Eating Vegan (with Food Allergies) in Prague

We spent three days in Prague in April prior to heading to Germany to start a Danube River cruise. I did a lot of research about vegan restaurants in Prague prior to leaving. There are several and they sounded amazing.

Here are two great videos about vegan restaurants.

I checked out all the menus. I made a Google map of all the locations so I could see what we were near while we were on the go.

I also used Google Maps to look for restaurants near our hotel. I read menus for weeks like it was my job. We’re hard to feed. We’re vegan and the husband has life threatening food allergies. But I had a good, solid plan going in.

You know what they say about the best laid plans…..

After a full day of travel, a representative from the cruise company picked us up and took us to our hotel. A completely different hotel in a different area than where we were told we were staying. It was evening, we were exhausted, and suddenly I didn’t know any safe close restaurants near our hotel.

We ended up staying at the Prague City Center Marriot. There is a restaurant there called The Artisan. We decided just to eat there the first night because we didn’t have the mental powers left to figure something else out and we were starving. I had a simple pasta with marinara sauce and then we went to bed.

The breakfast buffet at the hotel was included with our stay. It was amazing. I’m not a fan of traditional American breakfast foods. I’m always thrilled with the variety on European breakfast buffets.

The buffet had oatmeal with a variety of toppings including soy milk. There were several types of fruit each morning. There were omelet stations and all types of meat that of course we skipped. I loved the baked beans and mushrooms (Bless the British for making this available for breakfast). There were tables full of bread and dessert products – including German pretzels! Pretzels, beans, mushrooms, and fruit made me happy every breakfast!

In all our wandering around Old Town Prague, we never ate at any of the vegan restaurants. In part it was because we were never near one when we were hungry. In part it was because I get a little nervous because they had a lot of the husband’s allergens on their menu.

One nice thing about Czech menus is that there is a standardized allergen listing on most menus. Each dish will have a list of small numbers after it. We knew to avoid number 11.

Olio d’Olvia Pizza

I wanted to try this place because it listed some vegan pizzas on the menu. It is just a small store with a few tables in a mall. The owner was very personable. He’s from Florence originally and makes Italian style pizzas. The vegan pizza I tried was a bit unusual but the dough and sauce was good.

It was no cheese with walnuts and arugula.

Starbucks

Yeah, we were those Americans who went to a Starbucks in a country with a lot of coffee houses, but hear me out. It was cold and drizzly and this Starbucks was right in front of the rotating Kafka statue. We sat at the big picture window and watched the show while warm and dry. We were also able to use the bathroom without paying extra. That’s a good bonus in Prague.

The other thing that I was appreciated in Europe is that the Starbucks don’t charge extra for non-dairy milk. Why can’t we have nice things in the U.S.?

Souvlaki Bar

We were wandering and found a small park. Looking at Google Maps for nearby restaurants led us to this Greek restaurant.

I had roasted eggplant with tomato sauce. It is made with cheese but they had no problems removing that for me.

There are several potentially vegan menu items here. There are Greek salads, a bean dish, and a cauliflower dish.

Laboratorio della Pizza

We were on the far side of the Charles Bridge from our hotel. It was still cold and rainy. Sitting down in this warm restaurant was very nice. It is a busy place. They don’t have any vegan pizzas on their menu so I asked for a vegetable pizza without cheese. This confused the waitress so she sent someone with a better grasp of English to make sure there wasn’t a horrific translation issue. Think of a well made dough and sauce with vegetables as a really big piece of bruschetta and it won’t seem so strange.

Vapiano

Vapiano is a casual chain restaurant. We grabbed takeout pasta here one night. You can pick the type of pasta you would like, the sauce, and any toppings and they cook it for you. Easy vegan meal and none of the husband’s allergens on the menu so no fear of cross contamination. They do use new pans and utensils with every dish if you are concerned about contamination with any of the ingredients that they do have.

Cerna Madona

When we had to kill some time between hotel checkout and our bus arriving to take us to Passau, we spent some time here for tea. It was cold and wet outside again so we needed a warm up.

I thought their tea set was cute. They do give honey with the tea so if you don’t want that, you need to mention it.

Overall, we had no issues with finding food to eat in Prague even while just wandering around without a plan. If I had been by myself I probably would have focused more on finding the vegan restaurants, but eating wherever we were when we got hungry is more of the husband’s style. He didn’t really want to go out of his way for places that might accidentally cross contaminate.