Entrée Restaurant, Olomouc: A Tasting Menu with Pivní Pes, a Spread of Olomoucké Tvarůžky
Before the first course even arrived, I got a question no restaurant had ever asked me: whether the staff could leave a stick of incense burning on the table. It goes with the food, they said, it sets the mood. Anyone who asks permission to scent your table clearly leaves nothing to chance - and that is exactly how they cook here.
Entrée Restaurant in Olomouc is the fine dining place of chef Přemek Forejt, who takes Czech cuisine apart piece by piece and builds a nine-course tasting menu out of it. No leafing through a menu: you pick one of three set menus and the kitchen runs the rest of the evening.
Who Přemek Forejt Is and Why People Travel to Olomouc for Him
Forejt trained as a cook in Brno and spent three years at L'Autre Pied, a Michelin-listed restaurant in London, before coming home and taking over the kitchen at Entrée in 2015. Two years later the restaurant won Maurerův výběr Grand Restaurant: the poll for the best restaurant in Czechia put Olomouc in first place, ahead of Prague's Alcron, which held a Michelin star at the time. Since 2019 Forejt has been a judge on MasterChef Česko, so most of the country knows him from the screen long before they know him from the plate. In Olomouc you notice it in exactly one place: the reservation system.
Nine Courses: Czech Classics Disguised Beyond Recognition
The menu reads like the board at an ordinary pub: Vepřo, černo, zelo. Katův šleh, the executioner's lash. Hovězí na kmíně, beef with caraway. Except Forejt likes to take names every Czech knows by heart and serve something by those names that nobody would recognize in a pub - the vepřo hides its cabbage in an emulsion and the skin on the pork belly snaps like a wafer, the katův šleh is made of sturgeon and instead of a barrage of hot peppers it is held in check by a gently spicy jalapeño cream. The katův šleh is no centuries-old tradition either: it only found its way onto pub menus in the 1980s and 1990s. Forejt still treats it with the same seriousness as recipes old enough to remember the monarchy.
Entrée offers three tasting menus; they differ in the number of courses and the items are fixed. You can add a wine or non-alcoholic pairing, and at midday the kitchen also cooks a three-course lunch. The hardest thing about Entrée is getting in at all: tables tend to be booked solid weeks ahead. It pays to watch the restaurant's website - seats do open up, and that is exactly how I got to my table.
Pivní Pes: Olomouc in a Single Bite
The sixth course carries a name I would have expected on a tasting menu least of all: Pivní pes, the beer dog. It is an old country spread of olomoucké tvarůžky, our pungent little Moravian cheeses, steeped in beer - no invention of Forejt's; people in the Haná region were spreading this on bread long before fine dining. At Entrée they turn it into an airy mousse with a full-sour pickle in a crisp tartlet, lightly dusted with paprika; the whole thing goes down in one bite, light as a cloud. Of the nine courses, that is the one I would recommend to foreign visitors: the regional cooking of Olomouc condensed into a single mouthful. And just so regional pride isn't quite that simple - the tvarůžky may be named after Olomouc, but they are made in Loštice, some twenty-five kilometers from the town that lent them its name.
The menu ends on a crescendo and on something sweet: hovězí na kmíně with a sauce given an unusual lift by olives and lemon, and after it two desserts - Ruská zmrzlina, Russian ice cream, with pumpkin, pear and jasmine in the leading roles, and Ledové kaštany, iced chestnuts with chocolate and maple syrup. The final flourish is a petit four called Variace na tyčinku Mars, a variation on a Mars bar: chocolate, peanuts and caramel, a tip of the hat to a vending machine candy bar elevated to pastry craft.
Nine Courses Two Days Before Christmas
I got into Entrée two days before Christmas, for the longest menu with the wine pairing. The service was quick and warm, there wasn't a single dead pause between courses, and the open kitchen lets diners watch the cooks at work. Two courses stood out the most: the Asian dumpling filled with Czech dry salami on fresh cilantro, an original combination I'd order again in a heartbeat, and Houbový jan - probably the best soup I have ever eaten in my life. The peak of the whole menu, though, was hovězí na kmíně: one of the best known dishes of Czech cuisine, treated in a way that turned it into world-class food. The sommelier's commentary was well informed and pleasantly laid-back, only the wines came mostly from abroad - with Czech cooking I'd have expected more Moravian bottles. Nine courses cost 1,600 CZK (64 EUR), the wine pairing another 1,100 CZK (44 EUR), and I'd put the whole evening among my five strongest food experiences without hesitation. So far, Michelin only rates Prague in Czechia. If Entrée stood in Prague, the inspectors would have found it fast - as it is, you have to find it yourself.
Entrée
