Bistro An Brings Authentic Taste of Hanoi to Prague

Bistro An in Prague 6 resembles an Asian street where the beef broth cooks for eight hours and the space is always filled.

Bistro An is a new business that was opened by the Tranova family at the end of last year. It is located at a short distance from Hradčanská metro station in Prague 6 and, like the older branch at Jiřího z Poděbrady, specializes in traditional Vietnamese cuisine. 

Unlike the older branch, the food here doesn’t have to be eaten from a stand. The interiors reminiscent of Hanoi’s raw atmosphere is inviting for anyone to take a seat.

The Tranova family previously found the famous business Pho Vietnam Tuan & Lan on Jiřího z Poděbrady and later Botanica Coffee Truck in Vršovice. 

At the beginning of September, the family’s parents left Botanica to a new owner and passed Bistro An down to their son.

“After more than 30 years of hard work, my parents finally decided to take a well-deserved retirement. I have always admired them and I will always admire them. I still don’t understand how they managed to build so much from nothing while being my parents, grandmother and grandfather, and kind people. I am sincerely proud of them. They were the ones who were at the forefront of Vietnamese cuisine in the Czech Republic when the Viet food craze broke out,” says Jackie Tran Ahn, who currently runs three other establishments in Prague.

He took Bistro An as his own. Jackie wanted to bring to Prague the atmosphere of the streets of Hanoi, where soup is sipped while sitting on the sidewalks and neon signs light up in the background.

He managed to materialize the idea thanks to the cooperation with the architectural studio Neuhäusl Hunal.

“It was essential for us to grasp the topic in such a way that it was relevant in the Czech context and avoided formal clichés and cheap gestures. We, therefore, worked on the Czech interpretation of an Asian street and its sympathetic dirt in multiple layers – layouts, materials, and atmosphere,” describe David Neuhäusl and Matej Hunal.