café i love: kavárna liberál, prague

i’ve not yet spent a good chunk of time in prague in the spring, so i was overjoyed to find myself there on a warm sunny day with all flowers fragrant and in bloom. we were in holešovice (a district north of the river) to go to the annual holešovice fashion market at the pražská tržnice hall near the river, which was fantastic and super hip– there was bahn mi sandwiches on offer, fancy juice drinks, liquor, single-origin coffees, anything you could hope for. lots of czech fashionistas sitting around smoking, drinking, and people watching…

but, we were craving a calmer atmosphere so we took off for heřmanova street to the classy and airy kavárna liberál. it’s the kind of place you wish you had at the end of your block– a sunny, chilled out neighborhood cafe.  the place was about two thirds empty late on a saturday afternoon– the doors were all open, there was a labrador laying on the floor, and everything seemed a shade of brown with little wall decoration to speak of. quite old-world style… we forgot were we were for a few seconds and could easily place ourselves in paris. “there’s grappa on the menu!” alex exclaimed of the extensive drink menu (they also offer a decent-for-a-cafe food menu). “why not order it? it’s what hemingway drank, no?” so he did. with a creamy shot of espresso. although it was not on the menu, the friendly waitress whipped up a ledová kavá (iced coffee) by request. everything was delicious. we began to imagine ourselves sporting berets and white linen button down shirts (in a perfect world).

mmm, let’s get a closer look at that creamy espresso shot!

i could easily while away an entire afternoon here. undoubtedly one of my new favorite prague spots.

kavárna liberál, heřmanova 6, praha 7. metro: vltavská ©. mon-sat 9:00-00:00, sun 14:00-00:00. featured in the new york times’, 36 hours in prague.