PUMPKIN SOUP!

Field restaurant is a one-star Michelin restaurant located in Old Town, Prague. Executive Chef Radek Kašpárek has been the co-owner of the restaurant since 2014 and was rewarded with a Michelin star in 2016.

Field restaurant is my best among the three one-star Michelin restaurants in Prague. With some improvements in the ambiance, I believe that a second star may even follow.

The highlight of the restaurant was definitely the creativity shown in presenting the dishes. There were also some remarkable dishes in terms of taste.

Ambiance

There was nothing fancy about the ambiance. The name of the restaurant is “Field”, hence there were some decorative elements compatible with its name. However, I found them to be very poorly chosen. When you enter the restaurant you see some rakes hanging from the window. There were some images like trees and grass that were reflected on the ceiling. It was looking somewhat amateur and simplistic. If you want to use the blessings of the technology for the decoration, it has to look very professional and enchanting. Otherwise, it is better not to use it at all. I also didn’t enjoy the direct lightings hanging from the ceiling to the table. The table was a lot more luminous than it should have been. It can be quite disturbing for the eyes.

The open kitchen concept, as in Field, is my favorite. I always enjoy watching the preparations in the kitchen while dining. I love seeing the journey of my plate from the kitchen to the table. It also makes me feel more secure in terms of hygiene.

I was overwhelmed with the creativity of the tasting menu. Therefore I think that a much better job can be done in terms of decoration and lighting. The “Field” theme is very nice for a restaurant with a room for a lot of novelty. Some more effort needs to be shown for a more thematic and a catchy ambiance.

Service

Everything about the service was absolutely excellent. I just thought that some of the staff can be a bit more cheerful. They were keeping an eye on our table all the time. We never waited much for the arrival of the next course. I was totally satisfied with the quality and the pace of the service. The explanations of the dishes were sufficient and plenty in detail.

Creativity

The highlight of this restaurant was definitely their creativity at presenting the dishes. I can surely say that Field is one of the most creative restaurants I have ever been to. You can easily see the wit and effort behind every single dish. However, there were some dishes that I especially want to mention.

First one was the lamb course which was served in the bushes on a stone. After they poured the hot sauce into the bushes, a mist rose. This trick with dry ice is used in many of the restaurants nowadays. However here I loved the fact that the mist risen from the bushes. A connection with the theme “Field” was made wisely.

My next favorite dish was the cheese plate. It had an amazing presentation in a box with some drawers. Each drawer had another purpose. First one had the necessary dinnerware, the other had the cheese, and the last one had the accompaniments of the cheese. It was so much fun to tamper with.

Another playful dish was the forest honey that was served to hang on a platform where you could swing the honeycomb honey. It was really fun to swing and play. You can definitely take some good boomerang photos with it.

There were also some original food pairings which I want to talk about in the next section in detail.

Taste

We started out with three different amuse bouche. My favorite one was the almond macaroon with raspberry vinegar and beetroot in it. Almond and beetroot made a very good couple together. My second best was the duck pate surrounded by cherry and red wine. It was actually quite tasty but I found it to be too heavy for an amuse bouche. Also, I would love the cherry and wine aroma to be more dominant. My least favorite was the nettle tempura with dill, mayonnaise and razor clam. It had no significant taste. Though I learned that nettle is very popular in the Czech Republic.

Following the amuse bouche, our first course was crayfish with nettle, fennel, pepper and sour cream with pumpkin sauce and crayfish butter. Sauce and butter were poured on the crayfish separately. Crayfish was delicious, but the sauce was way too heavy. The second course was the pattypan squash with a blue Czech cheese, pear and leaven with parsley oil. It was definitely fabulous. The blue Czech cheese was a perfect complementary with the crayfish.

Squid with duck liver, spruce and hemp seeds was the next course. It was my least favorite course on the menu because of the saltiness of the squid. When I saw the squid and duck liver on the menu, I thought that it was a very interesting combination. However, it turned out to be a huge disappointment for me because it was almost impossible to taste the duck liver. My only joy on the dish was the hemp seeds. The following course was the signature dish of the menu in terms of experience. Lamb was served with mushrooms, pine and blackberry on a stone surrounded by bushes. You were told to eat the single piece with your hand and hot towels were served afterward. As I mentioned earlier, they used dry ice to create a mist coming from the bushes. The dish was tasty and the whole experience was well-designed. Meat and mushrooms served together is usually a safe bet.

One of my favorites of the menu was dried ham, horseradish, egg and elderberry. The bitterness of the horseradish and the sweetness of the elderberry mixing together was very pleasing. Taste of the horseradish immediately takes you to wasabi. Chef continued to amaze me with the next course as well; heifer served with kohlrabi, shallot and mustard seeds. It was a perfectly cooked six-month-old beef accompanied with its tongue. Both of them were very impressive.

After the main courses, we had the cheese plate. I didn’t like to taste of the ravelin and horsky cheese very much. The alcohol-free liqueur served with the cheese was my favorite. It was made of plums and a rich variety of herbs. Carnation could easily be recognized. I would even love to drink it as a pre-dessert. The cheese plate was very rich; caviar, butter, mulberry and redcurrant were served together with the cheese.

Pre-dessert was pretty interesting for me. I have eaten pre-desserts with honey before, but I have never eaten a honeycomb honey by itself. It was a forest honey with bergamot, ginger and birch water. Ginger is always a good choice as a pre-dessert for me since I think that it clears the mouth with it’s strong taste and it is very refreshing.

Plum was served with woodruff, sheep cheese and chestnut as the sweet finale. Sadly it was a weak ending to a strong build-up of many successful dishes. The “goodbye dessert” is always very important. There is a much higher probability that the guests will leave with fonder memories following an amazing final taste or an unforgettable presentation. These last memories were long proven to be the most potent ones.

Value

According to the other fine-dining restaurants in Prague, I can say that Field is a bit more expensive. However, you leave the restaurant happy and satisfied at the end of the tasting menu. That’s why I can say that it is worth the price.

I expected a much better selection and variety of wine. Sommelier may work some more for enlarging their wine list, which was mostly a safe-bet European selection.

Field is definitely the best Michelin-star restaurant in Prague. It made me believe that there will be more gastronomical advancements in Prague in the near future.