The Sneaky Magpie

I love Polish food, the smell of dill, beetroot, freshly baked bread and buns, apples. Perhaps because it reminds me of my childhood but also because it is very very tasty.

Fast food chains reached Poland only in the 90s and beforehand we only had booths selling fries and so called milk bars serving properly cooked dinners. Everyone is used to food cooked from scratch, with local and seasonal produce. Things surely changed now but the tradition is still strong.

During our visit bilberries and chanterelle mushrooms were in season and every restaurant had these on menu.

Breakfast is usually buns or sourdough bread served with butter, cheese (yellow and white, cottage style), cold cuts, smoked sausages, boiled or scrambled eggs, tomatoes and jam.

Breakfast places:

Kafka

Ulica Oboźna 3, Warsaw

Fantastic cheap breakfast, choice of Polish, Communist, French Toast (not a sweet version but with ham and cheese, I was shocked), pancakes and good coffee.

Café 6/12

Ulica Żurawia 6-12, Warsaw

Stylish breakfast and lunch place, great smoothies, juices and huge coffees.

Gessler Deli

Krakowskie Przedmieście, Warsaw

Good option for a take away breakfast: bilberry, poppy seed or cheese buns.

Lunch used to be the main meal of the day but this is changing now since people work longer hours, offices used to close around 14.00.  Dinner used to be just a small sandwich but again this is changing too.

Lunch and dinner places:

U Kucharzy and U Kucharek

Ulica Ossolińskich 7, Warsaw

Two restaurants owned by the Gessler brothers, serving upmarket Polish food: beetroot soup, chicken broth, roasted goose, trout, beef stew. U Kucharek has got a nice outside area and the service is excellent.

Belvedere

Łazienki Park, entrance from Ulica Parkowa, Warsaw

A lovely restaurant, bar and café in a beautiful park. The food is amazing.

Qchnia Artystyczna

Łazienki Park, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw

A brainchild of the Gessler sister, a modern restaurant serving Polish and Italian dishes. The potato cakes I had were good!

KOM

Ulica Zielona 37, Warsaw

An old telecom building, some of the Stalin/Churchill conversations were cabled through there, turned into a fantastic fusion restaurant by a Polish actress Kasia Figura. Bar serves great cocktails, my cosmo was delish.

Pierrogeria

Ulica Krzywe Koło 30, Warsaw

A great little pierogi place near the Barbican and Old Town centre, served baked from the oven, boiled or fried, stuffed with mushrooms, cheese and potatoes, cabbage and mushrooms, meat. Maybe bit touristy but you can dine in a cute outdoor area and the prices are wallet friendly.

Polskie Kwiaty

Wąski Dunaj 4/6/8, Warsaw

A traditional Polish restaurant serving herring with sour cream, rye soup with sausage, borscht, pierogi, potato cakes and potato dumplings, all the good things in life.

Zakąski Przekąski

Ulica Ossolińskich, Warsaw (on a corner of Ul. Ossolińskich and Krakowskie Przedmieście)

Old fashioned snack bar serving 8 dishes only, one of them is called ‘surprise’ and you will only find out what it is once your plate arrives. Very cheap good quality snacks and €1 vodka shots.

Cafés

Aforementioned Kafka – good cake, sandwiches, pancakes, I must say, the service is very slow but when the food arrives you forget about it and tuck in.

Miedzy Nami

Ulica Bracka 20, Warsaw

Warsaw’s fashion crowd hangout.

Czuły Barbarzyńca

Ulica Dobra 31, Warsaw

Café/book store. Good coffee and excellent baked cheesecake however the place stinks of cigarette smoke.

Numery Litery

Ulica Wilcza 26, Warsaw

Another café/book store, very laid back, great for chilling out.

Belle Epoque

Ulica Freta 18, Warsaw

A great period interior with a vast selection of teas. Very nice service. I can only imagine visiting it on a cold autumn evening, felt so cozy.

For good pastries and cakes pop in to any patisserie in sight, these are called ‘Cukiernia’. Doughnuts, buns and cream cakes are to die for.

We arrived in Warsaw on a sunny Saturday morning and after a short bus ride we got to our hotel. Unfortunately our room wasn’t ready yet (a couple of hours before the check in time) and we wandered through Krakowskie Przedmieście. Equipped in a map we marked all the places we wanted to visit/eat at, while drinking cold beer. Before we headed back to the hotel we popped to Zakąski Przekąski, part of the Gessler empire (the Conrans of Warsaw according to Wallpaper*) located at the old Europejski Hotel, conveniently just opposite our hotel. Zakąski Przekąski is a great snack bar, zakąski meaning snacks to go with vodka or simply starters and przekąski meaning snacks in general. All the food is PLN8/€2 and all the drinks are PLN4/€1 including vodka shots! The food it very simple and served with a roll, all very meaty, for someone like me the choice was limited to potatoes with sour cream or herring, went for the latter, M had pate with cranberry sauce and horseradish relish. This place is open 24h a day and gets packed with young fashion crowd in evening for a cheeky shot of vodka before or after a night out.

When we got to the hotel after the check in time our room still wasn’t ready and we got immediately upgraded to a suite, yay!

Later on we had coffee at the very quirky café Kafka. A fab little place near our hotel but off the beaten track where we would eat our breakfast every day.

The café is at the bottom of old building with tables and chairs outside, it also has got a grassy bit with deck chairs and blankets. The interior is pretty wacky with lots of books they saved from a skip, these can be bought now for PLN10/€2.50 per kilo.

At dinner time it was back to Hotel Europejski, restaurant U Kucharek which is one of the Gessler places. We dined outside on a chilled beetroot soup for me and wild mushroom broth for M. The nice thing about Warsaw is that the pavements are wide so every restaurant and bar have outside areas which with the 30 degrees temperatures where blissful and reminiscent of southern Europe.The food was absolutely delicious and I couldn’t stop staring at the color of my soup.

On Sunday we had a breakfast at the oldest patisserie in Warsaw, Blikle, the breakfast was ok but massively overpriced. The cakes and doughnuts are fantastic though.

The day was hot and we decided to spend it in Łazienki Park – The Royal Baths Park. The park is beautiful with a number of palaces like the neoclassical Palace on Water or The Ujazdowski Castle, the latter is a home to a modern art gallery and a restaurant.

Palace on Water

The other spots worth visiting in the park are the Old Orangery, Little White House, Mysliwiecki Palace, Belvedere and the statue of Fryderyk Chopin. We headed to the Roman Theater near the Palace on Water to listen to a classical music concert. We were hoping to see the Chopin piano concert (played near his statue every Sunday between May and September at 12.00 and 16.00) but the heat chased us away – the weird thing about Polish parks is that people don’t sit on the grass only on benches. There is yet another concert played behind the Old Orangery, all concerts are free and performed by the best musicians in the country and beyond.

For lunch we headed to Ujazdowski Castle to Qchnia Artystyczna, a trendy Warsaw restaurant, found out later that it’s also owned by one of the Gesslers! The interior is simple and the food tasty, I settled for potato cakes with wild mushroom sauce and M for a simple pasta dish, and beer of course.

We had a quick look at the Centre for Contemporary Art at the castle and walked back to the town center and walked passed the Polish Parliament and Senate back to the hotel.

The evening was spent on a walk to the Old Town centre, dinner under a starry sky at Pierrogeria where we stuffed ourselves silly with delicious dumplings.

We finished the evening walking to the New Town centre (don’t be fooled by the name, it’s an old part of Warsaw too but was named New some time ago! ). We had tea at Belle Epoque, an eclectic and wacky looking café in belle epoque style where a man played piano – more Woody Allen than Chopin, and drank tea with rum.