A weekend city break to Krakow lets me sample Polish food and, in a surprise twist, I tick Georgian food off the list as well.

Poland

Kraków is better known for its beautiful historic architecture than its food, but Poland’s old royal capital does offer plenty to eat. This was true even for the token vegetarian in our group, though admittedly his patience and tolerance for cabbage would have been stretched if we’d stayed longer than a few days.

As well as pickled cabbage, Polish delicacies include a lot of pork and potatoes and a rather delicious type of dumpling called pierogi. We tried but failed to find a dumpling specialist restaurant called Pierogarnia recommended in the Lonely Planet Best of Kraków and suspect that it may have closed since the 2006 publication date. We ate some delicious dumplings anyway - my favourite had a cabbage and mushroom filling.

We also sampled hard breads called ‘obwarzanki’ sold from street vendors all over Kraków. They were usually salted and twisted, quite a bit like pretzels.

The best meal was at Kawaleria, a traditional Polish restaurant, where we enjoyed a three-course dinner on Saturday night. I had roast wild boar with a Juniper berry sauce and a rather delicious side dish of pickled beetroot. We each chose a different dessert - mine was a medley of ice cream and sorbet but my friend’s pear tart looked like the winner. The bill, including a lovely bottle of red wine, came to the equivalent of £90 on my credit card for four people.

On our final day, we stocked up with yummy gingerbread and biscuits at a shop called Torunskie Perniki.

Kawaleria
www.kawaleria.com
Golebia 4, Kraków
Tel: 012 430 24 32

Torunskie Perniki
Grodzka 14, Kraków
Tel: 012 431 13 06

Georgia

I didn’t really expect to tick Georgian food off the list during my two and half days in Kraków. If anything, I thought Ukrainian food would be more likely, and there are indeed several Ukrainian restaurants in town. On Sunday night we were hunting for a place to eat, having already sampled food at the vegetarian joint Greenway and declared it wanting. We ended up at Gruzinskie Chaczapuri (no, I can’t pronounce it either), which specialises in Georgian cuisine.

Obviously Georgia is a geo-political hotspot and in the news at the moment for all the wrong reasons. But its cuisine is actually quite famous - apparently it’s considered the France of the Black Sea region for its food and wine. There’s even been books written on the subject.

My dish was a cross between lasagne and spinach pie and quite delicious, while my fiancé ate cheese pie and one of my friends ate a chicken ratatouille style dish. It was not as fancy as Kawaleria and the service was a little slow but the food was good and not expensive. I have since found out that my cleaner is Georgian and likes to cook so I’m curious to ask her for some of her home-style recipes.

Gruzinskie Chaczapuri
Florianska 26, north of Rynek Glowny (the main square)
www.chaczapuri.pl
chaczapuri@chaczapuri.pl

Greenway (vegetarian, neither Polish nor Georgian)
Mikolajska 14
Tel: 012 431 10 27

Poland and Georgia are the seventh and eighth countries on my United Nations of Food challenge. There are 184 countries to go…