Ever since the term gastropub migrated here from London a decade ago, it’s been used to describe a whole range of boozy New York establishments, from neo-speakeasies to beer dens to Brooklyn whiskey bars. But if you find yourself pining, on a steamy summer evening, for something approaching the real thing, I suggest you book a table at a curious, out-of-the way little restaurant called Hospoda, which opened this spring on the ground floor of the Bohemian National Hall (also the Czech consulate) on East 73rd Street. You will find a cool, well-appointed room and tables filled with pink-cheeked gentlemen nursing mugs of pilsner served at exactly 44.5 degrees. You will find newfangled Bohemian specialties like duck breast with red-cabbage essence; waiters conversant in all sorts of intricate, beer-geek brewing techniques; and a burly, old-world barkeep who looks like an extra from the set of Game of Thrones.
The restaurant’s head barman, as it happens, is Lukas Svoboda, and if you consult the restaurant’s website, you will find that he was named International Master Bartender of the Year in 2010, beating out “4,000 bartenders from 17 countries.” He’s from Prague, where the locals treat their homegrown pilsner with the kind of obsessive reverence that Kentuckians reserve for their bourbon. The only beer on tap at Hospoda (the name means “pub” in Czech) is Pilsner Urquell, which is a little like saying the only soft drink available at the new U.S. embassy restaurant in Prague is Coke. But Svoboda and his assistants serve their smooth, piercingly refreshing brew in a variety of esoteric, nontraditional ways, ranging from Cochtan (served neat, with no head) to the mellifluously named Milko, which consists of an entire mug filled with clouds of cooling foam.
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