During the Renaissance, under the reign of the exxentric emperor Rudolf II, there was a wine shop on this spot and the building was called „The wine merchants“. Nowdays a hanging sign announces „ The Alchemist“ Althought itś almost as hard to find the Alchymist restaurant in one of the Lesser Town hidden back streets as it was for Rudolf´s Alchemists to discover the philosopher´s stone or the elixir of life, there´s more to the name than that. In fact the restaurant´s title and its richly decorated interior express the fact that a good kitchen is something like and alchemist´s laboratory. Just as in times past the alchemistrs tried to transform ordinary substances into gold, good cooks conjure up magical culinary creations from everyday ingredients. In both cases, the aim was to create something noble out of the mundane. The design of the interior is intended to suggest the stages in this process. The simple ceiling in the first of its five rooms symbolizes the so far blank sheet of knowledge, the last-with its arch, decorated by interwined flowers – suggests the final enlightenment and understanding. As over-the-top as Rudolf II and his Prague court, the interior is an extraordinary micture of baroque, oriental influences and Versace. In an Arabian corner resplendent with oil paintings of belly dancers and towering ornamental Cornithian pillars, guests sit in silvered armchairs, upholstered in zebra-patterned fabric, around a circular Louis XIV-style table... The food and drinks menus, which involuntarily betray the nationality of the owner, are certainly more streamlined in style than the interior. Where the food´s concerned, it´s the Italian influence that dominates – and the same goes for most of the wine on offer which comes from Piedemnot, Lombardy, Sardinia, Tuscany, Veneto and other famous wine-growing regions below the Apennines. Residence Nosticova
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