Kraków: European Capital of Gastronomic Culture 2019

Chew on this: In June it was formally announced that Kraków - a city increasingly accustomed to lofty titles assigned by international organisations (UNESCO World Heritage Site, City of Literature) - would be bestowed yet another: European Capital of Gastronomic Culture 2019. The title is divined by the European Gastronomic Academy and 2019 is the first time it has ever been awarded, meaning that Kraków, much like a communist-era mother holding a crying baby, has skipped to the front of the queue, straight past perhaps more obvious or deserving contenders like San Sebastian, Lyon, Florence, Copenhagen, Lisbon (who it apparently beat unanimously in the final)...heck, even Warsaw, and...well, much of western Europe. Nonetheless, and hardly surprisingly, the unexpected announcement has been cheered locally, where hundreds of pierogi-pinching babcias paused their work to take a bow....

But we kid; in all sincerity, while this is a curious, and to many controversial, accolade indeed, it underlines the distance that Kraków has come in the last three decades, from the old-fashioned former capital of a country with staterun restaurants, no sense of customer service, no culture of dining out, and a paucity of green vegetables, to the inaugural winner of a prestigious gastronomy award from a seemingly legit organisation. The European Gastronomic Academy has essentially staked their reputation on the idea that Kraków is one of the very best cities for foodies in Europe. Do they know what they’re talking about?

We would argue that...yeah, they do. From our perspective of observing Kraków’s gastronomy market for the past 20 years, the city has certainly undergone a remarkable transformation. Just take a look at our guide for the evidence. Our first edition of Kraków In Your Pocket, published in 1999, while largely a love letter to the city (which it remains to this day), was also a catalogue of complaints about service and warnings to our western readers when it came to the Restaurants section. There were only a handful of decent restaurants in town, and those top venues certainly weren’t anything you could call ‘trendsetting.’ Today we don’t have room in print for all of the worthy restaurants in town, let alone snarky reviews of which eateries to avoid (those you can find online), despite the fact that this section has only grown in length over the years. Quite simply, Kraków is is one of the top travel destinations in the world today, and it has the restaurants to reflect that; we’re proud to recommend so many of them.

What makes Kraków a ‘City of Gastronomy?’

1. THE CITY’S RESTAURANT INDUSTRY IS EXPERIENCING ITS RENAISSANCE Kraków is a late, late bloomer. Not until after the collapse of communism in 1989 did the city reestablish any sort of international profile, but its reputation as a beautiful and exciting tourist destination has steadily risen since, with tourist numbers increasing significantly each year over the past decade to the point that a record 13 million tourists were reported in 2017. In concert with the city’s growing tourist volume, Kraków’s restaurant sector has gradually expanded, creating more space in the market for an ever-expanding diversity of ethnic cuisines, inspiring innovative kitchen concepts and keeping the city at the forefront of contemporary trends in not only gastronomy, but also interior design. More restaurants means more competition and a steady increase in standards, to the point that in 2018 the city had 26 restaurants with Michelin recommendations (whatever those are actually worth). More and more high profile chefs are coming to Kraków and the city is becoming a proving ground for the industry’s best restaurateurs.

2. POLISH CHEFS ARE REDISCOVERING & RE-IMAGINING LOCAL CUISINE

Polish cuisine has long conjured images of queues in milk bar cafeterias or cottage kitchens with surly babcias behind the counter, but the reputation of the national kitchen has been on the rise as a new generation of Polish gourmands have been reinventing traditional dishes and rediscovering the diversity of Polish products and tastes. Though once decried as bland, boring and basic, Polish cuisine is now hailed for its simplicity while producing such richness of flavour, and a newfound appreciation for the creativity and inventiveness of Polish food (particularly the practice of pickling vegetables for the winter) has emerged.

Further boosting the international reputation of Polish cuisine is the traction gained by the ‘slow food,’ ‘farm to table,’ ‘eat local’ and ‘eat seasonal’ movements - contemporary gastronomic trends which have been the basic principles of Polish cooking since medieval times. Locally sourced, seasonal ingredients from Małopolska are proudly served in the city’s top restaurants, where the chefs are also embracing the complexity of Kraków’s historical and cultural influences, by fusing and blending characteristics from traditional Polish highlander, Jewish, Hungarian, Ukrainian and Austrian cuisine to create a new modern Małopolski kitchen. This new sense of pride but also imagination in Polish cuisine is largely being fostered by local chefs, many of whom have trained or worked abroad and returned to use their expertise to elevate the national kitchen to new heights. Kraków’s competitive restaurant scene has become a cottage industry for producing some of the most talented chefs in Europe.

3. KRAKÓW IS HOME TO NUMEROUS CULINARY MARKETS & EVENTS

Home to the largest medieval market square in Europe, merchants and farmers have flocked to Kraków to sell their products and produce for centuries. Present-day Cracovians still love to do their food shopping at openair markets (p.132), trusting the integrity and preferring the flavour of locally-grown food over that which they find in supermarket chains. Almost every district in Kraków has its own farmers’ market; the daily market at Stary Kleparz (p.132) - centrally located right between the train station and market square - dates back over 800 years and is arguably the city’s best, while the residents over the river in Podgórze have organised their own market (Targ Pietruszkowy) focussed on fresh, organic foods produced exclusively within 150km of Kraków.

Kraków is also home to an increasing number of food and gastronomy events, from food truck festivals to Restaurant Week, and public squares like Mały Rynek and Plac Wolnica routinely host regional food fairs dedicated to Wine, Bread, Honey, Pierogi and more.

4. FOOD, HOSPITALITY & ATMOSPHERE COMBINE HERE LIKE NOWHERE ELSE

With a tradition of feasting that goes back to the Middle Ages, eating is a big part of Polish hospitality. If you’ve ever visited a Polish home, you were probably offered drinks, snacks and sweets non-stop, served them regardless, and prohibited from leaving without eating at least a kilo of cake and drinking a litre of tea (or vodka, depending on the occasion). This kind of hospitality - which directly ties food to comfort - is simply part of the national character, and present everywhere from private homes to 5-star hotels.

As essentially the only major Polish city to have escaped WWII with its architecture intact, Kraków’s city centre possesses a special atmosphere like nowhere else, earning it a place on UNESCO’s first-ever World Heritage List. The city’s restaurants invite you to enjoy excellent food and hospitality in unforgettable and undeniably romantic surroundings - Gothic cellars, Renaissance palaces, former Jewish prayer houses, hidden monastic gardens and bustling public squares with exclusively Cracovian views. This city’s charm is so thick, you can eat it with a spoon.