Mestská piváreň

The restaurant & setting. We're in Humenné, the second-largest town in the Zemplín region, which Matthias Corvinus granted town status in the 15th century. On Námestie slobody there's been a place with a split identity for some ten or eleven years, a city brewery-pub and at the same time a Vincenzo pizzeria. Martin is struck right away that the interior reminds him of no pizzeria at all, more of a sports bar, and a sheet of paper on the door advertises „homemade brawn." Stacked tables and a ladder left right there in the restaurant complete the picture: "Brutal style."

The people. The strange thing is that Martin wasn't called by the owner but by Stano, a waiter who has worked here for four years and for four years tried to get the owner to change something. Owner Andrej is self-taught, a trained gas-appliance mechanic and locksmith who picked up cooking over three years with an Italian in Prague and now runs the pizza side. The second owner, with an equal fifty-percent share, is Jana (Janka), a cook who threw herself into the place after her divorce to support two daughters and pay off a mortgage. The floor is served by waitress Aleksandra, and in the kitchen guys like Lukáš and Miro help out. Andrej happened to be resting at home when Martin arrived, so Martin drove over to surprise him.

Why they called Martin. Over the years the place has sprawled beyond recognition; the pizzeria, the pub and the delivery service are all crammed into one operation that eats its own takings, and on top of that it competes with five other pizzerias on the square. The relationship between the two owners is tense to the point of toxic, Andrej blows up and Jana is exhausted. Stano believes that if anything is going to help here, it'll be Martin: "Martin will probably be the way."

The first visit. Martin orders across a menu of fifty-two items and the disasters roll in one after another. The brawn just about passes, but the pizza chicken has no flavour, it's pale, single-coloured, with sliced cheese from a packet, „like plaster inside." The pork knuckle comes boneless and dried out, the spicy chicken sauté reeks under pressure „as if you'd put chicken breast into tomato soup," and the burger looks „like something you'd toss into a pig's trough." The crowning blow is the realisation that almost everything is a ready-made product from an opened bag: the sauce, the wings and the fries. "I drove five hundred kilometres for ready-made food," Martin sums up, and rates the pizza zero points.

The diagnosis. Martin names the root of the problem: Andrej has gone „kitchen-blind" and burned out, while Jana the cook stands behind food she herself calls disgusting yet can't refuse to make. The strongest moment comes when he takes Jana outside to get some air and she breaks down recalling how a phone call from work made her leave her daughter's birthday: „Jani, for f***'s sake, what kind of owner are you." It emerges that Jana owns half the firm only verbally, nothing is on paper, and Andrej humiliates her publicly. Martin tells Andrej that the things he says are constructive but the way he says them hurts, „but she is a woman after all," and the whole emotion resonates in him too.

The reset. Martin first persuades Andrej to stop competing over pizza and asks the people on the square what they'd order in a proper pub, baked knuckle, ribs, spreads, grilled camembert. Then he takes Andrej to a local meat producer, Mrs Rebejová, so he can have his own unique product, sausages made from real meat, not from separated meat, that nobody else gets. Overnight he and his team rebuild the entire kitchen: a new ceiling, repainted, degreased, cleaned surfaces and a professional stove instead of the old one. "As of today you're done reheating ready-made food," Martin announces, and Andrej is in shock that it could be done in such a short time.

New concept & menu. Martin gives the place a clear identity as an honest pub and builds ten dishes they can proudly stand behind. For beer he prepares brawn with pickled red onion, beef tartare with Olomouc cheese, grilled encián cheese with onion chutney, sweet-potato fries dusted with cheddar, baked pork ribs, chicken strips with no ready-made shortcut and a simple honest cheeseburger on brioche. The star is a corn dog made from their own sausages from Mrs Rebejová, which nobody else has and which is meant to become a draw for customers: "It's something that's only yours."

The big night. Around seventy people show up for the test opening, and the kitchen that just three days ago only reheated bags is now genuinely cooking. Under stress the communication between floor and kitchen breaks down, starters end up at the wrong tables and some guests wait a long time, but Jana darts all over the place, goes out to the guests herself and apologises in person. Martin appreciates it, „this little person left her heart here today," and even Andrej admits he's proud of her. Even though the evening had its slip-ups, the kitchen held it together and Martin is satisfied.

One month later. A month on, Martin returns to Humenné and is pleased right away that the kitchen is clean and the ready-made products are gradually disappearing, though they're still only starting to make their own American fries. The menu is exactly the kind that suits a pub; for pizza he can go anywhere else now. The plate of ribs, crackling spread and corn dog looks nicely loaded, the sausage clearly tastes honest rather than industrial, but the food is under-seasoned and the ribs, in Martin's view, would benefit from another thirty minutes. Worse, the human relationships are still unresolved, Jana is stuck and closed off, and Martin isn't sure there's genuine honesty between the owners.

Verdict: 3 knives. Martin decides to give Mestská piváreň 3 knives, so they still have somewhere to grow. As a customer he felt comfortable and the kitchen took a huge step from reheating bags to honest cooking, but the food still needs its flavour fine-tuned and above all they have to sort out the relationships between themselves: "Three knives, so you still have somewhere to go." After his talk with Jana he leaves with mixed feelings and wishes that she too finds a place where she'll feel comfortable.