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

Cafe Sant' Angelo

Stretching back behind the blackboard menus and sunny cushion-lined front window of its wooden storefront, Cafe Sant' Angelo is Olomouc's smartest new cafe.

Open from 7am weekdays and 8.30 on weekends, Sant Angelo has a good breakfast menu (with English translations) including scrambled eggs, ham and eggs or omelettes for 55-65Kč, or a full cooked fry-up of sausages, beans, bacon, eggs and toast for 85Kč. There are also pancakes, waffles, oatmeal and homemade muesli from 45-65Kč.

At any time of day though, the coffee is good, comes in all the usual permutations and is accompanied by a square of chocolate and a small glass of water. A good range of quiche, fresh and toasted sandwiches and panini are on offer and the highlights of the cake cabinet are the chocolate crumble slice and the banana cake with caramel.

Look for the dark wooden storefront with stripey cushions inside the window on busy Denisová Ul, the street with the tramlines that connects the two halves of the Olomouc's old town. Immediately inside the entrance are the counter, menu boards and display cases, and behind that is the main seating area of the cafe with enough leather-lined booths and seats for about 25 people.

The entire space is non-smoking and the colour scheme is warm and welcoming. Another big thumbs up is the music selection (something that lets down several otherwise excellent cafes in Olomouc).

Cafe Sant' Angelo
Denisova 11,
Olomouc

Cafe Na Zabradli

Cafe na Zabradli is non-smoking, modern but cosy, and efficient but welcoming.

Also it feels kind of like a secret hideaway even though it's on a busy pedestrian street leading off the main square. Probably because it's on the fourth floor and you have to take the elevator to get up there. There's a balcony that faces the top of Olomouc's ugliest building (Prior) but if you can look past that there are glimpses of spires, columns and towers.

Na Zabradli has all the usual coffees, fair trade sugar and a display case of cakes and slices. They do toasted sandwiches and in the mornings have a special offer with coffee, juice and a small pastry for 50Kc (coffee is usually around 30 and juice is 25 so that's pretty good value).

Hot Raspberries and Ice Cream is a typical old school sundae on most cafe menus. The best in town (and the worst-kept-secret in Olomouc) is just around the corner at Cafe Piccolo, but Cafe Na Zabradli offers an intriguing variation; Hot Forest Fruits and Ice cream. The blueberries, blackberries, gooseberries and who-knows-what-else-berries blend into a complex flavour that's not as intense as the straight raspberries, but most of us like change of pace from time to time don't we??

What else can we tell you? There's carpet on one wall, a rack of design magazines (in Czech), be careful not to hit your head on the lights that hang low over the sofas. Take the elevator into the building above the Terranova store.

Café Na zábradlí
28. října 9,
Tel: 739 946 111

Cafe 87

Cafe 87 is a bright and spacious non-smoking cafe in the same building as the modern art museum. It serves good coffee and tasty lunches but is most famous for its specialty; chocolate pie.

The Modern Art Museum and Theatre of Music share the building’s main entrance, and the door to the cafe is at the side. The staircase leads to the upstairs smoking area and onto an outdoor terrace, but the ground-level part of the cafe is where the pies and cakes are displayed. There are a few different chocolate cakes but the chocolate pie is the flat wedge-shaped tart ‘čokoládový dort’.

Ordinarily you would take a seat and wait to be served, but you can also order up at the counter. An ordinary large espresso is 28 Kč with milk and a tall glass of café latte is 36 Kč.There are also fruit milkshakes for 37Kč and soft drinks. The chocolate pie is 30Kč.

Café 87 is one of the best places in Olomouc for a quick breakfast. Scrambled eggs or continental breakfasts range from 40-45Kč. Or you can choose quiche, toasted sandwiches or baguettes. The menu is in Czech and English and most of the staff to speak enough English to take your order.

Café 87 is open from 8am until 8pm 7 days a week. It’s a popular place for breaks between classes for students of the university and is the place most likely to be open on a public holiday.

Cafe 87
Denisova 47
Tel: 585 202 593

Green Bar

Green Bar is Olomouc’s vegetarian salvation, in the style of a traditional Czech lunch-time buffet. Customers take a tray and serve themselves from the selection of salads and vegetarian hot meals.

At the end of the line the cashier will weigh your plate and tell you how much to pay. The price per 100g is around 17 Kc, which means a big plate (500grams) works out to less than 90Kc. It’s cheap and mostly healthy food. Help yourself to the drinks from the fridges or drink machines and pay along with your food at the end of the line.

Green Bar is busiest around midday when people are on their lunch breaks and it closes at 5pm so don’t plan to have dinner there. The atmosphere is a bit like a school canteen but you’ll often meet art students and trendy young hippies chowing down on soya meat and mung bean sprouts there.

Green Bar is open weekdays and Saturdays from 10am until 5pm.

Green Bar
Ztracená 3
Tel: 777 749 285

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

M-Cafe

M-Cafe on Kateřinska Ulice is one of Olomouc's latest crop of cosy little non-smoking cafes. This one shares its space with a bakery, but they're two separate businesses. If you'd like something from the bakery counter you order and pay for it there, but are welcome to take it through to the cafe at the back.

In the cafe there's table service; the menu is only in Czech but the coffees all have their Italian names and the fruit juices and smoothies aren't too difficult to work out (especially karamelova, bananova etc).

The cafe's main room is exceptionally cosy and the small courtyard is nice, but too high-walled to get any direct sunshine. The upholstered chairs are comfortable and the sturdy tables are perfect for catching up on a bit of writing or emailing (there's free wifi, but you'll need to ask for the password).

The only let down is that the cafe can get a bit noisy, especially when it's empty the tiniest noise echoes around. The music quality is a bit hit and miss; varying from pretty cool jazz CDs to the crappiest commercial radio stations imaginable, depending on who is working that day.

In all it's a nice enough little place to pop into if you're passing, but is probably not worth a special trip across town.

Café Opera

Café Opera beside the Moravian Theatre is an old Olomouc institution that has been renovated and revived in recent years. It’s a popular place with locals for its main square location, summer time outdoor seating, good selection of ice-cream and the children’s playroom at the back.

The ice cream selection and quality is excellent, albeit more expensive than at other ice cream counters. Service, on the other hand, could certainly do with some improvement.

As well as the usual range of cakes and coffees the café serves pizza and pasta.

The main areas in the café are non-smoking but there is a smoking section on the left as you enter the room. You’ll have no trouble finding the children’s playroom, as the squeals and general kids noises will reveal all within your first few steps inside.

Capuccino is 37Kc, tiramisu 31Kc, ice cream 10Kc per scoop, large waffle cones 5Kc, pasta farfalle with mushrooms and chicken is 115Kc.

Open from 8.30-22.00 daily.

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.