Cocktail Wonk Rating: 6/10
This relatively new bar came highly recommended to us by the guide on our food tour. Although not on my list of bars to visit, it was close enough to our hotel to make it easy to drop in.
In contrast to some of the elaborately done-up and thematic bars in Prague (Bugsy’s, Tretter’s), Public Interest is very minimalist. Painted concrete (?) walls hold a few mirrors and movie posters. Lighting is minimal, except for a few artfully placed Edison bulbs (Mrs. Wonk says: Good to know that Eastern Europe has not escaped the scourge of the exposed filament bulb…long may it burn.) I’m all for a dark bar, but I struggled to read the menu without using light from my iPhone screen.
The typewriter-font menu on a clipboard is moderately short and not overly ambitious compared to other bars in Prague. Drinks are divided by base spirit with at most two per spirit.
I started with the Medicine (rye, ginger, lemon, fig puree, honey), which was competent but not exceptional. Mrs. Wonk’s Lavender Gimlet (gin, lavender syrup, lemon, lime cordial) was way too sweet for either of our tastes. (Mrs. Wonk readily admits that her eyes glazed over at the word “cordial”—or she might have anticipated the resulting sugar bomb.) I closed out our visit with the Teqroni (tequila, rum, Campari, vermouth) which tasted about what you’d expect a Negroni to taste like if you swapped the gin for tequila. Drinks were invariably garnished with a wheel of dehydrated citrus—which we weren’t sure was a cultural norm or a new trend. (One of the bartenders we later chatted with voted for trend.)
All told, Public Interest seems like a reasonable place to get a decent drink, but I wasn’t wowed by it the way I was by other bars in Prague. In fairness to them, they were packed with loud, boisterous drinkers (who seemed to like to bonk Mrs. Wonk in the back of the head with various elbows and body parts) when we visited, so there was no opportunity to chat with the bartenders and go beyond the standard menu. That said, it is a modern, pretty room with a modern, pretty crowd—which seems to be on the upswing in the Prague market. It was nice not to see a room try to look like 1937 New York but rather like 2014 Prague by way of London or San Francisco. Nonetheless, putting aside “busy bar” syndrome, I wasn’t compelled to make a return visit at a quieter time. And keep an eye out for the lime cordial.
