Cat Mitty Casino

It is a room of this house

Cat Mitty Casino belongs to the hotel. It takes up the front salon on the first floor of Cat Mitty Hotel, under the same roof as the bedrooms and the breakfast room, at the same address on Smetanovo náměstí, and you reach it without setting foot outside.

From the front desk it is thirty-four steps: across the hall past the armchairs, up the broad stair, then along the gallery with its windows over the courtyard to a pair of tall panelled doors. A member of staff stands at those doors whenever the room is open, greets hotel guests by name and asks everyone for a document all the same.

The room

The casino floor holds six tables and a bar of eight stools along the inner wall. Before nine it is a quiet place for a glass of wine and a long look at the ceiling; after nine the tables fill, the talk drops to a murmur and the bar pours coffee about as often as wine.

The salon was decorated in the 1880s for music evenings and most of it survives: a moulded plaster ceiling with garlands and lyres, herringbone oak parquet, three tall arched windows onto the arcaded square and a mirrored alcove where the piano once stood. Two chandeliers and a row of brass wall lights do the lighting. Music, when there is any, is a quiet record. A clock hangs above the doors, and every member of staff is told to give the time the moment anyone asks, because nobody in this room should lose track of the night.

The dress code follows the room rather than a rulebook. Smart casual is the standard, and a jacket is welcome after eight. Coats go to the cloakroom at the top of the stair, and a waiter brings drinks to the tables so that nobody needs to queue at the bar.

Limits and stopping

Limits are set with the staff in the room. Tell the floor manager the amount you want to keep to before you sit down; it is written on a card, kept in the room and respected for the whole evening. If you would like a hand choosing it, ask, and the manager will suggest one.

To stop, you go to the front desk downstairs in person; it is never done in the room and never by telephone. The desk files your request for entry to the national register of excluded persons that same evening, and from then on the door is closed to you here and in every other licensed venue in the country; it opens again only if you apply to have the entry removed once the protective period has passed.

There is no credit in the casino and no cash machine anywhere in the hotel. Last orders at the bar come thirty minutes before the last table closes. More on how we look after guests is on the play with care page.