History
The legend of Krčma
Where travellers and neighbours now gather over beer and candlelight on Kostečná street, a tavern is said to have stood back when the Old Town was still learning the shape of its lanes.
They say the cellars you are sitting in remember the fourteenth century. Carters and merchants heading for the Old Town market met here, along with craftsmen from the workshops nearby and students who preferred this place to their lectures. The taverner is said to have mixed a mead to a recipe he never told anyone – one passed, so the legend goes, by word of mouth from taverner to taverner.
Centuries went by, the house above the cellars changed, but the vaults held. When we opened them again in October 2007, they were full of rubble and forgetting. For a year we cleaned the stone, put the heavy timber back in place and looked for ways to keep the original character of the rooms within today’s hygiene standards – so that a tavern would stay a tavern, only one where you can safely cook and feast.
In October 2008 we opened the doors on Kostečná street once more. The candles were lit again, goulash scents the air from the kitchen, and at the long tables people from everywhere meet, just as they did centuries ago. The legend goes on – and you are now part of it.
“You do not know a good tavern by its sign, but by the fact that nobody wants to go home.” — an old taverners’ saying