June 26, 2026
If you find yourself craving a good brioche with beef in Jablonec nad Nisou, Q Burger Bar is the obvious place to stop by. The reputation of this burger joint has long since spread beyond the Podještědí region, but that didn’t stop co-owner Aleš Kuncl and his partners from thinking about where to go next.
When regulars started missing a dessert or some kind of sweet finale after a juicy burger, he began to reflect. He didn’t want to come up with anything ordinary. And that’s when pralines came to mind. Not just any pralines, but ones inspired by the pride of the Jablonec region – costume jewelry.
By its appearance, Pralinqa imitates a mugli, a faceted glass stone with a convex shape and flat base, used as a semi-finished product in the manufacture of brooches and necklaces. It is a Jablonec specialty.
“I went around museums, depositories, small businesses… until I got to various people who donated these cards to us,” says Aleš Kuncl as he places sample cards of colorful glass jewelry on the worktop of a white-tiled room that serves as the praline workshop. Sales representatives of local glassworks once traveled the world with them, offering high-quality North Bohemian glass. Today, these sample books serve as inspiration for making artisanal pralines.
But that’s not all. They also hold a piece of tradition and the craftsmanship of previous generations. If you listen carefully to Aleš Kuncl’s extensive storytelling, you cannot fail to sense the pride with which he speaks about the sparkling legacy of his ancestors. If an Italian tells you about the best pasta, a Swiss about the best watches, and a Wallachian about the best plum brandy, he leaves no doubt that Jablonec costume jewelry is the finest in the world. It is clear that people like him care deeply about preserving the continuity of the craft so characteristic of the Crystal Valley, as the local region is called.
Brushes, stamps, cotton swabs
The production of a praline begins in a hard polycarbonate mold that must be perfectly hand-polished so that the finished confection itself shines beautifully. And already in this first step, the final design of the praline is created, as colored cocoa butters are applied to the walls of the mold using handcrafted techniques.
Airbrushing is used most often, but around thirty different brushes are also employed, along with special stamps, cotton swabs, and even fingers. The decoration is applied in two to five layers, and only then does the application of the chocolate shell follow. At two to three millimeters thick, it protects the filling inside.
“Inside a praline there can be up to three fillings, depending on the type. It always contains at least one ganache – cream mixed with chocolate and other ingredients – which gives the praline its flavor and body. The second filling is usually a jelly made from fruit purée, and the third a nut biscuit. After 24 to 48 hours in the refrigerator, we seal the confection with a chocolate base. For quality and shelf life, it’s crucial that the filling crystallizes properly,” Aleš Kuncl briefly describes the production process, during which a single sweet piece may pass through the hands of the local workers up to seventeen times.
Pralinqa comes in a colorful selection of 12 varieties, which change from time to time: raspberry with mint, sea buckthorn with lavender, grapefruit and gin, crema catalana… “I usually choose one base flavor and combine it with other suitable ingredients. There are books for that, and nowadays even artificial intelligence. But instead of excessive experimentation, I prefer to stay humbly closer to the ground. The main thing is that you can tell what the praline is made of. If you have to find out by reading the back of the package, it’s not a good calling card for the producer,” Aleš Kuncl points out, adding that the guinea pigs for fine-tuning new flavors are the employees of the praline workshop and the burger bar.
The index of ingredients begins geographically in Turnov and ends at the foot of Mount Etna. The organic sea buckthorn juice is local, the lavender is grown in Raspenava on the other side of the Jizera Mountains, and the milk is supplied by the Bzí farm.
Then there are natural products that simply aren’t available around here in top quality. Aleš Kuncl demonstrates this by opening a large vacuum-sealed bag of hazelnuts and inviting others to smell and taste them. The intensity is staggering. “When you learn gelato-making directly from Alberto Pallini, an Italian top master, and taste in Milan what he works with, you don’t want to lower your standards afterward. You taste pistachios from Sicilian Bronte and hazelnuts from Piedmont, and it’s clear. The chocolate comes from the French family-run chocolate maker Michel Cluizel.”
Shared in families
The filled chocolate delicacy, whose history began to be written about four centuries ago in France, is considered purely a gift item in the Czech context, with an artisanal price of around fifty crowns per piece. People associate it with special occasions. Families divide it into quarters so everyone can taste it. It’s a welcome token for lovers and business partners alike. Eleven grams of joy.
Naturally, the biggest rush in the workshop comes in the pre-Christmas period. The holidays of peace and goodwill account for more than a third of annual revenues. And contrary to the operators’ original expectations, it’s not only high-income customers who buy them. “Not long after opening, seniors and many people who had once worked in glass factories started coming here in large numbers. They were happy to see a piece of their history transformed into something they could taste. I’m pleased that they accept the higher price of a product that reflects its quality and the demanding nature of its production,” says Aleš Kuncl.
He adds that together with his partners – his wife Daniela and the Havlíks – they are planning a trip to Piedmont and are looking forward to truffles. “One day there will be a truffle praline too. But probably only as a limited edition,” he concludes the conversation with a gourmet’s smile.
