The Best Places to Eat Near Štipec, by the Record

Charred cabbage and short ribs are the kind of dishes that make you wonder why Czech cooking doesn't get more attention. This casual restaurant in central Pilsen puts a contemporary spin on local traditions without drifting into fussiness, and the Michelin Bib Gourmand suggests the kitchen earns it without charging for the privilege. The staff are the sort who seem to know everyone. Come summer, the covered terrace out front fills fast.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Sitting inside the Pilsner Urquell brewery, this Czech restaurant occupies a vaulted cellar where the decor splits the difference between rustic and modern, with a sculptural service station anchoring the room. The menu runs from traditional beer-hall plates to more considered regional cooking, all of it built around local ingredients. The beer pairing, naturally, requires no deliberation whatsoever.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The groin-vaulted ceiling and all-white interior were once a château's stables, which tells you something about what a long way the space has come. This is a two-Michelin-star tasting menu restaurant outside Prague, where the chef's set menu runs six, ten, or somewhere in between, drawing on regional ingredients and childhood memory. The kitchen team serves most dishes themselves and explains the thinking, so dinner moves more like a conversation than a performance.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars

A farmhouse restaurant outside Pilsen that raises its own cattle, which means the beef on your plate was living nearby not long ago. The menu leans into that fact with dishes like beef ribs and braised tongue, all done in a straightforward Czech style. The room is properly rustic, the terrace in summer is surrounded by greenery, and there is a campsite if you decide the rural quiet suits you for longer than one meal.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Chandeliers, heavy drapes, gilded mouldings, and the faint suggestion that someone nearby is taking a spa cure: the dining room inside the Grand Hotel Pupp is the kind of room that makes you sit up straighter without being asked. It's a formal Czech restaurant serving classically rooted cooking with the occasional international detour, all delivered by a front-of-house team that reads the room as carefully as the room reads you.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Four tables inside a wood-paneled room that rethinks the cozy Bavarian Stube without losing its warmth: this is the setup at Leos, a Michelin-starred fine dining room inside a spa hotel above the village of Liebenstein. Chef Stephan Brandl runs a five- or seven-course menu built on precise, creative cooking, and the sommelier leads service with the kind of focused attention that makes a small room feel looked after rather than watched.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

The riverside terrace hangs right over the Teplá, which makes a summer dinner here feel a bit like eating on a raft, in the best sense. This hotel restaurant serves seasonal Mediterranean cooking, with a tasting menu in the evenings and a tidier set lunch for those not committing to the full production. The team is notably warm without being performative about it, which in a spa town full of formal dining rooms is quietly refreshing.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Jars of pickled vegetables, fermented mushrooms, and preserved everything line the walls of this regional seasonal restaurant, which takes a bit of finding but rewards the effort. The kitchen sources locally and does most of its own preserving, so the menu shifts with what the region is doing. Tables near the pass give a clear view into the kitchen, and the staff will talk you through the choices without making it a lecture.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant