WARSAW, Poland, April 4 (UPI) -- Shaking off Communism’s food shortages and low-quality cooking ingredients, Poland’s capital city of Warsaw is emerging as a restaurant mecca.
A year after Wojchiech Amaro’s Warsaw restaurant Atelier Amaro won a Michelin star -- a first for both the British-trained chef and for Poland -- new restaurants adhering to recipes and techniques from pre-war times are opening across the city.
Polish food, with a reputation for starchy, heavy ingredients, has never been regarded as haute cuisine. The stereotype is being disproven by cookbooks such as From a Polish Country House Kitchen by Anne Applebaum and Danielle Crittenden, in which traditional recipes are modernized, and by the growth of modern, trendy restaurants in Warsaw.
Kuba Rorczak, another western-trained chef, has opened Norma, a Warsaw restaurant blending Polish and Italian cuisine. Entrees like ravioli with white sausage bring the two cultures together. Other restaurants, including Dyspensa and Tamka 43, are also helping to improve the standard and reputation of Polish dining.
The restaurants specialize in foods from forests, which account for 30 percent of Poland’s territory. Wild game, herbs, mushrooms and wild berries are prominent parts of the new Polish cuisine.
[Warsaw Voice]
