Cafe Slavia

Brief information

Slavia’s large windows seem like a natural privilege for a café by the Vltava, but they appeared as part of a carefully planned renovation: the 1931-1932 reconstruction opened the interior to the panorama of Prague. That is why the view of Prague Castle, the Vltava, the Petrin Tower, and Mala Strana here is connected not only with a fortunate angle on Narodni Avenue, but also with a specific architectural decision.

The café occupied the ground floor of the Neo-Renaissance Lazansky Palace, built as a rare blend of representative residence, apartment building, and administrative premises. The first halls appeared in vacant rooms, and its proximity to the National Theatre quickly made this place not just a convenient café, but part of the city’s cultural scene.

What to notice right away

It makes sense to look at Slavia as a café that gradually removed the boundary between the palace interior and the city. The large windows are important not only for the view: they were installed during the reconstruction together with the demolition of internal partitions, so that the space would become more open and visually closer to the street, the river, and the theatre opposite.

Inside, you can compare the Art Deco details: marble and wooden panels, leather booths, large mirrors, and round tables. They show how the ground floor of a former palace was transformed into a modern café of the 1930s. A less obvious part of the same modernization was the cloakroom lifts, mechanical ventilation, and new sanitary facilities: behind the decorative finish stood the technology of comfort. The Parnas space recalls that the café also expanded, while Viktor Oliva’s painting “The Absinthe Drinker” gave the interior its own artistic accent.