling. From this back room a wooden staircase leads up to the small loft, which is where you'll be directed if you want to try a shisha pipe.

As if all this weren’t enough, the interior walls are frequently used as a gallery and the back room hosts performances and small concerts from time to time.

Kratochvile is open 7 days a week until 11pm.

Kratochvile te & cafe
Sokolská 36
Tel: 603 564 120

Moritz Microbrewery

Moritz was Olomouc's original non-smoking microbrewery, and remains a highlight of the pub scene in the city.

The bare wooden floorboards, coloured glass windows, ceramic coasters and checkered tablecloths give Moritz the feel of a classic old school beer-hall.

At one end of the L-shaped space, plate glass windows offer a peek into the brewing room where Moritz's three beers slowly ferment in their open-topped vats. There are no organised tours of the microbrewery but if you're there during the daytime and the brewmaster overhears you speaking English and showing a genuine interest, you might be lucky.

Moritz attracts patrons of all ages, which is a refreshing change from some of Olomouc's student venues where a thirty-year-old can be the oldest person in the pub by about eight years.

The main beers are the 10° Moritz, the 11° Maisel half-dark and the stronger Moritz 12°. Start with the 10° and work your way up. The CAMRA 'Good Beer Guide to the Czech Republic' rates them all either 4.5 or 5 stars.

The menu is of similar quality. Dishes range from the 42Kč spicy sausage snack up to 210Kč for the monster pork knee or 230Kč for the 200g prime beef steak in mushroom sauce. Try the pork with plum sauce for a real taste of the local region.

In summer there's a large outdoor seating area (smoking permitted) and Moritz is the favourite pub of many an Olomouc local. The only negatives are connected with its popularity; it's sometimes hard to get a seat and the wait staff can be brief when they're under pressure.

One of the best pubs and the best beer for miles around might just be worth the wait though.

Moritz microbrewery
Nešverova 2
Tel: 585205560

Meex Café/Club

On the corner of the square closest to the Arion fountain, there are two parts to Meex. The Café is on the ground level and the Club is underground. You enter the club via the passage to the right of the café.

The café allows smoking and serves an average array of café items such as

The club is small but usually attracts a good sized crowd of punters in their 20s to mid-30s. There are lots of mirrors for you to make sure that your hair is still frizzed, your boobs are sufficiently bulging and your eye make-up hasn’t faded under the strobe lights.

The club also has a Japanese restaurant that specializes in sushi. You can sample the lunch menu between 12 and 2pm where you’ll receive a miso soup and sushi plate or hot meal for 95 Kc. There’s a late afternoon special, All You Can Eat Sushi for 280Kc from 15-17.00 and then main menu starts again. It’s not so bad either. The lunch menu probably won’t fill you up but it might appease your cravings for sushi.

The music is standard europop fare and is unlikely to inspire masterful dance moments but you can’t be blamed for trying.

Metro Chill-out Club

Metro Chill-out Club is a small, comfortable, underground place with lots of sofas and a penchant for electronic music. The bar is kind of hard to find. The entrance is set back from the footpath in a dark archway and the only clues are the illuminated Pilsner beer company sign and the green and orange zebra-striped door if it happens to be swinging open at the time.

Sometimes you’ll have to ring the doorbell to get past the zebra door. There are some clever artistic flourishes in the design of the bar, but they’re obviously from a few years ago and are starting to look a bit worn in places now.

Metro’s relatively small capacity helps to give the place the slightly exclusive feel of a club. The staff are fairly pleasant: just make sure they give you your change and don’t think everything is a ‘tip’. The music is what you might expect from a “chill-out-club”; laid-back groovy electro-trance. During their busier times, they often have DJ’s playing on weekends. The patrons are usually fairly easy going and casually dressed.

The beer on tap is Pilsner; half-litre glasses are 25Kc. It’s supposed to be open until 7am, but don’t be surprised if the sun is well up by the time you walk out.

Sometimes you meet some real dogs there, but on a good night, it’s one of Olomouc’s best bars.

9a Bar & Boulder

The enigmatically named 9a (the number given to the most difficult of rock-climbing routes) is a basement bar opposite the mill channel not far from the cathedral. Its main drawcard is the fact that it has a bouldering room set up with hand and footholds across the walls and ceiling above a thick layer of mats for anyone with finger-strength more suited to beer glasses.

Throughout the bar the original brick and stone walls have been stripped of their plaster and the dark wooden floorboards and blonde wood furniture give the wide uncluttered spaces a warm and comfortable feel.

Halfway between the university library and the student dorms outside the centre, the bar is very popular with uni students but everybody is welcome and the average age of the average crowd is probably around 25.

The prices are as student-friendly as the location. Staropramen 12º is 18Kc for a small glass and 28 for a large, while the Staropramen 10º is 17 for a small glass and 24 for a large (cheaper only at Vertigo and the Outdoor Cinema). If you’re a) not partaking of alcoholic beverages, or b) would like something to mix them with, a cup of tea is 25Kc, soft drinks are 27Kc, Juices 25Kc and Red Bull is 55.

The restaurant serves pasta, hamburgers and tasty fish dishes.

Plan B coffeehouse and bar

Plan B – Is it a bar with an inferiority complex or the cleverest name in town?

At the time Plan B opened, nearby Moritz was Olomouc's only non-smoking brew pub. It was rightly very popular and every night dozens, maybe hundreds, of people would be turned away at the door for lack of space. And what do you do when your Plan A doesn't work out?

The entrance to Plan B is on the corner opposite the Theresian gate and the Russian themed bar Rasputin. The short staircase leads you down to the bar and you can either choose the leather lined benches of the room along towards the fireplace on the left or the wooden tables and chairs off to the more private rooms to the right.

Plan B has five types of Bernard beer on tap, including a cloudy unfiltered unpasteurized brew that is very popular among beer lovers. There's also Hoegaarden, Edelweiss weissbeer, and 32 types of Hot chocolate if you happen to have come in from the cold.

They don't really do meals, but the bar snacks include wasabi nuts, baklava and a very generous pork knuckle. The coffee is good, and the 'Dutch Cafe' is a nod to the owner's homeland - it includes a stroopwafel and comes in an orange cup.

The non-smoking interior is kept impeccably clean and Plan B is a good choice for a night out if you want to have a few drinks (hot or cold) and a conversation without shouting.

St Wenceslas Microbrewery

The old St Wenceslas Microbrewery (Svatovaclavsky Pivovar) was one of Olomouc's best places to try a good locally brewed unpasteurized pivo, until it suddenly stopped serving its own brew and removed many of the seats and tables to make space for electronic gambling machines.

Apparently the owners of the original microbrewery decided it wasn't worth continuing when their landlord radically raised the rent and started searching for a new location.

'St Wenceslas Microbrewery' (Svatováclavský pivovar) was never trademarked so now there are two very different businesses bearing the same name. The new brewery at Mariánská 4 run by the original founders is the one you want.

All the old beers are back. The 10º Vašek (25Kč) is the understudy to the stronger and more flavourful 12º St Wenceslas, 'Mr Brun's 13º dark beer', the wheat beer, cherry beer and flavoured beer (all 31-32Kč a pot) and 'Mr Jošt's half and half' (řezané) which goes for 28Kč.

St Wenceslas' new space has a real old-school beerhall ambience. The double copper boilers watch over the beerhall like a ship's bridge and for sunny days and cigarette smokers there's a big outdoor seating area on the poop deck.

Beneath the brewery is an old cold war nuclear fallout shelter which has been converted into a 'beer spa'. Spa-goers bathe in a large oak tub filled with dark beer and a special mix of herbs, and complimentary light beer is served. The two hour 990Kč spa package also includes a massage and a classic sauna.

Wabi Teahouse

Follow the pointer signs along atmospheric Šemberova St. through the wide arched entrance of Olomouc's newest temple of tea.

The first of Wabi's three rooms has a simple ring of chairs around a low table and sparse Japanese calligraphy on the walls behind. To the right is a den reserved for the hubbling and bubbling of shisha pipes and to the left is the main barrel-vaulted room filled with the wood and warmth of preloved furniture, oriental carpets and richly patterned upholstery.

There's a small raised platform in one corner; remove your shoes if you'd like to sit up there. The rest of the seating is at scattered chairs and tables of various style and squeakiness. If you were a cat on a cold night you'd probably choose the (obligatory) sewing-machine table over by the radiator.

Wabi offers more than a hundred teas from across the world divided by geography and grade, and at the rear are the specialties and snacks. For a sweet spicy tea, try the Data Masala (Yogi). Most of the pots are big enough to share between two people, and like most teahouses they're happy for you to linger as long as you like.

Wabi Teahouse is a great place on a chilly evening if you're not ready to go home but are not in the mood for another noisy pub.

Wine Bar Kaštanek

Kaštanek wine bar is a cozy little cellar on the eastern tip of the old town. There are just 4 tables below that can seat 6-7 people. Wine is offered direct from the barrel or from a bottle. If you purchase a litre carafe of wine, you’re very likely to receive a complimentary dish of ‘sádlo’ (lard) and some bread, a sample of the local culture and cuisine.

A mix of local people frequent this little place either to sit and have a drink or to purchase take away wine in a plastic bottle. You might even be lucky like we were once and witness a couple of nuns come in dressed in full habit!

The staff are very friendly and may be able to muster up a few words of English or German. The music is usually provided by the radio, which is the only drawback worth mentioning. Prices per 200ml glass are from 20-30Kc.