Kids in Prague

Taverna Olympos with outdoor playground, Prague 3

Restaurants and Cafes on 06 August 2012 by Larissa

This is an absolute favorite of ours as it’s located close to home and offers such a respite from the burning tarmac during a Prague heatwave over Summer. This restaurant from the street looks nothing special, but behind it’s facade is a cool, tree-filled garden restaurant with a kid’s playground. We’ve debated writing about this restaurant on the website because the playground is not EU compliant by any means, the equipment was installed a long time ago and has been patched up over the years - your children need to enter at their own risk.

If you’ve just returned from a beach holiday down south particularly to Greece, or if you haven’t but would like to experience something similar within Prague, then Taverna Olympos hits the spot. The Nedelkos family have been operating this Zizkov establishment since 1997 and have honed their menu to cater to many different tastes. There is quite a good amount of seafood as well as souvlaki dishes cooked on the bbq and a great range of mezze plates too.

As a family we usually get a range of dishes to share such as tzatsiki (yoghurt and cucumber dip), grilled pitta bread, greek salad, tyropites (cheese pies in filo pastry), grilled haloumi and sardines. The environment is casual and relaxed, once seated I’m sure you’d be welcome to stay all day or all night (well until the 10pm curfew for outdoor dining/drinking comes in). We usually request a table close to the kid’s playground, this allows us to watch over the children and they are free to run back to our table for drinks and food as it arrives.

The playground is sandy so it’s probably best that your kids do not wear their best clothes. I’d also recommend a few additional toys to bring along if you’ll be staying a while - maybe some cars or digger toys or anything else that will entertain your child in the sand pit. There are a few plastic toys provided but they are a bit worn out. Now the equipment at the playground consists of a baby swing, a couple of basic swings (wood and rope), a playhouse and a rather steep set of steps to reach it plus a steeply angled slide and the aforementioned sandpit. Not a lot but it seems to be enough before, in between and after meals. The playground also works best when you have other children there that can entertain your own.

I’ve mentioned before that the equipment is rather rustic, Darina actually had words to the management a few years back and they mentioned a renovation was to be undertaken - well yes, that did happen but… you could hardly tell the difference! Anyway, we adults probably grew up on similar types of playground equipment ourselves. I have to say that so far i’ve seen no playground accident during one of our many visits - maybe we are becoming too precious for rubber coated flooring and safety compliant equipment….? Anyway, you be the judge.

The purpose of our blog is to share with you worthwhile family experiences in Prague so despite the ‘rustic’ playground I just had to include this place as we really do eat here an awful lot and enjoy it a lot. So, here is a tip - if you’re having trouble settling the kids in the heat head out for dinner here and let them burn off some steam in the playground and under the trees till 9.00-9.30pm when the evening cools down. Oh and they also have a fridge full of ice creams too.

Finally, I’d recommend calling in advance to reserve a table especially if you have a large group or if it’s the weekend or a lovely warm evening.