Cafe Putyka

Hearty food at reasonable prices. Friendly service. Czech beer on tap. What’s not to like?

This was the best meal I’ve had in a long time. The steak was tender, chips cooked just right and the pudding was to die for. Please check it out. You won’t be disappointed.

I must be blessed, in this life. When I lived in Crows Nest, a Czech beer café selling cheap draught and hearty, rich Eastern European fare opened up around the corner. That was Bazaar — a local haunt until we moved a few suburbs down to Lavender Bay. We still visited Bazaar, but not so often. In the interim, I’ve put up with store-​bought longnecks of Kozel. Czech beer remains the best beer.
The owner back then was a barrel-​chested Czech bloke who has since sold the venture and dabbled in projects around the area. His latest is Café Putyka. It’s another restaurant on the lower North Shore, this time with an upmarket bent; you know, tablecloths and wineglasses, all the peripheral stuff. Luckily, it still retains the strong national identity, fantastic, traditional kitchen — including Czech special mains for under $ 20, like goulash and lamb shoulder — and, of course, the cheap draught beer, exported from the old country explicitly for the purpose of me drinking it. The house slosh is real good.
Which is convenient, because this time it’s even closer — one pedestrian crossing away from my front door. If it’s true that beer is proof that God wants us to be happy, then I must have hit some karmic jackpot in the last life; either that or the barrel-​chested Czech bloke with a big laugh and a tendency to swear knows exactly how good I am for business. Or maybe… just maybe…
If The Lord were to walk on this Earth, he might just…
Nah…