Natural Wine and Mediterranean Dishes: Bee’s Restaurant is the New Hotspot in Vinohrady

Bee’s Restaurant is a new eatery based off Náměstí Míru in Prague 2 that’s serving natural wine that won’t leave you with a sore head and tantalise tastebuds with Mediterranean style dishes.

The striking blue and yellow walls of this modern restaurant are adorned with golden and pop art bees to honour its namesake. Stepping out the back you enter a romantic garden space, framed with trees bearing fruit; quince, apple, pear and apricot. For the moment, the tables are covered and the fairy lights stay off and the customer can only peek through the dispensing window. When Covid restrictions lift, manager Zen David Bojić tells me they have grand plans for the beautiful outdoor dining space.

Prague Morning met with Zen to find out what Bee’s has to offer. 

 

Why should customers order from Bee’s? 

We opened this restaurant to offer something special, something different to what is usually available in Prague. Our Á la carte menu is generally a mix of Mediterranean cuisines from France, Spain, or Italy. In some dishes however we implement local elements like red cabbage or even Slovak brynza cheese.

We play with contrasting flavours to make it something completely fresh. We also wanted to offer a fine dining experience with a casual atmosphere. Although Covid has taken that experience away from us, we are still committed to providing a journey for the senses. We also sell some of the only natural wine in the Czech Republic.

 

Can you tell us more about that wine? 

We buy it from Milan Nestarec, a young Czech wine producer. He is the most successful Czech exporter but also the most unknown here. Only around six restaurants stock his wine in the whole country.

His wines are unfiltered, so you can see the residue floating in the liquid, which is taken out by most producers. They are made 100% naturally with no sulphites added in. All wines contain sulphites that they take from the ground, but most wines have more sulfites added in to help preserve it. They are the reason you wake up with a headache. So when you drink this wine, you will wake up feeling fine!

The first taste of his wine is a little weird because your brain expects a different experience. But the more you drink it the more you like it – and you find you cannot stop! When we first tried it, we couldn’t believe how good it tasted. We immediately chose three of his wines to include in our wine list.

There is not a massive amount of trust in Czech wine in this country. We want to help change that.

 

What about the food? 

We change the menu every season to keep the ingredients fresh and flavourful. Our French Savoy head chef directs the changes, we let him be free – which leads to a lot of interesting experimentation. Our autumn menu was a great combination of sweet and savoury flavours, such as Veal cheek confit with white chocolate – which sounds insane but when you put it all together it just works. We’ve pared the original menu down for takeaway while Covid restrictions keep us closed. Our slow-roasted duck is a must-try. We’ve paired it with traditional Czech dishes of red cabbage and potato dumplings, then pushed it further with sweet roasted apples.

Bee’s only opened in June, but they have adapted to the Covid conditions and you can still take away locally sourced ingredients and refreshingly unique Mediterranean dishes. Currently, the chefs are working on ideas for their winter menu, which Zen says will be filled with seasonal vegetables in indulgent dishes to keep you warm throughout Prague’s coldest months.

In December a special Christmas catering menu will be offered to their customers to take away as well.

At the moment, they are offering window dispensary and takeaway through Wolt, DameJidlo and  vyzvednisi.cz . They serve breakfast from 8 am to 11 am during the week, and open at 10:30 am on the weekend. They then serve their main menu from 11 am to 8 pm.  Bee’s takeaway menu can be found here.