Homemade Art / Bread Boom in Prague

For a long time, the people of Prague had to be content with industrially produced bread – until Antonin Kokes decided to bring more taste to the pastries. He triggered a boom.

When he talks about the supermarket bread, as he calls it, Antonin Kokes raises the corners of his mouth contemptuously: “It’s such a soft bread with no taste.” For many Czechs that was the only thing they knew a few years ago: there were almost no artisan bakeries in the country, instead there were mainly large baking companies on an industrial scale. Antonin Kokes was walking the Way of St. James with a friend at the time; the entrepreneur needed a break from day-to-day business.

Inspiration from Bavaria and Switzerland

“We went through Bavaria and Switzerland and saw these fragrant bakeries everywhere in the small towns, and mostly a small café. There was nothing like that in the Czech Republic. That’s where my idea came from,” he remembers. Kokes handed over his thriving company to an outside manager and went in search of the perfect bread.

“I drove through a number of bakeries in Nuremberg and Regensburg. It was interesting how open they were: ‘Come in, we’ll show you!'” That was his first inspiration. “Later I got involved in our own experiments here in Prague, so that the bread turned out the way I imagined. But I’m not a baker myself.”

There has been good bread in Prague for seven years

It’s been seven years since he opened his own business. Antoninovo Pekarstvi – translated: Antonin’s Bakery – is located in a trendy part of Prague. The goods are displayed in simple wooden counters, customers can watch the bakers at work next to them, and there are a few tables next to the door so that you can drink your coffee in peace.

Friends tried to talk him out of the idea, says Kokes, but he refused to be dissuaded. “The first few days showed that we were right: people were queuing, at the very beginning there were even waiting numbers for the bread, because we wouldn’t have been able to keep up without a reservation.” In the meantime he has noticed how he and his colleagues have helped to change the entire environment: “Look around, there are lots of small shops with food, delicacies and even new bakeries are emerging!” Kokes emphasizes that this is competition that he is happy about.

His own bakery now has branches in many districts of Prague, in each individual branch the bread is not baked, but made by hand from the dough to the finished product. Back then, Kokes triggered a real trend: since then, new bakeries have been popping up in Prague. Because for many customers, supermarket bread is no longer enough.

Invigorating competition from Iceland

One of the pioneers is Davíd Arnórsson, who actually comes from Iceland and was amazed by the flour on his first visit to Prague: “We don’t have such flour, it doesn’t grow in nature in our country. I’ve been a baker for almost 30 years – and here I felt like I was in fairyland. It’s like a dream come true.”

And so he decided to open a bakery in Prague with an Icelandic friend: they called it Artic Bakehouse. “We spent a year preparing everything here in the shop, we did most of it ourselves because we only had a small budget,” says Arnórsson proudly.

The walls in the bakery are dark, music is playing from the loudspeakers; it should be small and friendly. Arnórsson and his bakery are now something of a local celebrity; in normal times, tourists queue up in front of his shop, which smells of fresh bread in summer and winter alike. Now, in the Corona period, even more local Prague residents are coming. They mostly queue for the sweet Icelandic specialities.

First a niche product, now a boom

“In the beginning we baked them so that people could just try them. And now I’ve been baking them in large quantities for three years. These are real Icelandic traditional pastries,” says Arnórsson. The Icelander is currently converting a large shop opposite his current bakery: He wants to bake there in the future, his first premises have become too small for him.

The demand for good bread is unbroken in the Czech Republic. Antonin Kokes and Davíd Arnórsson and their bakeries have triggered a real boom. There’s only one thing he misses in Prague, says Arnórsson: “I miss Icelandic butter. I would say it’s one of the best in the world. I really miss it.”