It would even be part of a kind of social standard and festive Sunday afternoon – a walk or a visit and then: with a meaningful smile, off to the cukrárna. And there, among the cakes, ice-cream and all kinds of other delights, you suddenly find yourself in an incomparable world completely cut off from the noise of cars and trams, the bustle and worries of life. Once the door closes behind you and you are embraced by the sweet, familiar aroma of coffee and cakes, you forget that any world outside still exists. On the contrary, the world of the cukrárna is the one that exists “through the looking-glass”.
A glimpse at the history of the cukrárna
The first ice-cream parlour opened long ago in New York in 1776. Ten years later, in Vienna, Ludwig Dehne became famous when he opened a “Konditorei” (Austrian equivalent of cukrárna) next to the Josef II Theatre selling ice-cream, sorbet, almond milk and other delicacies. He later gained a rival in Franz Sacher, who created the famous cake with apricot jam and a thick topping of chocolate.
The sale of sweet treats was not unknown in Prague either. In the first half of the 1770s there were already four coffee-shops where it was possible to sit and enjoy cakes and other delights. Another place of renown was Růžodol in Karlín, a building with a garden offering a pub, coffee-shop, confectioner’s and delicatessen as well as a skittles alley and dance hall.
At the turn of the century and beginning of the 20th century the sweet temptation spread much further: As early as 1910 František Myšák opens the legendary cukrárna on Vodičková street. Two years later a coffee-shop (with confectionary) is opened in the cubist style House of the Black Madonna, followed by the Berger cukrárna, also on Vodičková, a cukrárna and coffee-shop in the Juliš hotel on Václavské náměstí (Wenceslas Square), or the Erhardtova cukrárna opened in 1937 on Milada Horáková street, among many others. Sweet foods were also eaten in many hotels (Paris Hotel, Savoy…) and coffee-shops (Korso, Imperial, Slavia…). Vodičková street was evidently inclined towards cukrárnas, as the first fruit-cukrárna to open in Prague, selling sorbet ice-cream, also came into existence here, in the Světozor arcade. To this day it remains one of the most frequented locations. Several others among those most famous places have been, or will be, re-opened. Some have disappeared completely, to be replaced by other, perhaps smaller, but usually no less welcoming establishments.