52 Best Restaurants in Poland

This top-class restaurant in one of the city's top hotels is on one of Kraków's loveliest corners, at the foot of Wawel Hill. The imaginative menu is made up of classic Polish dishes—albeit the dishes you might find on the table of a typically aristocratic table—enriched with a cosmopolitan twist. The menu changes according to seasons or Chef Marcin Filipkiewicz's creativity—at one point it featured, for instance, foie gras roasted with apples and a touch of mead and quail with spinach accompanied by potato blini. You can also get special tasting menus of five to twelve courses. In summer you can dine on the rooftop terrace, with some of the best views in the city.

The inspiration for this restaurant came straight out of Łódź's Jewish heritage. This can be seen both in the nostalgic decor and the rich menu: chicken in honey-and-ginger sauce or Rothschild's duck in cherries or lamb "Łódź style." All this comes with accompaniment of klezmer music—and it's just a stone's throw from Piotrkowska Street, in the fashionable Manufactura complex.

Venetian owners Roberto and Francesco believe in a hands-on approach to running their restaurant, so they're nearly always present: taking orders, chatting with customers, and checking to make sure that everything is okay. In fact, the homemade pastas, tiramisu, and sgroppino cocktails (made with Prosecco and lemon sorbet) are more than okay—they are excellent. The Italian community in Kraków call this place their second home.

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.

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.

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.

If you tire of Polish cooking, consider a visit to this excellent Indian restaurant, which celebrated its 22nd anniversary in 2017. Owned by Anita Agnihotri, Miss India of 1973, it serves a wide range or traditional Indian delicacies in a lovely and warm space, decorated with all things Indian, from statues of Ganesha to portraits of Bollywood stars. For a group of minimum four people, they offer "Maharaja's Feast"—a set menu with chutneys, curries, and condiments, in both veg and non-veg versions. The service is top-notch, too.

Just off Stanisław Staszic Park is this smart restaurant, which serves pan-European cuisine. The wine list is well-curated, but wine production in Poland is quite small-scale, so the wine served here is from major growing regions worldwide. If days of tucking into meat and potatoes are taking their toll, try Dobry Rok's grilled dorada, nicely marinated in ginger with lemon grass and served with rice and vegetables or a refreshing salad topped with octopus, avocado, and orange slices. There are plenty of meat options here, too, and picky eaters can choose from a handful of pastas. There are a few outdoor tables, and enjoying breakfast here with a hot cup of good coffee is a nice way to kick-start a day of sightseeing.

According to Piotr Bikont, one of Poland's renowned food experts, Chief is the best fish restaurant in Poland. A recent renovation gave the place a more elegant look, while the food remains as good as ever. Owner Andrzej Boroń is an ichthyologist and fervent admirer of the sea. In the cellar, a pool holds live crayfish for the specialty of the house, crayfish boiled with dill. Fresh fish from all over the world is on the menu. This is not a hidden gem; it's well known, so book your table in advance.

Be prepared for some difficult choices at Kraków's most popular salad bar: the selection of nourishing salads and other savory staples is almost overwhelming. In winter, you can pick baked potatoes (free of charge) from an open fireplace in the cozy downstairs cellar. In summer, garden seating opens in the shaded inner courtyard.

This restaurant's name means "Peasant Kitchen," but this is the most entertaining interpretation of that theme imaginable. All meals come with complimentary bread and lard, and the menu is an artery-clogging cross section of traditional Polish peasant cuisine. For a starter try the żurek (stone soup) made from soured barley; then indulge in the very traditional main course of cabbage rolls stuffed with sauerkraut and grits in a mushroom sauce. To tell the truth, this is simple, unsophisticated food; and yet it has remained unceasingly popular for more than two decades.

If you are looking for a beautiful view while you dine, consider this one in a nice wooden pavilion on Wały Chrobrego. The interior may remind you of an old ship or battered port tavern. Unlike many places in Szczecin, the menu concentrates on meat rather than fish, offering hearty steaks with different additions. It doubles as a pub; beware that it's often noisy.

Behind the red door (that's what "Czerwone Drzwi" means in Polish) is an elegant but cozy café-cum-restaurant, a favorite with Gdańsk's fashionable people and tourists (particularly those not traveling on a budget). The decor resembles a slightly cluttered but pleasant bourgeois home. The menu changes with the seasons, but its strength is always a reliable offering of local dishes, such as żurek and pierogi, as well as veal escalopes.

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.

True to its logo (a sack of flour and a fish), this restaurant offers consistently good fish, seafood, and homemade pasta. In addition to Mediterranean fare, there is also a selection of typically Polish dishes. A special selection of seafood is offered Thursday through Sunday. Whatever you order, first you will get Farina's trademark appetizer of an excellent truffle-and-mushroom pâté to spread on scrumptious little rolls. There's a good selection of wines, including a great dry Prosecco that would stand up to any champagne.

Like manna from heaven, this Japanese restaurant offers a fresh alternative to the ubiquitous traditional Polish cuisine. On the menu are nigiri, maki, gunkan, sashimi, and assorted items like chicken or fish teriyaki, mixed tempura, and even a few Korean dishes like bulgogi (thinly sliced meat, marinated then grilled). The sets offer the best value. For dessert, munch on banana nutella maki.

Located within the Nadwiślański Ethnographic Park, this restaurant has a great wooden interior decorated with hunting trophies, and a roaring fire burns in the fireplace in winter. It is very busy during summer weekends, though during the low season it tends to slow down. The food is traditional Polish with a variety of meat dishes and excellent placki po myśliwsku (hunter-style potato pancakes, with meat and vegetable goulash).

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.