When a new vegan bistro arises on the site of a former Loving Hut, it seems to be a great sign.  Forrest Bistro just popped up last year and has been a welcome addition to Prague’s already thriving vegan scene.  Although the entrance is below street level, as you can kind of tell from this picture, it’s a really bright place and quite a charming little bistro – I worried that it might just be a new name slapped on the Loving Hut, but it’s all new decor and style – and it has much better food!

Like most Czech places, alongside its regular menu it also has a couple of daily specials served from lunchtime until they run out.  We’ve been three times and ordered from the regular menu twice (dinner and breakfast) and from the specials menu once.

The menu contains about 5 dishes, including stuffed sweet potatoes, curry and a big ole burger! As you can see, the patty was huge, and topped with tempeh – I assume it was meant to be tempeh bacon, but it just seemed like regular tempeh (I love tempeh, so it’s not really a complaint, but there’s definitely room to improve it).  With all the accompaniments, it was too big a beast to tackle – you have to either scrape out some of the salad, or take a knife and fork to it.  It was a good burger, although lacking a nice crisp outer shell, but the sweet potato wedges were far too soft.

The breakfast menu is also quite tempting – there are about five items written up on the chalkboard, though when we went two of them weren’t available. Fortunately I already had my heart set on the pandan pancakes, which turned out to be one of the most visually appealing dishes I’ve ever been served!

The little green pancakes both looked and tasted fantastic! There were generous dollops of whipped cream and plenty of delicious soft fruits piled up on top.  This was a really exciting breakfast, and totally unlike anything I’ve seen elsewhere in Prague.

The hot drinks we got with our pancakes were a little disappointing though.  Dr HH was quite excited to get on the pumpkin spice bandwagon, but found the latte a bit too sweet. I was dazzled by the pictures of red velvet chocolate on their social media, and disappointed to see a regular hot chocolate instead – it was almost sickly sweet, which was a shame.  On the plus side, there’s a carafe of free tap water on every table. Quite the treat in Europe!

On our most recent visit, despite arriving in the evening we were able to get the daily specials before they sold out.  They were serving a Hungarian dish of sausage, a peppery sauce and a langos, basically a giant fried bread.  The sauce was a touch too sweet, but the sausage was great and, unsurprisingly, the langos was the star of the show.  Again, this is something I’ve never seen on another menu in Prague.

So, Forrest has a charming interior, friendly staff and a creative menu.  As if that weren’t enough, they also have a pretty decent cake counter too!  As well as some very attractive layer cakes, they offer smaller bites like this cinnamon roll.  Truthfully, I’m really glad that the Loving Hut here has been replaced by something more exciting and delicious – though last week we spotted a new Loving Hut branch opening up about five minutes away. There’s no escaping them!