Just across the bridge and far away enough from the crowded chaos of the city center, Café Savoy feels like a whole different Prague. Sure, there are a bunch of old world cafes in this town, each more grand than the last, serving up variations of the same thing to perfectly charmed tourists. Amid all that, even with its place in so many travel guides, Café Savoy manages to feel like not a tourist trap. It feels like a living institution that has evolved with time rather than a museum trapped in an idea of another time. Upscale, but unpretentious, a casually elegant dining room at the base of Malá Strana.

On a surface level, the café is pristine. Whimsically organic chandeliers hang from ornate neo-renaissance ceilings. Warm wood paneling drenched in sunlight from the large arched windows. On a weekday off hours, the cadence is slow enough to make the perfect setting for catching up with a friend or reading a newspaper. As for the menu? Unfussy classics executed with finesse, and of course decadent cakes to indulge in with coffee. Style and substance. If this is what an all day café could be, all the all day spots stateside should really step it up.