Polish food I tried in Kraków: an honest account

Starting from zero

My knowledge of Polish food before the trip consisted of the following: pierogi are dumplings, kielbasa is a sausage, vodka. That was it. The standard British-Irish understanding of Polish cuisine extends approximately this far, no further.

What I found in Kraków was a food culture with more depth, more variety and considerably more interest than I’d expected. I also found some things that were not for me — or not for me immediately, before I’d adjusted. What follows is an honest account of what I tried, what I thought, and where I found it.

Pierogi: starting with the obvious

Pierogi are the reference Polish food and they are also genuinely excellent when made well. The basic description — boiled dumplings with various fillings — understates their range. The fillings I tried:

Pierogi ruskie: Potato and twaróg (fresh farmer’s cheese) with a little onion. This is the default and the most universally liked. They’re filling, mild, and comforting in the specific way of something that has been making people feel better for a very long time. Served with sautéed onions and sometimes a small amount of soured cream. Best eaten at a milk bar: Krakus, Pod Temidą, or Centralny — around 18–24 PLN (€4.30–5.70) for a plate of six.

Pierogi z kapustą i grzybami: Sauerkraut and mushroom filling — more assertive, slightly sour, with an earthiness from the dried forest mushrooms that’s hard to describe but immediately recognisable. My personal preference over the ruskie once I’d had both.

Pierogi z mięsem: Meat-filled (usually pork with onion). Heavier, more robust, better in cold weather.

Pierogi z truskawkami: Strawberry filling — a summer sweet version that’s not a dessert but not savoury either. Interesting. I ordered them once and felt that once was the right amount.

The best pierogi I had in Kraków were at Pierogarnia Momo on ul. Szewska: a specialist pierogi restaurant where the fillings are more creative (spinach and goat’s cheese; duck confit) and the quality is noticeably higher than the average. Prices run 32–42 PLN (€7.60–10.00) for a plate of six, which is expensive by Polish milk-bar standards but reasonable by the standard of a restaurant that takes its product seriously.

Kraków pierogi home cooking class — if you want to make them yourself and understand the technique, this is a particularly good way to spend a morning.

Żurek: the soup that came from nowhere

I did not expect to love Polish soup. Żurek (pronounced roughly “zhoo-rek”) is a sour rye soup with a fermented, slightly acidic base that is unlike anything in the usual Western European repertoire. It’s typically served with a halved hard-boiled egg, slices of white sausage (biała kiełbasa), and sometimes in a bread bowl. The sourness is pronounced and the flavour is emphatically savoury.

My first spoonful was a moment of recalibration. By the third, I understood it. By the end of the bowl I was planning to order it again the next morning. Żurek at a milk bar costs 12–18 PLN (€2.85–4.30) and is one of the great affordable Polish food experiences.

Barszcz — beet broth, clear and deep red — is the other canonical Polish soup. At Christmas it’s served with uszka (tiny ear-shaped dumplings filled with mushroom and sauerkraut). In March, when I visited, it appeared as a straight hot broth. It is beautiful and somewhat less sustaining than the żurek.

Bigos: the national stew

Bigos is Poland’s “hunter’s stew” — sauerkraut and fresh cabbage cooked for hours with various smoked meats, forest mushrooms, sometimes a little red wine, sometimes prunes. The flavour profile is complex and specifically Central European: sour, rich, smoky, slightly sweet. It needs bread to mop up the juices, and it benefits from cold weather.

My first bigos was at a restaurant on ul. Wiślna on the first evening. It arrived as a dark, dense stew in a cast-iron pot, with rye bread and butter. The sourness from the sauerkraut was balanced by the sweetness of the dried fruit; the smoked meats gave it depth. I ate all of it and would have had more.

Traditional Polish restaurants charge 25–35 PLN (€5.95–8.35) for a portion of bigos. At milk bars it’s typically 18–22 PLN (€4.30–5.25). Some versions are better than others — the ones that have been simmered for two days are categorically superior to those that have been on the heat for an hour.

Obwarzanek: the simplest thing

The obwarzanek is Kraków’s ring-shaped bread roll, sprinkled with poppy seeds, sesame, or coarse salt, sold from blue-and-white wagons throughout the Old Town. Each costs 2–3 PLN (under €1). They’re baked fresh and delivered to the wagons in the morning; by mid-afternoon they’re slightly less good than at 9am.

The flavour is mild and yeasty, somewhere between a bagel and a soft pretzel without quite being either. The poppy-seed version is the one I kept returning to. The tradition of the obwarzanek goes back to a royal decree of 1394 that gave Kraków bakers the exclusive right to produce them; eating one feels like participating in something rather than just having a snack.

Oscypek: the highlander cheese

Oscypek (pronounced “oh-SZIP-ek”) is the smoked sheep’s milk cheese from the Tatra highlands. It’s sold at street stalls around Kraków (particularly in Kazimierz markets) and is produced in the Podhale region from May to October. The version you buy in March in the city has been smoked and aged; the fresh spring version (available in Zakopane in late May) is a different product.

The flavour is assertive: salty, smoky, with the characteristic sharpness of sheep’s milk. At room temperature it’s slightly rubbery; grilled (the standard presentation at Zakopane stalls) it softens and develops a browned exterior. With cranberry jam it’s one of the better simple food pairings I’ve had anywhere.

Cost: a whole oscypek weighs about 400g and costs 25–35 PLN (€5.95–8.35). A portion grilled at a stall: around 10 PLN (€2.40).

The zapiekanki from Plac Nowy in Kazimierz deserve their own paragraph even though they’ve appeared elsewhere in this piece. They are not elegant food. They are long halved baguettes covered in mushrooms and cheese (and whatever else you order from the extensive additions menu), grilled until the cheese is bubbling, and eaten on the street while holding them with both hands like a food item that has decided to become a weapon.

They cost 12–22 PLN (€2.85–5.25) depending on complexity. They are very good. They are also specifically Kazimierz — the rotunda at Plac Nowy where they’re made is the physical centre of the neighbourhood’s food identity, and eating one is a participation in something that has been happening here in various forms since the communist era invented them as a cheap filling meal.

Sernik and szarlotka: the cake conclusion

Polish café culture produces two cakes worth knowing. Sernik is cheesecake made with twaróg — denser and less sweet than the American version, with a slightly grainy texture from the fresh cheese. Szarlotka is apple cake, typically served warm with cream in autumn and winter.

Both are available in most cafés in Kazimierz and the Old Town for 12–18 PLN (€2.85–4.30) per slice. Both are excellent when made properly. The szarlotka at Cafe Camelot on ul. Tomasza, served warm with a small jug of whipped cream, is particularly good.

What I would have done differently

I would have taken a food tour on day one rather than day three. Having a guide who knows the system — who knows which milk bar makes the best żurek, which version of bigos is worth eating, where the best obwarzanek wagon parks in the morning — would have compressed a lot of trial and error.

Kraków tipsy Polish food tour with history, pierogi and shots is one option that covers the essential dishes with a social and historical framework.

The Kraków food guide and the traditional Polish dishes guide cover everything I encountered and more. The best pierogi in Kraków guide is the most useful single resource if dumplings are your primary research interest.

The honest conclusion

Polish food is better than its reputation in Western Europe. The international recognition it receives is much lower than it deserves. The specific Kraków versions of the classics — made in an old city with a strong tradition and access to high-quality regional ingredients — are particularly good. Arrive hungry. Plan to eat a lot of soup. Accept that you will order more pierogi than you intended. This is not a problem.