Restaurant Skořepka

more than czech cuisine, directly in Prague city centre

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more than czech cuisine, directly in Prague city centre

About Skorepka restaurant

History

The Skořepka Restaurant is situated in a historical neo-Renaissance building constructed in 1889 by a significant Czech architect Antonín Wiehl (1846-1910), a leading representative of the Czech neo-Renaissance style and, together with the builder Karel Gemperle, a pupil and successor of Josef Zítek, the greatest Czech architect of the 19th Century. Antonín Wiehl was an all-round talent of his time. He was not only an architect, but also a restorer and a conservator and participated in the designing of the exhibition ground for the Czech Jubilee Exhibition in 1891 in Stromovka. The unique building was erected on the foundations of three fourteenth-century houses. One of them belonged to Jakoubek of Stříbro who accompanied Master John Huss to Constance, another later belonged to the Brokoff family, significant sculptors of the Czech Baroque. The architect Wiehl had the new building decorated with sgraffiti of the Czech painter Mikoláš Aleš (1852-1913), the most distinctive representative of the Czech historical romanticism. The original historical medallion on the side of the house in Jilska Street depicted the real person of Catherine of Lokšany, wife of the vice-regent from the period of Rudolf II. The uniqueness of the building is accentuated by the sculpture of the Morning Madonna with the Child blessing all the passers-by.

Before World War I, Max Brod (1884 Prague - 1968 Tel Aviv) - the closest friend and biographer of Franz Kafka (1883-1924) - lived on the third floor of this house. He was a writer, poet, journalist, literary and music critic who discovered for the world the writer Jaroslav Hašek and the composer Leoš Janáček. Brod helped to stage Hašek's The Good Soldier Svejk at German theatres and translated libretti of almost all Janáček's operas into German and wrote the first Janáček's monograph in 1924. Max Brod saved a major part of Franz Kafka's work by not fulfilling Kafka's express testamentary wish to burn all writer's manuscripts after his death and by starting to publish them immediately. Brod is to be credited with conserving one of the greatest literary values of the Twentieth Century.
In 2001 the present owners restored the house expensively and carefully. The house was declared "the best restoration of the year" by a committee of experts.