Café Louvre

Searching for Kafka in Prague at a historical café in New Town

After wandering through Josefov and Old Town Square, we decided on a quick bite and coffee at Café Louvre. Considering it's the inspiration for my graphic novel, Koffee With Kafka, this was a must-visit location on our itinerary.

The wooden door entrance, warm against a cold winter wind blowing off Národní, has always felt less like a threshold and more like a portal. Step through and you’re entering a parallel Prague—one that’s less about cobblestone hustle and selfie-sticks, and more about the slow brewing of ideas. We climb the marble staircase, up into light and warmth, past the gift stand and murmuring fountain to where the air actually seems to hum with anticipation. Art installations dot the lobby, their avant-garde energy an accidental foil to the café’s old-world gravity.

We settled in, ordering hot chocolate and a spread of Czech pastries. Around us, the soft clink of mugs and the hush of conversation provided exactly the droning soundtrack that turns thought into story. I found myself scanning the room for ghosts—Kafka hunched over a notebook, Einstein drifting off in abstraction, fellow writers threading the air with nervous possibility.

More than just a literary landmark, Café Louvre is a living stage for that silent communion among artists searching for meaning in the everyday.

But my connection runs deeper than visitor nostalgia—this is the very heart of my creative journey. As a study-abroad student in Prague from 2006-2007, I must have spent dozens of afternoons stationed at one of these marble-topped tables, notebooks fanned open, anxiety in check. It was here—half-caffeinated on strong coffee and the thrill of being in a city that feels haunted by brilliance—where the first sketches of Koffee With Kafka took shape in my mind but didn’t acquire tangible form until over a decade later. I remember tracing the lines between Kafka’s favorite haunts, piecing together those lonely, luminous echoes, wrapping them into conversations for my insightful, animated Kafka.

I return to Café Louvre now with a sense of ritual. Every visit, especially as I near the end of the manuscript, feels like checking in with the story itself—reminding myself that creativity isn’t accidental, it’s atmospheric. Here, history presses in from all angles: wood-paneled walls humming with secrets of exiles, revolutionaries, and unknown dreamers who came before me. The interiors—high ceilings, ornate lights, scarlet wallpaper—are almost theatrical. Even the waiters glide with a kind of timeless grace, quietly allowing you to sink into the rhythm of self-inquiry and stolen sentences.

What I love most about Café Louvre is the way it honors creative persistence. No matter how modern the city gets beyond these walls, inside, the world stretches out at the pace of an unfinished sentence. And that’s precisely what makes it sacred for writers like me—impossibly slow, deeply atmospheric, and always just out of reach of certainty.

With every draft of Koffee With Kafka, I revisit this space and find my own story sharper, more honest, and impossibly entwined with the ghosts of those who never stopped asking questions. The novel has taken on several forms by now. Maybe it’s the glow of the café’s lamps, the knowledge that Kafka could have brooded here too, or maybe just the sugar rush from hot chocolate, but I know that every page owes something to this room. Café Louvre isn’t just a backdrop; it’s a collaborator—one whose encouragement is gentle and whose inspiration is relentless.

Whether you come to Café Louvre to chase your own literary ghosts or just to rest weary feet and indulge in something sweet, you’ll find yourself a little changed by the time you slip back onto the street. For me, sitting here on the cusp of completing this manuscript, it feels less like an ending and more like coming full circle—a chapter of gratitude within a larger novel I’m still writing. And if you ever find yourself in Prague, know that somewhere on Národní, the spirit of Kafka—and maybe your own—waits over a cup of coffee, ready to listen.