In conversation with the head chef of Prague's Čestr: Kulajda can evoke more emotions than gels and cubes
Where Czech meat comes first
Pavel, why did you choose this life?
My grandfather steered me towards cooking from a young age. I guess he knew why. Then my apprenticeship played a big role, and an internship in a hotel, where we were taken abroad for culinary competitions. For an apprentice, it's crucial to know what kind of establishment they're getting their first experience in and what they take away from school. If you only go through the brewhouse, and don't get completely discouraged by it, it will be harder for you to get a start in the gastro scene. But the same thing can happen to a chef who knows nothing but Michelin, they learn how to pick herbs and make espuma, but often can't cook a good classic dish.
In recent years, it has been said everywhere that a teaching certificate is not essential, and I agree. But as a chef, I need a novice to have at least some basics. It's not about techniques or recipes. I require them to be able to schedule work, to be able to function in a team, and to show respect for the craft. The test shift will show who has potential and who has an ego that's been jacked to the sky.
What helped you grow professionally?
Every day spent in the kitchen gives you a lesson and the opportunity to improve, but the decisive factor was definitely joining the then Čestr restaurant, where I could move from a regular cook to sous chef. Although it sounds strange, I ended up benefitting from the restaurant closing. As sous-chef, I was just reporting orders on the conveyor belt and spending minimal time behind the stove, so I missed cooking. So the move to Kantýna came at the right time, as did the later offer to be the chef at the new Čestr.
Have you transferred anything from the original concept to the current one?
We continue to develop our work with meat, which receives the care of a butcher and a chef. We concentrate on the processing and on the appropriate finishing of each part, and 80% of the meat is prepared in the sauna. But I knew from the beginning that I wanted to take a different approach to the cuisine. We decided to build a restaurant with its own identity, although it wasn't easy at first. Many diners were expecting the return of the last Čestr, comparing menus and saying that the tartare used to be better four years ago. So one New Year's Eve we mixed both versions so people could taste the difference and understand how we cook and think.
How are you different from the former Čestr?
In our approach to ingredients. We came up with a completely new menu and started looking for smaller and local suppliers, which is where we get most of our goods from today. For example, we buy flour from Střížov, Bohemian cumin and poppy seeds from Vysočina and horseradish from Polabí, eggs from U Matoušků, snails from Dolní Chaber or oils from Petráveč. We prefer what is grown in the Czech Republic and without chemicals, and we also evaluate the quality based on the story behind the raw material.
Our menus follow the season, which we learn to use to the fullest so that it serves us all year round. Cooking seasonally means working with what grows in the here and now - when strawberry season hits, we add them fresh to the plate, but at the same time we order another hundred kilos of strawberries that we can preserve and serve in the fall and winter. This year we preserved 160 kg of blueberries for dumplings.
How many can you produce yourself?
We produce 90% of all the semi-finished products ourselves. We only order plum jam and truffle butter for the Perigord sauce. Incidentally, we also cook that differently than we did years ago - we've taken the duck liver and port out of the recipe and just use demi-glace, Madeira and the aforementioned truffle butter. We even bake brioche and rye bread from sourdough, which we mix into the dough for the lángos and the tartare, but during the year we mainly preserve, ferment and pickle. We recently processed 150 kg of rosehips into marmalade and have about 400 kg of pickled mushrooms in jars.
We invest a lot of energy in processing the harvest, especially at the peak of the season when we have to process a huge amount of ingredients as quickly as possible while they are in top condition and at top price. Farmers can't bring them to us by the pound, so we stock a lot of fruit and vegetables. We go to work earlier in the summer and have to make do with one kitchen, but it pays off. Because we're stocking up for the winter months and creating produce that we can stand behind.
What is your collaboration with farmers like?
Great, although it has a few catches. The first is the fact that a lot of farmers don't tie up restaurants. On rare occasions, we'll go to them in person, but we just can't make it in the normal course of business. In addition, not every supplier is able to provide the volume of ingredients we require - Struhy Farm brings us 2x 50 kilos of butter a week, and some farmers are phasing out. The list of farmers is therefore constantly changing, also depending on the season - in winter it naturally gets shorter as fresh ingredients become scarce, and we rely more on our own supplies.
What do you use as a guide when choosing suppliers?
Locality is sometimes determined by distance from the restaurant, but I find it more important to meet the farmer in person. Not only is it a better way to communicate, but I also have the opportunity to learn more about the ingredients. You just have to go to farmers' markets now and then, and suddenly you can see how many varieties of garlic there are or how the properties of potatoes change throughout the year. In addition, you can get contacts to other producers.
Discovering raw materials is part of our profession, but we can't go into detail - we serve about 250 guests a day in Čestr. We have to make it quick and easy to serve, say, six tables at a time, so we only allow ourselves more experimentation in the cold kitchen. We play with tradition in our starters - an example is the duck leg croquette, which is marinated, smoked, peeled and mixed with béchamel and egg yolk. The mixture is formed into balls which are rolled, fried and served with red cabbage espuma, cruciferous vegetables and duck bone demi-glace. Potato and celery breadcrumbs replace the dumpling.
Where do you go for inspiration?
The preserves rack. Sometimes I look in old cookbooks with recipe transcripts, but they give me more rough inspiration, like Instagram, I guess. At the end of the day, we go with what we have on hand, so something original comes out every time. As a rule, we stick to the traditional flavours and essence of a given dish and gently transform it. We served, for example, pork from Přestina on paprika with a gnocchi of fermented cabbage and sour cream - after stirring, a Szeged goulash appeared on the plate.
We're presenting Czech cuisine, but to be honest, I'm not sure it even exists. Even if we were to refer to local ingredients, we would come to the conclusion that our cuisine is not quite ours - it has evolved over hundreds of years in the space we share with Austrians, Germans and Hungarians, and I don't think it can be clearly defined. That's also why I watch chefs from neighbouring countries where they have similar ingredients and customs to ours.
What did you have to learn as a chef?
I have accepted the fact that all the responsibility lies with me. I have to take care of all the people on the team - from the butcher to the lady on the greens, and make sure the conditions are such that they enjoy their work. But it's clear that everyone has slightly different demands.
I insist on a balance - it has to be fun, but when business picks up, the war starts and I don't like to be argued with. In the same way, I want the staff to respect each other, the ingredients and the restaurant itself. As a chef, I realised that there needs to be a hierarchy and a natural respect in the kitchen - the king is not the one who claims to be the king.
What is your personal motivation?
I'm a chef, so I get a kick out of happy guests. Most pros just want to cook and touch people through food. Some people serve a would-be work of art, but I prefer simplicity and cooking with the few perfect ingredients I get directly from the farmers - kulajda can evoke more emotion than gels and cubes cut to exact size.
What motivates me at Čestr is that we are constantly moving forward without backing down from our priorities. At the moment, Amas and I are thinking of going around to a couple of breeders and finding a farm where they will fatten up a select cut of beef especially for us. It could be another way to get closer to the raw and deliver something special to the table.
Where do you see yourself in the future?
I don't have a specific plan. All I know is that Čestr is also a stepping stone for me - I'd love to one day run my own restaurant where a guy in overalls and a tie can go.
