Il Gattopardo

The place is operated by the owner of A Putia, a Sicilian specialty shop which is located opposite the restaurant, so clearly it’s a restaurant specializing in Sicilian cuisine.
It’s quite spacious, and has seating for about 50 people, but might easily host a party for 70 if more chairs were brought in. It’s decorated with photos of scenes from Il Gattopardo movie, generally the décor is a bit eclectic, but not bad.

We were the first customers, we came at about 11.45. We were waited by a nice Italian gentleman, service is a bit slow but attentive. He handed us the menus and informed us that we could order from special menu only, it was the lunch menu for this week. This special menu offered 2 antipasto dishes (prosciutto and bruschetta), 4 pasta dishes and 4 meat dishes (2 pork, 1 chicken and 1 beef). All dishes in this menu ranged from 110czk to 170czk, which is acceptable IMHO.

The main menu is quite extensive and also fairly priced, I will post some photos of the menu at the end of this post because the restaurant has no website. They also have a monthly special wine offer with 5 wines about 100-150czk cheaper than the regular price. There are wines around the 250czk mark but also some much more expensive ones. They also offer a wide variety of Italian drinks, including 6 kinds of Italian beer, soft drinks, mineral waters etc. I was pleased to see that they also offer the more decently priced Czech Korunní water, a thing not too common in places like this, where you end up ordering stuff like San Pellegrino and Aqua Panna.
We were after some pasta and so mom ordered tagliatelle with artichokes, chicken and cream (130czk), I ordered the lasagna (110czk) and we also ordered the tuna bruschettino (120czk) to share.

Mom’s tagliatelle were very good. They were clearly made from fresh pasta, not my favourite in Prague restaurants because it often comes out too soft and overcooked, these ones were perfectly al dente. There was a perfect amount of sauce, and although it needed some salt, it was very tasty and delicate. The chicken meat was not roasted, it was “pulled” and added a nice texture to the dish.

My lasagna was equally good, if not better. The photo is not too appetizing, in fact, it looks plain bad to say the least :)) The ragú had a pronounced meat flavor with a perfect amount of tomatoe. It looks like a small piece, but believe me, it was so rich that this smallish piece was more than enough.

The bruschettino was a bit odd IMHO. The huge piece of bread was smeared with some tuna paste that tasted very "sharp", it clearly contained tuna, onion and vinegar. On top of that there were small pieces of mozzarella, tuna, tomatoes and capers. The taste of the paste was very intensive and I’m not sure if I liked it. It’s probably an acquired taste.
We had espresso after the meal, it was extremely strong, it least for us. I’m not a big coffee drinker and felt like I drank 3 redbulls afterwards.

If you are looking for a fast lunch I suggest you get there later than we did, we waited almost 45 minutes for our food. People that came later were served faster, the kitchen must have started to fully operate by then, as I said, we were the first customers.

There is no other place in the area that serves such good pasta.

Next time we will sample some antipasti, meat and fish dishes from the regular menu. Generally, I thought that it was a nice spot and I would go back for the lasagna any time.

Sorry for the lousy photos, I still can’t get used to making photos in the dark.
Here are some pages from the menu, I think it looks interesting although a bit too extensive.

No matter how hard I look I simply can’t find the function with which the photos can be opened full size in a new window. The menu must be difficult to read in this size. Can anyone help me with that?? :-)