Inside the Prague chocolate shop making koláč and wasabi pralines

Enter Kristyjan Chocolatiers and you'll instantly be hit with rows of brightly decorated pralines filling the glass display. Some offer a slight hint at their fillings through color and design, while others give little away, inviting you to guess the flavor before you bite.

A piece that looks almost too carefully painted to eat might taste of Moravian koláč, raspberry with rose or even goat cheese with beetroot. Bite into a Bellini cocktail, or chance it with milk chocolate with dried mushrooms and moss essence.

Opened in 2019 by husband and wife team Kristýna and Jan Bednář, the chocolate boutique offers around 40 varieties at a time. Here's what they bring to the Czech chocolate scene, and why choosing a box means looking twice, reading the flavors and deciding how adventurous you feel.

Willy Wonka had a river made of chocolate, but he never figured out how to combine Becherovka in marzipan.

Kristýna and Jan created a colorful world of their own to honor their craft, country, and global influences. Czech-inspired flavors may be especially appealing if you have lived here long enough to recognize the dishes but have never encountered them in a chocolate box.

For anyone familiar with Czech baking, the dessert-inspired pralines offer an intriguing place to start. Moravian koláč was an experiment the couple made to honor the classic dessert. "It was supposed to be one of our flavors," they describe in an Instagram post. "Instead, it became one of our bestsellers."

Their version combines plum butter, quark, and even an almond flour crumble, all hidden in one praline.

The selection rewards browsing beyond the first few familiar names. Moravian koláč appears alongside pralines based on Christmas cookies and pralines with poppyseed and lemon or plum jam. Other dessert-inspired treats include pavlova, carrot cake and honey cake, while fruit and floral combinations include blackberry with basil and lemon curd with violet.

There are familiar choices such as salted caramel next to more surprising entries such as olive oil, celery and wasabi. The online flavor guide offers a useful preview, but part of the fun is the visual experience that comes with choosing based on what catches your eye, or simply "vibes."

The married couple describe Kristyjan as a way to bring their different work experiences together in a chocolate boutique. The name of the shop comes from a literal combination of their names, and is also representative of their work and life experiences.

Kristýna studied art and design before retraining as a pastry chef. Her eye for design shows in the pralines, each decorated by hand. Jan previously worked as a hotel concierge, and brings his hospitality experience to helping customers navigate the selection. Both had always dreamed of owning their own business, and so the boutique was born.

Making a praline begins with its appearance. "We choose the designs of our pralines to reflect their main ingredient wherever possible, but that hasn’t always been the case," explains Jan. "Often, we wanted to try a new decorating technique or an interesting color combination first, then find a praline that would suit it."

Kristýna's workshop shelves are lined with various paintbrushes and tools reminiscent of an artist's workshop, but where the end product goes in a carefully packaged box, not on your wall.

She paints the design inside a mold before adding the chocolate and filling, making the display more interesting to examine: the decoration is part of how each piece is made, rather than a finishing touch added afterward.

Their nougat is one example. "We deliberately made it blue because children really like that color," Jan adds. "We already had a striking blue, almost space-themed praline with absinthe in our range. Children often looked at it, but because of the absinthe, it wasn’t really suitable for them. So we decided to use the beautiful blue design for something almost everyone likes."

Flavors change with the season, but some, like pistachio, have stayed in the shop display since they first opened. Crafting the chocolates takes time as the process is still done by hand, but the result is an edible piece of art that can only be enjoyed in the moment, not preserved in a museum.

Kristyjan also makes chocolate bars, nougat, and additional chocolate-based treats which complement the pralines or can be combined into gifts. Their team can help guide you through flavor profiles or put together a custom order for special occasions, or simply to treat yourself.

For a first tasting, try a Czech dessert flavor, something fruity and one unexpected choice. Customers can choose their own pralines for the shop’s mixed collections, and while the full online catalog is broader than the selection available on any particular day, it's still worth popping in to sample the goods yourself before placing a larger order.