Alcron

Alcron is in the ground floor of the Radisson Blu hotel, located in the heart of Prague just off Wenceslas Square. It seats just 24 guests at one time and specialises in seafood. Chef Roman Paulus started his career at the beginning of the 1990s. After training as a chef in Austria, Mr Paulus worked in London at the Savoy hotel and in Prague's CzecHouse Grill & Rotisserie. He then cooked on the Queen Elizabeth 2 ocean liner before returning to Austria, moving to Alcron in 2008. Mr Paulus opened Alcron restaurant after a stint at the Prague Hilton Hotel, and in 2012 Alcron was awarded a Michelin star, keeping it until the 2018 guide.

The dining room is small, with just seven tables, and lacks natural light yet is cleverly designed. Mural reproductions of paintings by the Polish art deco artist Tamara de Lempicka dominate the room, and make the space very appealing. The wine list was substantial, with choices such as Donhoff RiesIng Trocken Tomschiefer 2011 at CZK 1,590 (£48) for a wine that you can find in a shop for CZK 559, Ducru Beaucaillou 2007 at a very reasonable CZK 3,780 for a wine that retails at CZK 3,115, and Alvaro Palacios Finca Dofi 2010 at CZK 4,750 compared to a shop price of CZK 1,757.

The menu offers between three (CZK 1,100) and seven (CZK 1,900) courses. It began well, with an amuse bouche of pork neck with cabbage marinated in white port, pancetta dust, cucumber gelee and Dijon mustard ice cream. Although quite complicated, this dish worked well since the mustard was enjoyably bold and the pork had good, smoky flavour (16/20).

Tuna sashimi came with beetroot mayonnaise, shredded daikon, wasabi mousse and lotus root crisps. The tuna was fine, and it was logical to pair it with the daikon and wasabi. However the wasabi was not the real wasabi root but the coloured horseradish out of a tube, and I did not think that the beetroot really added anything (14/20).

Seared scallop came with carrot and saffron purée, parsley carpaccio and assorted carrots, along with bacon lardo that was seared onto the scallops at the tale with a blowtorch. All very theatrical, but the scallops were evidently not fresh, and had very limited flavour, rather limp in texture. The other elements were technically fine, but this felt to me like an attempt to disguise the limitations of notionally the main dish element, which was just not up to the job (13/20). 

Loin of venison was better, slow cooked and quite tender with a pistachio crust, a walnut and truffle purée, chocolate powder, a ragout of apple and celery, a cranberry jelly and sauce and a cottage cheese dumpling. The meat had good flavour, but for me more of the apple would have been useful to cut through the richness of the dish; still, a capable if perhaps over-complex dish (15/20). I was less convinced by the dumpling, which seemed rather soggy and dense, though apparently this is a local speciality.

For dessert, Valrhona chocolate came both in its natural form and as a chocolate fondant, along with some fresh fruits; the fondant had a good liquid centre but was quite rich, and for me more fruit would have been useful in order to give more balance (14/20).

Service was excellent. The bill came to CZK 3,150 (£95) for one person, with the CZK 1,300 (£39) menu. If you shared a modest bottle of wine, then a menu with water, coffee and service would come to perhaps £60 per person. I loved the dining room at Alcron, but this meal was a little inconsistent given its Michelin star. The food felt a little over-worked to me.