14 Best Restaurants in Warsaw, Poland
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You'll find a great many restaurants around the Old Town Square and along the Royal Route, but many of these are expensive and priced for tourists and upscale business travelers. A lot of new, cool establishments have been popping up in the center, on smaller streets in the triangle between Aleje Jerozolimskie and Aleje Ujazdowskie. Also, there are some great off-the-beaten-track finds in the Diplomatic Quarter, Powi?le, and Praga neighborhoods.
Hala Koszyki
Banjaluka
The best Balkan restaurant in Warsaw serves a mix of Croat, Serbian, Bosnian, and Jewish recipes, executed by Serb and Croat chefs. Meat dishes are the menu's core, although Thursday is fish day, and food comes in generous portions. Worthy choices include dimljena vesalica (sirloin smoked with cherrywood and then grilled very slowly), and jareći kotleti (mixed lamb cutlets in herbs). The decor is rustic, and in summer, the garden is one of the best places in town.
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Belvedere
You could not find a more romantic setting for lunch or dinner than this elegant restaurant in the New Orangery at Łazienki Park. The lamp-lit park spreads out beyond the windows, and candles glitter below the high ceilings. The atmosphere can be quite formal, though, especially when official delegations arrive—and they do. Creative versions of Polish cuisine may be are prepared with a variety of fresh mushrooms, including the very recommendable boletus consomme. Also recommended is the guinea fowl, served with fried chanterelles and apricots. The small but interesting menu changes with the season, as is only right.
Boathouse
This restaurant away from the city center serves great Mediterranean dishes. "Boathouse sole," a sole fillet stuffed with crabmeat in a crunchy potato crust with saffron sauce and wild-mushroom arancini (fried risotto cakes) and served with fresh green asparagus, is really good. Boathouse is a favorite with expats and families with kids, especially for a Sunday brunch. It is particularly popular in summer.
Dom Polski
The "Polish Home" restaurant is more of a manor, with several patrician, yet cozy, rooms and a conservatory. The service is suitably courteous, the food is equally genteel. Although the Polish recipes are traditional Polish recipes, they aren't as heavy as much of the country's cuisine and minimize the use of fat. Some good examples from the menu are veal liver with baked apple and caramel sauce and sheatfish (catfish) fillet with green pepper and spinach.
Nippon-kan
Before Toshihiro Fukunaga opened the longest-standing Japanese restaurant in Warsaw (with the longest sushi bar in Europe), he worked in the fashion industry and lived in South America. He moved to Poland in 1990, hoping to promote Polish fashion models in Japan; he ended up promoting sushi, tempura, and noodles to initially reluctant—and now enthusiastic—Poles. The menu is extensive to the point of overwhelming, but whatever you choose, you cannot go wrong.
Qchnia Artystyczna
This artsy place at the back of the Zamek Ujazdowski is not for the impatient. This is a busy restaurant—and deservedly so—and the result can be sometimes hectic, even rude service. However, all may be forgiven once you dig into your meal, which will be delicious and well-prepared most of the time. The creative menu includes everything from potato pancakes with Parma ham to pork in orange sauce. The location is simply unbeatable: in summer, outdoor tables overlook a magnificent view of the park. The best strategy is just to work yourself into a Zenlike state and go with the flow, but make reservations.
Restauracja Polska Różana
With a stylish room and some of the best food in the city, this basement restaurant is one of the more popular places to be in Warsaw these days. The tasteful main salon is furnished with antiques and decorated with large bouquets of fresh flowers. You can't go wrong here with the food, especially if you try the homemade pierogi or pike-perch fillet in white-leek sauce. For dessert, the homemade cakes are outstanding.
Sakana
The fresh and tasty sushi does not come cheap here, as you'll discover when you add up your seemingly inexpensive, individual pieces for a rather large final bill. However, your little bites arrive in fancy little boats in this floating interpretation of the "kaiten-sushi" (conveyor-belt–sushi) restaurant. Watch the chef at work: he definitely knows what he is doing, and it's like watching an artist work as he produces picture-perfect maki and nigiri. You don't even have to bother reading a menu: just grab the plates as they pass; and try to keep a running total in your mind so you are not so surprised when you get a hefty bill.
Sakana has bar seating only.
Signature
Smaki Warszawy
You can't go wrong with any of the chef's recommendations, which are usually traditional Polish dishes with a twist. Both the duck breast in a sauce of apples, plums, and apricots, and the pappardelle with boletus mushrooms and freshly chopped parsley are truly delicious and among the highlights on the menu.
Tandoor Palace
This establishment is widely considered one of the best Indian restaurants in Poland—and not just by its owner, Charanjit Walia. Tandoor Palace serves North Indian food, mostly tandoori dishes, as the name indicates—including excellent butter tikka masala, and a selection of jalfrezi (a vegetable curry), biryani (a sweet and spicy rice dish), and other recipes where green chilis, ginger, and coriander are used generously. Curries can be washed down with Kingfisher beer. The restaurant is the favorite haunt of foreign residents, who attend the monthly Curry Club and the Comedy Club.
U Fukiera
This long-established wine bar on the Old Town Square has been turned into a curious—though ultimately inviting—network of elaborately decorated dining rooms. There's a talking parrot in a cage here, and candles adorn all available shelf space (sometimes set dangerously close to diners' elbows). The decor is, admittedly, lovely; the food is okay but overpriced "Light Old Polish." Expect to find such standbys as oven-roasted carp, sautéed veal liver, and crabmeat crepes. As with most places in the Old Town, sadly, you don't really get you're money's worth. Nevertheless, there's no denying that this is still one of the most famous and popular restaurants in Warsaw.
If you dine here, go in with your eyes open and your pocketbook full.