It’s about time we talk about food again, wouldn’t you agree? The sightseeing my friend and I did in Warsaw was quite limited, which means that most of our free time was spent inside restaurants and cafés to sample Polish dishes. My absolute highlight in terms of food was the pierogi in Zapiecek. I’ll save the best for last though, so let’s start with something else!

Foods and Beers of Warsaw Tour

I found a (not so) free walking tour on the Free Walking Tour site, which sounded like something that fits right in my alley. Food is one of my favourite things when I’m travelling and I find it easier to sample the local cuisine when someone tells me what’s special and different about it. I’ve done a food tour once before in Istanbul and it was life-changingly delicious. I’m not going to fall into the trap of comparing these two tours because they are incomparable – the one in Warsaw didn’t take a whole day, didn’t include sightseeing and was significantly less expensive which means all the samples were bite sized, which was OK because we could have dinner afterwards!

Stop 1: Zapiexy

The first stop was Zapiexy, a tiny shop in one of the side alleys where our guide picked up the food items and brought them outside for us to try. We tried zapiekanka here which is a food dish associated with the austere Polish Communist regime. Zapiekanka is an open-face sandwich made of half of a baguette, topped with sautéed mushrooms, cheese and ketchup. On the side we had a piece of sausage and a glass of “communist” lemonade which is still made the same way as before, namely where the bottles are unevenly filled. One can be completely full, while the one next to it could be half-full. The lemonade was a bit too sweet for my taste, but the sandwich was delicious!

Stop 2: Afera Bar

Our guide decided we had enough food at Zapiexy so we made our way to Afera Bar, where we would be presented with a shot of vodka. First we were teasingly shown a bottle of Buffalo Grass vodka, only for it to be swiftly taken away from us again. We received a glass of the regular variety along with one way to small piece of pierogi – way too small in my opinion, because one can never have enough of pierogi.

Stop 3: Cukiernia Pawłowicz

Cukiernia Pawłowicz was my least favourite stop of the tour. I don’t mind a donut every now and again, but when it contains a thick rose-flavoured paste inside it doesn’t make me a happy bunny. The moment I reached the paste, I put the donut away. No, thank you!

Stop 4: Specjaly Regionalne

Another sweet dish was on our menu at Specjaly Regionalne, a cake this time which agreed with me more than the donut. This kind of cake is also made in Germany, where it’s known as Baumkuchen, in Polish it’s called sękacz. This is a Polish-Lithuanian traditional cake made of butter, eggs, flour, sugar, and cream, cooked on a rotating spit in an oven or over an open fire.

Stop 5: Piw Paw

Piw Paw, also known as beer heaven, has a lot a lot of beers. The doubling of “a lot” was not accidental, there really are that many beers!

We received five tiny shots to sample different flavours of beers. The one that was completely new to me was the smoked beer variety. Have you ever tried smoked beer? It smells like meat and it tastes like meat. The aftertaste remains in your throat for a long time. I had a tiny sip and that was more than enough, most of the others didn’t even try after they smelt it.

There wasn’t a lot of food during the tour, but for only 40 PLN (9 euro) we didn’t mind. We learned a lot and tried quite a few dishes. Let’s swiftly move on to the next part of the post, because the tour food wasn’t the only food I had during the two-day visit in Warsaw.

Breakfast

Vincent Café

Vincent Café is a cute little boulangerie where we bought all sorts of fresh pastries to sample.

Dinner

Sfinx

We found a Sfinx restaurant on every street corner. My friend’s friend told him it was a delicious restaurant, so since we found it so many times we thought we’d try it too. I’m completely honest with you when I tell you to skip this restaurant when you visit Warsaw.

The interior might look quite cute, but the food is tastless and bland. I would never want to eat here again.

Dessert

Ice cream!!

Once at a more commercial chain, namely Dairy Queen. A chain that’s new to me, so I don’t feel like a bad tourist for visiting it.

And once at a local establishment called Lody Prawdziwe. We bought a tub of ice cream and took it to the hotel room with us to enjoy it while watching a movie.

Lunch

Bazyliszek

We only had one dinner because on the second day we had a big lunch at Bazyliszek which is smack in the middle of one of the squares at the Old Town. I didn’t take any pictures, because the place was so busy – I mean, it’s our fault, we visited this restaurant in the most touristy place of the city on a Sunday afternoon… The schnitzel was nice, yet unsurprisingly expensive.

Zapiecek

And now it’s time for my favourite dish in a delicious restaurant in Warsaw *drum roll* pierogi at Zapiecek!

We tried to have dinner at this restaurant twice, both times we tried different locations – and it was always full. When you see one of the many Zapiecek restaurants in the city, you’ll see it with a queue reaching the street. On the third day, we decided to have a super early lunch.

It was full inside, but luckily the sun was shining so we could sit outside. Once we sat down, the famous queue started to form. We had our seats though and I could finally order the mega-delicious pierogi.

Let me clarify why I wanted to have this dish so badly. One of my favourite people in Edinburgh is my Polish friend Maggie. She introduced me to this dish and since I left Edinburgh three years ago, I’ve been craving it. Warsaw was my opportunity to finally have it again. I ordered the ones with meat and cabbage but there are so many different varieties to try! You could even try the sweet ones with raspberry and strawberry if you’re into that. I like savoury.

This is the face of a happy girl!

Conclusion

This short trip was full of local specialities and dishes! I consider it a success, especially since everything was delicious in its own right – apart from you Sfinx! My advice would be that Zapiecek is unmissable when visiting Warsaw. Pierogi is a dish that should be tried.

Something I missed on this trip was a visit to a Milk Bar, which is a low-priced cafetaria which sells traditional Polish dishes. I guess I’ll have to visit it another time, because I’m not done with Poland just yet. This trip was a bit of a taster of what else there is to see in Poland. I have a mind to one day visit many more places in this beautiful country, which include but aren’t limited to Kraków, Wroclaw, Gdansk, Auschwitz, and Białowieża Forest. For now, this weekend was a great experience!

Have you tried Polish dishes? Which one is your favourite and an absolute must-try?