Café Imperial
Restaurant · Praha · Czechia
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Riding along Na Poříčí in Prague's Nové Město, look up at the ornate façade of the five-star Hotel Imperial, built in 1913–1914 to designs by architect Jaroslav Benedikt, with interior sculptural work by Josef Drahoňovský, and it's worth pulling over for the café on its ground floor. Café Imperial opened the same year the hotel was completed and is known for a striking, largely unaltered interior: unique ceramic wall decoration and a mosaic-covered ceiling in the Art Deco/Secession style of the era. Through the interwar First Republic it drew Prague's cultural and political circles, and is remembered as a haunt of President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, composer Leoš Janáček, and Franz Kafka, who is recorded as a regular coffee drinker here. The café today is run by well-known Czech television chef Zdeněk Pohlreich, who pairs the century-old room with a modern kitchen.
The building on this corner predates its Art Deco facade by centuries: records trace a house here to 1383, burned during the Swedish siege of Prague and rebuilt in 1730 as a modest inn called the Black Eagle. That older inn gave way to the hotel and cafe that opened in 1914, the version riders see today. The kitchen serves classic Czech cooking with a modern touch alongside international dishes, and keeps a dedicated Imperial Cake as its house dessert. Breakfast service starts at 6.30 and the kitchen runs until 11pm, so it works as an early or late stop outside typical cafe hours. Cafe Imperial holds a place in the Michelin Guide 2026, a rare distinction for a hundred-year-old grand cafe still in daily service.
What you see
Street-level windows along Na Porici open the ceramic-tiled walls and mosaic ceiling to view, so the Art Deco interior is visible from outside before you step in.
Practical
Open daily 7am to 11pm, with breakfast service from 6.30 to 10.30am.
- Cuisine
- pohlreich
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Common questions
- Why stop at Café Imperial on a bike ride?
- Riding along Na Poříčí in Prague's Nové Město, look up at the ornate façade of the five-star Hotel Imperial, built in 1913–1914 to designs by architect Jaroslav Benedikt, with interior sculptural work by Josef Drahoňovský, and it's worth pulling over for the café on its ground floor. Café Imperial opened the same year the hotel was completed and is known for a striking, largely unaltered interior: unique ceramic wall decoration and a mosaic-covered ceiling in the Art Deco/Secession style of the era. Through the interwar First Republic it drew Prague's cultural and political circles, and is remembered as a haunt of President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, composer Leoš Janáček, and Franz Kafka, who is recorded as a regular coffee drinker here. The café today is run by well-known Czech television chef Zdeněk Pohlreich, who pairs the century-old room with a modern kitchen.
- Where is Café Imperial?
- Café Imperial is in Praha, Czechia (Czech Republic).
- When is Café Imperial open?
- Open daily 7am to 11pm, with breakfast service from 6.30 to 10.30am.