DANU Restaurant & Wine Cellar

Beef tongue beside the Danube glass

Beef tongue, deer, tartare and farm goose leg set the rhythm for Denis Chlusov, Head Chef at DANU Restaurant & Wine Cellar in Prague. He leads the kitchen from Vinohrady with a modern Czech and Central European brief, using local ingredients and a wine-led identity drawn from the Danube region. Chlusov previously worked as personal chef to the President of the Czech Republic; here, the discipline moves into a smaller room, closer to the pass and the glass in front of the guest. The restaurant opened at the end of 2021, after its owners had run Smaragd in Mariánské Lázně from 2015 to 2020. That earlier house matters because it explains the shape of this one: not a restaurant with wine appended, but a cellar with a kitchen built to answer it. The cooking reaches across Czech, Austrian and Hungarian references without turning them into costume. Maultaschen and Quarkkeulchen can sit near tartare and deer, and the gesture remains the same: familiar Central European forms, tightened for a contemporary plate.

A cellar with 170 bottles by the glass

The program at DANU begins with the list. By late 2021, the cellar held 170 bottles from Danube countries, all available by the glass, with Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and Czechia defining the corridor. The Hungarian shelf alone counted 36 labels, including Heimann, Markvart, Budaházy and Sanzon. That range gives Chlusov a clear task at the pass: build dishes with enough structure for Kadarka, Kékfrankos, orange wines and natural bottles, without making the plate a demonstration. A fried catfish with homemade aioli asks for clean fat and lift. A cheesecake with sturgeon brings cream and fish into the same register, so the wine has something to hold. For the Chito’s Gvino Georgian wine degustation on January 22, 2025, the house paired a six-course menu with kvevri-fermented wines for 25 participants. The scale is part of the method. A room that size can keep the explanation bench-side, with the dish, the bottle and the person pouring it still in the same conversation.

The pass in a quiet Vinohrady room

The room is intimate rather than grand, with comfortable light, close tables and the sort of quiet that lets a sommelier finish a sentence. Vinohrady gives the house its neighborhood footing, near Riegrovy Sady and the Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord, but DANU keeps its attention indoors: the counter, the pass, the shelves of Central European bottles, the adjacent wine shop that extends the cellar beyond dinner. Service has a family-run cadence, friendly without loosening the work. Guests often hear the story of the dish and the wine together, which suits a kitchen built around provenance and pairing rather than spectacle. The restaurant has one current award, from Star Wine List, tied to its wine program. Inside the room, a glass of Kékfrankos sits beside deer, and Chlusov’s kitchen holds the line between comfort and cut.