All by myself: Where to Get Coffee as an Introvert in Prague

It seems illogical that an introvert should love going out. And yet we do. However, we often go out for reasons contrary to why extrovert’s head to the nearest bar. It is not a journey to meet someone or get social, it is a time to engage in a solitary activity and dive into the inner world of thought, perceptions and sensations. Whenever an extrovert goes out to make a new acquaintance, an introvert will often prefer to read a book, do some writing or appreciate the multitude of tastes that his food offers him.

The Internet abounds in advice on how to dine like an introvert. Some of it is quite amusing, like:

• bring a book to read instead of a magazine — a magazine or a newspaper makes an impression that whatever you are reading is short and unimportant and may attract unwanted conversation. Reading from a phone, you might look equally desperate for company in an extrovert’s eye
• hide the name of the book behind the cover so people can’t strike up a conversation about it
• sit at the very end of a bar to minimise social interaction

While you may choose to follow or disregard this advice, I suggest you head to a cafe anyway. Here’s my list of cafes in Prague where you can have a decent cup of coffee and be left alone, if that’s what your heart desires.

Mama coffee

I found Mama coffee by chance. I wanted to have a look at a New Town Tower and followed the Vodičkova street heading to Vaclavske namesti. On my right I saw big steel-framed windows and cosy tables inside, so I gave it a chance. At the time I was starting to get desperate about finding decent coffee in Prague.

This place is more than simply good coffee in the city center (and believe me when I say finding good coffee is not as easy as it might seem). It has a great vibe due to the abundance of green plants, vintage furniture and photographs on the walls. It was there that my husband and I bought two framed photographs by František Beneš — a mysterious Czech photographer who voyaged across Europe and Africa and captured people and life at the turn of the century. Why is Beneš mysterious? His photo negatives have only recently been discovered and archived by another Czech photographer, Martin Wágner, but there is little information about Beneš himself.

It was in this caffee I saw a girl with Jack Russell and I had a thought that it was the very dog breed I needed. The Asian girl was sitting on a stool at a bar, slowly retracting dog biscuits from a pocket of her black jacket and feeding it to a dog who was watching her with lively and attentive eyes. The universe works in unique ways, and a day later we got Josef from a shelter, who is a mix of a Jack and a daschund, our misbehaving and beloved pup.

The café has solid desserts and very affordable house wines, so you can safely hide away in a corner with a book or with your work on a laptop.

Neustadt

Minus: they don’t serve coffee after 7 p.m. except for filtered coffee.

Plus: enchanting courtyard. If you are lucky enough you might even hear some music — there is a piano open for public to play. When the sounds fill up the courtyard, it is the most enchanting experience. The music will play its charm upon you.

Neustadt is a hipster place and rightly so. Just sit down and listen to how the voices of people around you echo from the walls of the courtyard. Look at the grapes on the adjacent wall and the little tower which will make you think a Rapunzel might actually feel quite comfortable here.

Literární kavárna Retêzova

If you find yourself in that very hellish part of town which is swarmed with tourists, you’ll crave to end up in a quiet place. Well, I’ve got you covered. Retezova street is in the very center but miraculously manages to stay crowd-free. The first time we came to Literarní kavarna was on our first visit to Prague. It was winter and in the middle of the day the place was empty. And so was it on all of my other visits. This is the perfect place to blog away, being inspired by all the black-and-white photographs of writers who used to frequent this place.

Mind you, despite the lack of people the service can be a bit slow — on the other hand, why hurry when you have all day to write that article?

Grand Café Orient

The very building in which Grand Cafe Orient is situated brings you back to an era of Czech cubism — all things pre-war, avant-garde, revolutionary and rebellious. I have never seen anything quite like it in design, and it is easy to see why Czech cubism is something the nation takes pride in — crystalline shapes and unexpected angles of ordinary objects. Its idea was to reject the secessionist architecture and yet if you look closely its aesthetic is as decorative as the style it rejected.

Paradoxically, Grand Cafe Orient on the second floor is less cubist, more art nouveau. The coffee is alright, this is definitely a place for people-watching, tourist-watching, to be precise. Yet the atmosphere lashes your imagination and it runs away like a wild steed into an era where rebelling with art was possible without the phones, but with the work full of expression.

Louvre

I didn’t want to include Louvre first because it defies my theory. At midday, it is definitely not a good place for introverts, because it’s packed with tourists. And even if you do get a place a stranger will most certainly come up and wish to sit with you. And if they sit down, they’ll most certainly engage into conversation with you. It happened to me on my last visit. An American lady, desperate for a lunch spot, sat down on the bench across from me, and as she was doing that already, I offered her to join me for lunch not to seem rude. We had a small talk about this and that — she was living in LA, came to Prague for a screenwriting and poetry workshop — don’t get me wrong, I love meeting artistic people, but it was not what I came to the cafe for. I came to dive into my own inner world, remember?

And yet I could not make a list of my favourite cafes and not include this one. There’s something absolutely tantalising in dining at the same table as Franz Kafka, Max Brod, Karel Čapek and Albert Einstein could have dined. They could have been writing letters, having philosophical readings or using these tables as a temporary office. That link to a different epoch amazes me and makes me fantasise: how different did life feel at that time? Did it feel less hectic? Cruel? Paced? More authentic? More like you owned it because there wasn’t any technology involved? Because you weren’t bombarded by all these little notifications and e-mails and messages that keep your mind in all other possible places but not actually in your life?

As you can see, it is a good place for meditation. As a bonus, this place has the only proper Turkish coffee in Prague, made and served in a proper little copper cezve. Mmm!

Cukrkavalimonada

Simply the best place in Mala Strana (the area of Prague on the other side of Charles Bridge). Especially good for salads, pasta and mouth-watering desserts. Because the tables are so close to each other, also very good for eavesdropping. Once I overheard a conversation between a woman — she was a teacher of Czech — and her date, apparently a “project manager”. I initially thought he was a spy, because he was carefully avoiding all talk about his work, giving vague answers like — “I am from US and work on some projects that have to do with Europe”. But in the end I thought may be he was just an asshole, trying to sound more important than he really was.

Anyway, if you love fresh food with an Italian twist — this place calls upon you. Be sure to bring a decent amount of cash though, as they don’t accept credit cards!

Do you enjoy visiting cafes by yourself? What does your favourite cafe look and feel like? I’d be very curious to know. And if you recommend another atmospherical cafe in Prague, i’ll be more than happy to check it out and include it in my list! Happy cafe-strolling!