The very tastefully built Oblik Resort boasts high standards, whether in the suites or the common areas, including a private pool and a large open area with barbecue facilities, as well as gardens with luxury glamping. The cuisine is also supposed to be top-notch, but it's struggling so far. The important thing is that it is somehow managing the onslaught. In any case, it is and will be interesting to see further developments.
About an hour's drive from Prague, the owner is putting the finishing touches on an impressive resort called Oblik, which includes the Remedi Restaurant. It has only been open for two months, and the ambition, taste, and culinary passion are evident. Everything is still in the process of being put together, and the individual components need to be fine-tuned. Yet at first glance, a guest will already feel cared for and well-fed. But we've looked under the hood in the kitchen—literally.
The Tasting Menu is Second to None
To be clear from the outset—Josef Pindur, the brand new chef at Resort Oblik, is one of the top chefs in the Czech gastroscene. Without exaggeration, he can be ranked among the TOP 5 active chefs in the Czech Republic. He has defended the Michelin Guide star for the French restaurant Maison Kieny as a chef, earned the same restaurant 15 out of 20 possible points in the Gault Millau, moved from two caps to three, and also received a regional award at the same time. It's quite reasonable to assume that if he hadn't resigned from the business, as he says, Maison Kieny's cuisine would have continued to grow in quality. However, Josef did resign, and after several "hopes" from various investors, who in the Czech Republic classically feel that the restaurant should be their living room first and the cuisine only comes third, and after almost a year spent abroad as a private chef, he recently landed at Resort Oblik, specifically in its restaurant Remedi.
And back to the one Michelin Guide star you can enjoy in a way at Oblik. The tasting menu that the kitchen under the direction of Josef Pindur is currently serving here is the same one with which he defended his star at the aforementioned French restaurant Maison Kieny, and also the last one he prepared at this French establishment. At Oblik, then, he logically follows the same style and philosophy, which is all the more reason to appreciate a trip to the resort.
In a relatively short period of time, beds of vegetables, herbs, and strawberries have greened up behind the resort buildings. Sitting behind the restaurant as the drone scoops up material for this report, we watch with one eye as the chefs run out of the kitchen and cut fresh herbs, then run back into the kitchen and use the plant pieces straight away. The whole resort smells wonderful. There are stables, there are even beehives—it feels like a very complex and comfortable connection with nature, from the glamping to the cuisine.
The interior of the place is beautiful and impressive at first sight. More than the long bar, the restaurant is dominated by comfortable fur armchairs arranged in a circle around the wood-burning stove. But you won't get there until later. First, the staff will seat you at the tables. They're elegant, as is the whole interior of the restaurant.
40 Plus Guests
We have several groups of guests sitting at the tables with us. Later, we learn that they have reservations for about forty guests for the evening, which is actually full capacity for the place and a decent stress test over the course of about two hours. Why? Because the five-member culinary team, including the chef, offers not only a tasting menu but also à la carte, room service, including glamping. The tables are set tastefully but lack a couvert plate and butter knife. They are not—we learn later from the kitchen. We think the manager of a restaurant with the kind of cuisine being cooked here should definitely insist on couvert. We order the tasting menu and the cooking show can begin.
We don't order alone; everyone before and after us orders in a relatively short time, which puts maximum strain on the small kitchen team. A trio of amuse-bouche—canapés—is preceded by a selection of pastries and a combination of butter, mushrooms, and peas. The three canapés—tomato chips with tomato jam and fresh cow's cheese, tomato dust, hazelnut cake with poultry pâté and hazelnuts, meringue of basil chlorophyll and tomato syrup with candied cherry tomato and lemon and aloe vera—set the bar very high. The flavors of all three are intense, and a lot of culinary skill is already evident in these first greetings from the kitchen. The textures, the invention, and the attention to detail—if it continues like this, it will be great.
Next up are the Duck Interior Balls, which are balls formed from duck gizzards, hearts, and foie gras wrapped in spinach leaves, with Lyon onion espuma, onion caramel, and brioche chips with lemon extract. It's a dish served on Josef Pindur's signature plates, which also feature his fingerprint. He has them made in France, making use of his connections acquired during his work abroad. The plate itself looks like a piece of art, and the culinary art on it only confirms that we are dealing with a top Czech chef who definitely has something to offer the Czech gastro scene. The wine prepared for the pairing from the Wilomenna winery, which is a cuvée of top varieties of Tramin red, Pinot Blanc, and Müller Thurgau, is pleasantly dry and complements the dish well.
The next dish, veal tartare with beef consommé reduced to a jelly, complete with a mousse of 32-month aged Parmesan, is a nice modern piece, complemented by Riesling from the same winery as the previous food pairing. Moreover, it is a notional precursor to the signature dish that follows. They're sexy-looking Lasagnette with parsley chlorophyll, stuffed with beef tail; the fermented sauerkraut dressing is so cheeky in flavor it's almost genius.
Meanwhile, the kitchen is running at full speed. We can hear the cooks working as we walk in, wavering in concentration. Josef Pindur directs the chefs, supervising and personally preparing the final plating of the plates. Dishes from the tasting menu are interspersed with à la carte dishes, which unfortunately upsets the rhythm of the tasting, but ultimately, it's all about whether the restaurant guest recognizes it. Returning to the table, everyone dining in the establishment seems happy rather than nervous or embarrassed, so the kitchen manages.
At other times, among the sounds from the kitchen, we hear, as the nearest table to the kitchen, the necessary encouragement, instruction, incentive: "Don't slow down! Let's keep going!"
A lightly braised and salted whitefish with baby greens, caviar, and a strong vegetable minestrone with herb infusion lightens the tasting for a moment before the last main course begins. Service with the whitefish is accompanied by Mystery rosé wine, again from Wilomenna winery, which is starting to be a shame. We understand the local motives, but to focus on the production of one winery in three cases is a bit unnecessary. It would have been enough to stay with wine pairings in Bohemia and Moravia; the resulting local effect would have been the same, the pairings more colorful, and the flavors far more interesting thanks to the different winemaker approaches or locations.
The imaginary main star of the tasting evening, apart from the chef of course, is an honest piece of veal thymus with roasted stuffed morels accompanied by white asparagus prepared in garlic honey, garlic puree, and chips created from black fermented garlic, infused with veal jus. The bold, intense dish imaginatively rounds off the tasting in a very spectacular way both on the plate and for the palate. It could end there, and we would be convinced.
Returns to Oblik
The kitchen ultimately sends two desserts. First, a celery-apple sorbet made from Granny Smith apples, underneath an apple puree with basil infusion from the same apple variety, this time confitted in an aromatic pepper syrup, accompanied by candied and confitted lemons, garnished with pieces of celery, apple, citrus zest with freshly picked herbs. All this on a yogurt mousse from Krasolesí, which helps the different textures and the whole dessert surprise the mouth with different flavors and consistencies. Delicious.
Strawberry tartare, as the main dessert, is served with strawberry sorbet, lemon-vanilla mousse with rhubarb and strawberry sauce. Of course, it responds perfectly to the season, catching the guest's eye at first glance with its visuals but mainly with its combination of light flavors and textures. Here, the kitchen went for the safe side, which we applaud.
The very end belongs to the petit fours and conversations with the chef after the guests have finished eating and left. With Remedi Restaurant at Resort Oblik, we have just experienced an onerous Friday test that a chef would hardly want to experience regularly. Despite this, the tasting menu was of a very high standard, thanks in part to the preparations that preceded the evening.
Each of the courses on this tasting menu is the hallmark of advanced cookery from someone who has worked, cooked, and tasted, from someone who knows what they are doing and can build even a long tasting menu very well for foodies. The dishes had all the ingredients from intense flavors to interesting textures to a subtle acidic moment in each dish to open up the taste buds. Finally, once again, one of the few chefs who has returned from foreign kitchens after years of experience and training to run a business, provided the restaurant owner or operator is a reasonable partner. You just want to come back to Oblik, and you want to enjoy it.
The Remedi Restaurant at the Oblík Resort is a diamond that still needs to be polished. Josef Pindur's cuisine should be, apart from the high comfort of the Oblík Resort, one of the main arguments to come here. But to fully stand out, it needs a few other elements, which definitely include a bigger team in the kitchen or a more carefully controlled reservation system. Otherwise, the kitchen's small group of chefs is, to put it popularly, getting tired for now. Also, a restaurant manager, preferably in one person with a sommelier function adequate to the chef, and more overall synchronization. Otherwise, the guests will not have a chance to appreciate the great honest cooking of chef Josef Pindur, who can be the envy of most restaurants in the country.
