This text belongs to the special Pleasures notebook
Leave the clichés of boiled potatoes and pierogis with cabbage behind: the new Polish gastronomy thrives on inventiveness and the fusion between past, present and future. The proof in five “tasted” and approved addresses, included in the tables of the Michelin Guide Poland.
Bez Gwiazdek, Warsaw
In the Polish capital, chef Robert Trzópek worked at two of the best restaurants in the world, El Bulli and Noma, before opening his own culinary space. His idea: to rethink traditional Polish dishes by giving them a touch of modernity and elsewhere. Each month the menu highlights one of Poland’s 16 regions, including their wines; the wines served here with the dishes are surprising at worst, excellent at best.
This is the case with this pinot noir from the Lubusz Voivodeship, which highlights a touch of mushrooms, black garlic with a vinegary butter sauce, or this Dziki Taboon, an orange wine that flavors a twist of thin strips of cabbage with flowers.
Before we move on to the Madeira sabayon, we offer the classic duck blood soup, but enriched with black aronia, simply to take elsewhere. “Fathers used to serve this dish to suitors who wanted to marry off their daughters, to make them understand that it was a wasted effort,” says waiter Patryk Nowak. In short, the exact opposite of the dishes of this restaurant, whose marriage between tradition and modernity is consumed with dignity.
Elixir, Warsaw
If the menu of this establishment is entirely honorable, the bar is nothing short of admirable, with 750 different vodkas (10 of which are non-alcoholic), in a country that prides itself on distilling the best in the world.
Several are offered in combinations of food and vodka, on revised classics of Polish cuisine: duck with pear and cheese, tempura black pudding, sturgeon caviar… One of the menus was even developed in honor of the stay of Napoleon Bonaparte, in 1812 , where the emperor the chrzanowka (horseradish soup).
To digest it all, a visit to the adjacent Vodka Museum is worth the detour: 10,000 works of art (posters, bottles, etc.) are on display there.
62 bar & restaurant, Poznań
It’s hard to imagine a more unlikely place for such a table. Located far from Poznan’s beautiful historic center, above a Harley-Davidson dealership (and the adjacent bar often frequented by bikers), 62 has a setting as elegant as its remarkable menu.
Flanked by a nice terrace where delicious cocktails are served, the dining room is built around the open kitchen. Chef Jaroslaw Kin takes special care in the presentation of his daring dishes, which sometimes border on controlled slipping.
We are speechless at the creamed halibut with Nori seaweed with dashi hollandaise sauce; beef tartare with raspberry tomatoes, caviar and chorizo oil; and the confusing caramelized onion, black garlic and truffle ice cream. No doubt about it: this restaurant has courage and knows how to hold its own.
Fiorentina, Krakow
When the tasty cherry arrives on the table, alone on the plate, we smell deception. The impostor hides his game well: under his glazed Jimenez dress lies a juicy morsel of foie gras.
Housed beneath the vaults of a beautiful centuries-old residence in old Krakow, Fiorentina is as much a feast for the eyes as it is for the taste buds. Sheep cheese mousse with cranberries; halibut with wine and hibiscus, verbena and lemon sauce; Trout in dill oil with sour cream pearls poached in vinegar, bursts into the mouth and floods it with flavors…
In a city that was named the gastronomic capital of Europe in 2019, Fiorentina’s star has not yet shined. It’s only a matter of time before it reaches the firmament of the Michelin Guide.
Bottiglieria 1881, Krakow
Of course they offer pierogis, but sometimes they are filled with pistachio and Polish wasabi, sometimes with artichokes served under an avalanche of truffle shavings. There is no question of doing things here like elsewhere in the country.
Of all Polish restaurants, Bottigliera 1881 is the only one to have won two Michelin stars. Run by chef Przemysław Klima, this restaurant is located in the boho-chic Kazimierz district, not far from Oskar Schindler’s former factory. It offers extremely refined cuisine in chic surroundings and with extremely attentive service.
The beef tartare paired with veal marrow is to die for. And the fall of small fruits and vegetables (wild trumpets, sea buckthorn berries, crispy potato nuggets) seems to have come straight from the sky. As for the pike-perch fillet with a two-tone crayfish sauce: it should have no equivalent on earth.
There was plenty of attention all evening. A waiter sprinkles the napkin with the scent of vanilla and plum, another brings a hunting knife into his sheath to attack the juicy venison.
Two tasting menus are offered in the dining room, in the vaulted cellar or at the two tables adjacent to the food preparation area. Because here, seeing the chef’s creations live is almost as much fun as putting his dishes in your mouth.
The author was a guest of Air France and the Polish Tourist Office.
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