Don’t Panic-You CAN Eat Well and Gluten-Free in Prague!
The Czech Republic is one of the most challenging to manage for someone with a serious gluten allergy who wants to partake in the local cuisine. Talk about a country that likes to put flour in everything!
Dumplings are everywhere. They also love sauces. And where there’s sauce, there is flour.
So, how do you survive ‘bez lepku‘ (gluten-free) in the capital of meat-covered-in-flour-thickened-sauce-and-served-with-bread?
Lucky for those of us with this allergy-Prague is an extremely international city. There are people from all over Europe and the world living and working in this city and this has helped to promote more diversity in food offerings, especially in popular or well heeled areas.
While it might not be easy to find gluten free versions of local Czech dishes, there are plenty of ways for a celiac or gluten avoider to eat extremely well in Prague.
My tips for thriving ‘bez lepku’ in Prague:
1. Avoid super traditional Czech restaurants
I know, this one is annoying because it’s really fun to try out the local food, and in a lot of European countries, it’s possible to get some traditional dishes without gluten (For example in Italy you can still eat risotto or polenta and so on…..).
But in Prague you will do much better if you don’t enter the old-school traditional Czech restaurants. Everything has flour in it and so-honestly even if you’re ordering ‘just meat’ and potatoes there is just too much cross-contamination for those with serious allergies. And-in these places you’ll often get a very lax attitude about this ‘allergy’ and quite possibly get served gluten even while they assure you that what you’re getting doesn’t have gluten (it’s happened to me many times).
I’m not saying this will be the case for everyone-and certainly things are getting better all the time but in my own experience it’s just better to avoid these places. The more traditional a place is, the less focus will be on service or customers’ special dietary needs. They are there to serve simple hearty food, and that is it.
If you are determined to eat some traditional Czech dishes here is a special gluten free option for you!
Svejk Restaurant U Karla
Address/District: Křemencova 186/7, Prague 1
Phone: +420 222 515 889
*this is one of a chain of restaurants so not a mom and pop spot but at this particular location they have a special gluten-free menu with traditional Czech dishes!
2. Shop at farmers’ markets
There are at least a few specialty bio/eco baked goods stands at almost every outdoor/farmers’ market in Prague, and normally at least one or two of these have gluten-free options. Even for non-food allergy sufferers, farmers’ markets are the way to go if you want to find good quality produce, eggs, and cheese in Prague. They are fantastic!
3. Find the neighborhood Bio stores & gluten-free bakeries
The Bio stores in Prague are usually your best bet for finding fresh gluten-free bread (versus packaged stuff like Schar, which is quite dry and tasteless compared to freshly baked breads), a wider variety of flours, and other goodies like unsweetened almond milk. I passed one in almost every neighborhood in Prague and almost all of them include ‘bio’ somewhere in the name so you should be able to google the nearest one to you.
There are also a few gluten-free bakeries or places that make their own fresh gluten-free bread.
See a list of bio stores and gluten free bakeries here.
4. Find the naturally gluten-free ethnic cuisines and any special gluten-free restaurants
As soon as I got to Prague, I researched the locations of Asian restaurants (other than Chinese, which uses a lot of soy sauce and wheat flour noodles) and other gluten-free-friendly ethnic restaurants. Usually my top choices are Vietnamese, Thai, Indian and Japanese so I look for these before other things.
I found a decent selection of Thai or Indian restaurants AND major score-I found a 100% gluten-free Italian restaurant specializing in risotto and home made pastas!
See a list of gluten free restaurants and super gluten free friendly ethnic cuisine options here.
5. Find the big supermarkets
These days, there’s a gluten-free section in almost every supermarket in Europe! That said, all gluten-free sections are not created equally. Many stores have just the bare minimum.
The big centrally located major supermarkets typically have much much wider selections with everything from an assortment of gluten-free cereals, cookies, crackers, pizza crusts, baking mixes and more.
In Prague, the big supermarkets like Albert, Billa, Lidl, Tesco and DM have large gluten free sections with great selection. Basically you can find all of the non-nutritious, packaged gluten-free products your heart could desire (and yes they usually carry a full line of Schar products!).
Additional Resources:
Gluten Free Card (translated to Czech and printable)