The Best Pizza in Prague

How do you find the best pizza in Prague? There are thousands of pubs in Prague serving nice Czech beer. And there are an equal number of pizza joints serving cardboard wafers with ketchup, 10 strands of cheese, and corn for fuck's sake. How do I cope with such a gaping chasm in my taste for good beer and delicious pizza in the same place? I investigate. I eat. I eat again, then I blog about it.

I talk about food a lot in my bloggy woggy. Because a Wide Body Jetsetter didn't get so wide drinking mineral water and eating salad. I have consumed several metric fucktons of pizza, beer, Mexican food, cerveza, Czech fried cheese, pivo, and much more. Hell, my Berlin blog was called Dunkin' Berliner out of my sheer love for Berliner Jelly donuts. And maybe Kennedy.

If you're living la vida loca (or šílený život) in Prague, you may have noticed the whole beer and pizza equation is completely skewed, screwed, and tattooed. I'm here to rectify that. I'll be your personal pizza pal to help you find the good stuff and avoid the Communist slop.

What Does 'the Best' Mean?

I will get down to brass tacks. What is best for someone in Naples will not be the same for someone in Chicago, New York, or Sacramento. I should define what I consider the best pizza in order to set some frame of reference. Although, there is an absolute truth we can start with. If you're putting corn and tuna on your pizza, you are out of your gawd damn mind.

The Crust

Like the foundation for any edifice built on solid earth, the pizza crust is fundamental. I personally like New York style pizza crust AND Chicago deep dish crust—for different reasons.

There's a pizza joint called Pieces in Midtown Sacramento. It's like New York pizza on steroids. They ball the sourdough, age it overnight, flatten it, throw it up in the air, then top the BeJAYzus out of it. Lots of sauce, cheese, meat, and veggies. The crust comes out crispy on the bottom and chewy in the middle, like a fine pastry. They even fold the crust edges over the cheese and sauce for extra zing.

Just down the road (I don't like to walk very far) is Zelda's Chicago Style Pizza in the Pan. We're talking deep dish pie pans served with thick slabs of gooey goodness a gangster would drool over (and this OG pizza dude has for years). The secret of Chicago style is a pie-type crust with layers of mozzarella slices thrown on before the sauce and other toppings. Weird, right? But it keeps the crispy, crunchy integrity of the crust from getting soggy from sauce.

I'm aware that Europeans like wafer-thin pizza crusts. Screw them. They don't know shit from shinola. And Czech pizza crust is exactly as bad as all their baked goods: bland, thin, dry, and crunchy. Let's proceed, true pizza fans.

The Sauce

The second ingredient added to the house of pizza is the sauce. Unless you're in Chicago, where the cheese goes before the sauce. I believe the best pizza sauce strikes a perfect balance between zest and flavor. It's full of herbs, slow simmered, with a smidgen of sugar added to kill the acidity of the tomatoes. If the flavor of the sauce is so strong and tangy that it cuts through all the cheese and toppings, something is seriously wrong. Also, if you can't taste the sauce at all, it's probably just Czech ketchup watered down. Fuj.

The Cheese

I shouldn't even have to say this, but mozzarella is the prime pizza cheese. The pizza must be made with either 100% mozzarella or 80% mozzarella and 20% other cheeses. Czechs will put fucking EIDAM cheese on their pizza. Or worse, some rubber commie nonsense that tastes even MORE like plastic. Again, fuj.

The Toppings

Personal taste in toppings on pizza is an age-old argument. People scream at the thought of pineapple on pizza, while others cringe at the idea of fish and corn fucking up the pie. I'm not going to argue with personal taste, even though I've already stated clearly that people who eat tuna and corn on their pizza are out of their gawd damn minds.

Toppings should be generous but not overwhelming. Think of a fine food medley dancing on your tongue. The combination of ingredients should make sense. Mushrooms and Italian sausage pair well. Bacon and onions pair well. A good Chicago deep dish combo will have crust, cheese, sauce, sausage, mushrooms, pepperoni, bell peppers, onions, and garlic. That right there is the pizza of the godz. Wash it down with a pitcher of beer and you'll be welcomed into Valhalla just like that, pizza warrior.

Original Ain't Best

Whenever someone advertises their food using the words 'authentic' or 'original', run like hell. There is a reason humankind keeps perfecting things. Otherwise we would still be rolling on stone tires like Fred Fucking Flintstone. Or tackling animals and chewing on their raw flesh. Fire stepped into the process. Cooking kills the bugs that kill us. And seared flesh tastes so fucking good. See? Progress is perfection in motion.

I've tried the 'original' Neapolitan pizza from the birthplace of pizza in Italy. I tried it in Berlin and in Prague, and my tongue could find no purchase. The one in Berlin was called Pizza Nostra, and it had a dry, doughy crust with almost no toppings. There is another one in Prague called Pizze di Frankie. The guy started out making pizza in his apartment. He should have stayed there. All of his pizzas are made with something that looks like an electric pancake maker. Fast cooking at high temperature does not make good pizza. It makes flavorless slop in the middle with crust burnt to black bubbles on the edges. The pizza I had there had sausage pink in the middle with burnt crust. How is that culinary quackery even possible? Oh yeah: don't put pizza in a Barbie oven, homes.

Napoli may have invented pizza, but that shit is as bland as a cardboard box covered in tomato sauce. Some prehistoric brute invented the wheel. That doesn't mean we need to roll down the road on stone wheels for an 'authentic' experience. Authentic is for chumps and peasants with no taste buds. But we are pizza warriors. We brook no bullshit.

Let's Pillage Some Prague Pizza

Armed with my pizza manifesto and a serious appetite, I ventured out to find the best pizza in Prague. I consumed the requisite metric fucktonne (European measurement) of pizza in order to bring you the best of the best. Life is too short to eat shitty-ass pizza. The following Prague pizza joints stand out for different reasons. Some of them score higher points on the crust or the sauce, others are just plain inventive and fun.

The American Pizza Joints

I call them AINO. As in American In Name Only. And AINO WAY I eat that shit. These are pizza chains that came into this former commie hellhole with the promise of good ole fashioned American pizza. Then failed. How did they fail when they were the kings of the pizza chains back home? Simple. They dumbed it down for the locals. Every single Indian, American, Italian, and Chinese restaurant did the same damn thing: they removed all trace of flavor to cater to the lowest common denominator (the locals). If the locals don't like flavor, you'd best remove it all so you don't piss them off and go out of business.

But what is the point of opening an 'American' pizza chain in Prague if you're not going to do American style pizza? There are at least 50,000 pizza joints in Prague that all offer flavorless Frisbees of fuckall for the locals. Can't you stand out from the crowd? Can't you follow the basic international franchise rules of product consistency?

No. They can't.

Pizza Hut

The first international American pizza chain to hit Prague is officially the worst. Pizza Hut was never the best type of pizza you could get in the States, but you knew what you were getting: flaky, buttery pan pizza crust or chewy, gooey goodness on top of a classic sourdough base.

Prague Pizza Huts have ditched these lofty pretensions in order to provide the fastest race to the bottom I have ever seen. The crust is dry as a desert. Almost no sauce whatsoever. Pizza Hut pizzas in Prague don't even try to compensate for the loss of flavor by offering the standard Parmesan, oregano, or chili pepper sides. They do not exist. Even for sale. I've blogged that I hate the fact that Czechs charge for condiments, boxes, and bags. But I would give them cash money for a packet of parm. Or a handful of oregano.

Since they don't bother to season their pizzas with herbs or garlic like a normal pizzeria, they fall to the bottom of my list. They don't even offer garlic as a topping to be added. If there's a pizza oven in Hell, Pizza Hut will bake in the fucker.

Domino's Pizza

Originally the official pizza of stoners, Domino's Pizza brought pizza to your house at all hours of the night when you were too stoned to drive. In 30 minutes or less. Stoners need their damn pizza PRONTO.

It wasn't the best pizza, but it was the go-to standard when you couldn't get off your damn sofa. Now they have them in Prague. They should have stayed home. I do not know how you can take something mediocre and degrade it to rock bottom in 1 year, but Prague Domino's has managed to do it. The first time I had Domino's Pizza in Prague was in their first location in Nusle. I was very impressed that they offered double and triple cheese on their pizzas. So I ordered double cheese, and it was good. But the rest of the pizza was as flavorless as a box of packing peanuts from Amazon. Why? How? Oh yeah: they dumb it down for the locals, once again. No herbs, no flavor. Fucking locals. They're fucking with my chi.

*Breaking News: months after I wrote this, both Domino's locations shut down. Instant karma is a bitch y'all.

Czech Pizza Joints Don't Have Garlic

Garlic equals flava and Czechs don't like flava. We've established that. And as much as I like to beat them like red-headed stepchildren, I just have to accept that they will never be able to develop taste buds or produce a good pizza. Ironically, old school Czech beer halls offer a snack called topinky. This is fried bread served with raw garlic cloves that you grate over the surface of the bread as a schmear. It's so strong it burns your lips. Muh?

But Czech pizza joints don't like to keep garlic in the building even. I've asked. Every time I go in. They just shrug and say What do you want from a student working for minimum wage in a Commie shithole country? Which is exactly the kind of response I would give while working in minimum wage student jobs in the States. Only I substituted 'Commie' with 'Capitalist Pigdog'.

One Czech pizza joint showed promise for about five minutes: 360pizza. Their adds said 'simply different dough.' And it was. It was the real deal, aged sourdough pizza recipe used by all the great American pizzerias. But then they committed the Cardinal Sin: flavorless sauce, paltry toppings, and no flava flave. And they threw it into one of those Barbie ovens that take only 6 minutes (360 seconds) to bake your pizza. Nice gimmick for busy Czechies. FAIL. Good pizza takes time.

Pizza Jesus Comes to Town: Rud Be Thy Name

Finally, a ray of light cracks the dark cloud of pizza doom looming over Central Europe. A pizza prophet heard my pathetic cries, answered my pizza prayers, came down from above, and landed with a giant thud: Rud's Pizza is here!

I discovered Rud's by accident on a trip to Tabor, CZ in South Bohemia. I almost gave it a pass due to the logo: a hipster with an oozing triangular pizza slice for a beard. But I decided to put my hipster fears aside to give it a go (I read good reviews beforehand). I tried a slice first so I didn't have to commit. It was so damn good I had to order a whole pie.

The crust was 100% proper aged/risen/sourdough American style. But they added flavorful sauce, real mozzarella, and generous toppings. It was Fan. Fucking. Tastic. Fluffy, chewy crust. Rich, flavorful sauce. Generous toppings, and real mozzarella (with blue cheese added to boot). I ordered a large, ate half, and toted the rest to my hotel room, where I ravaged it at midnight with reckless abandon.

I found out that Rud's had exploded on the scene with their unique pizza in the past few years. They now have more than 35 branches, including 3 in Prague. They have branches in Pankrac and Hloubetin.

But they don't have garlic. Don't they need to ward off vampires (landlords)? Don't they know that garlic cleanses the blood after a night of heavy drinking? They offered garlic sauce in lieu of real garlic. It sufficed in the way that methadone might suffice for a heroin addict. Also, most of the slices they offer are with cream sauce instead of tomato sauce. What. Is the deal. With that?

Run Down to Rud's Now

I want them to stay in business. The Rud's Pizzeria at Narodni wasn't turning a brisk trade, in spite of the fact that actual Valkyrie warriors rode in chariots down from Valhalla bearing this pizza to cast heavenly pearls among swine, with the Apocalypse Now Wagner bit playing in the background. It probably doesn't help that they're on the 2^nd floor of the Maj building. Sadly, they went out of business. Replaced by overpriced 'nejpls' hipster bullshit.

And please, Mr. Rud. Don't go the way of the thousands of bland Czech pizzerias littering the culinary battlefield like dogshit on Czech sidewalks. Hold true to the creed of real pizza and keep on keeping on. Your rapid expansion heralds a new pizza empire sweeping through these dusty former-Commie wastelands. We need it. We love it. Don't expand too fast and too far like doomed empires of yesteryear. And for the love of ODIN, don't dumb it down for the locals. Then you will do fine.

And I will give you all of my pizza money from here to eternity, Valhalla, and beyond. If you would just add garlic to your menu.

BYOF

Sadly, if you want to have pizza with flavor in a bland land like Czechia, you need to Bring Your Own Flavor. This is why I carry a little jar of mixed herbs to the Czech pizzerias: oregano, basil, garlic powder, and chili flakes. The very things that make a pizza go from zero to hero in my land find no purchase in the bland food here. So after ordering my pizza at 360 (their angel/demoni ain't bad), I bust out my spice jar and shake it til I make it taste good.

Best Prague Pizza? DIY

I've officially given up. After seeing so many promising pizza joints rise and fall like empires, I just eat pizza at home. Even frozen pizza is better than the average Česky hovno they serve for 300 KC per pizza. Just get yourself a frozen pizza from Albert, Kaufland, or Billa, and bake it yourself. Sure, you have to doctor dafuq outta the bastard; add cheese, garlic, herbs, etc. My personal favorite: Dr. Oetker's Casa di Mama brand. This is the only rising crust dough frozen pizza you can get in CZ.

Or better yet: bake it from scratch. A long time ago in a country far, far way, I used to roll my dough by hand, mix my sauce, and add just enough toppings to make the pizza angels weep. Oh yes. There are pizza angels. May they bless you tonight. I'm off to start kneading...