One grows weary of duck in apples and smalec. When one longs for an alternative to kuchnia staropolska, we have found that Italian restaurants are where the classy cooking is in Poland these days. We’re not talking pizza here, but good, modern Mediterranean cooking. Italian restaurants tend to have the cool minimalist décor and the correct lighting, the best service and the most attractively presented dishes. (And the best-looking waiters). And of course I’m a sucker for a nice gooey pudding. Luckily Harold does not own a pinstriped suit, otherwise he’d be stuffing his cheeks with cotton wool and drawing odd looks from the comparatively low-key and well-dressed real mafia. Dressed as a gondolier, however, he blends in perfectly and keeps the diners and staff entertained with “Just One Cornetto” and bits of Gilbert & Sullivan. The wrong bits, but let’s not be churlish, he made an effort.
My all-time favourite Italian restaurant in Warsaw has to be Ristorante Balgera at Sandomierska 13 (Tel: 849 5674) (not to be confused with Café Balgera just round the corner from the Embassy, which is also quite pleasant but not in the same league). Now this is real class. A large room cleverly lit with concealed halogen spotlights, some carefully selected pieces of old furniture but not enough to cause a cluttered look. The dishes are light, fresh and attractive, with lots of fresh spinach, rocket and mozzarella, and the service very professional. Bacio at Wilcza 43 is cosier and more flowery, and always bustling with customers: their private room is ideal for a raucous girls’ night out. I am sure this has got your imagination going, but I’m afraid I’m sworn to secrecy as to what goes on at the coven AGM. I have already written about the elegant San Lorenzo at Jana Pawła II no.36, which has an interior straight out of a Visconti film.
The Hyatt Regency’s Venti Tre is rather expensive but a very elegant place to eat, with the top level of service one would expect. Capriccio at Koszykowa 54 (near the corner of Piękna and Poznańska) is a very posh place too. The décor is slightly fussier but tastefully designed in peachy tones cleverly matched with the waiters’ waistcoats. I was rather disappointed with the zabaglione – it was nothing more than meringue in cold custard. Corazzi at Corazziego 4 (Tel: 826 1890) is very unprepossessing from the outside but very cosy inside and the food is scrumptioso, as they say in Milan. Delicious pasta, soups and desserts, and sumptuous meat and fish courses, not to mention cocktails to make you sleep with the fishes and prices that even Harold can’t complain about.
Kraków too has its fair share of excellent Italian eateries. Padva in ul. Jagiełłowska (Tel: 012 292 0272), right opposite the old university building, is tucked away underground, in a cool white cellar adorned with murals of rustic Chiantishire. The food is far removed from the heaviness of bigos, golonka and Lithuanian potato dumplings. Come along now, you Polish chefs – since the advent of central heating, no-one needs THAT many carbohydrates. On a recent visit to Kraków Vi and I treated ourselves to a blow-out at Da Pietro (Tel: 012 422 3279), another great Italian restaurant in a 14th century cellar on the Rynek (no.17, next door to Wierzynek). . Vi Hornblower can eat more, more often, and faster, than anyone else I know. For starter we each sampled a different variety of carpaccio – Vi had fillet beef, I had the one with salmon – mine was delicious, and Vi said hers was too, although she scoffed it so fast I’d be surprised if it ever came into contact with her taste buds. I had sole florentine for main course, ordered in the safe knowledge that Harold was not around to serenade us with “O Sole Mio”. It was quite succulent. Vi inhaled her salmon lasagne in seconds and pronounced herself stuffed, which didn’t stop her polishing off the largest ice cream either of us had ever seen. My tiramisu was smaller, elegant and very, very wicked. With a nice bottle of Orvieto white, the bill was around 200 zlotys, which is molto reasonable.
Vi and I made our latest assault on Kraków while Harold was away being revolting with the peasants. Kraków certainly beats the Russian Market for virtually everything except CD’s and dodgy 10-zloty notes. All the little backstreets which lead into the main square are studded with divine little shops crammed with the most gorgeous coats, shoes, furs and jewellery. Vi, who is a sort of cross between Zelda Fitzgerald and Bet Lynch, found some divine leopardskin shoes, just like the ones Theresa May wore at the Tory Party conference. Vi had to go one further and bought matching underwear! I think it was out of solidarity with the World Wildlife Fund, although the thought of her in a leopardskin thong brings the other WWF (the World Wrestling Federation) to mind. She bought Desmond a pair of tight leather trousers – poor man! He’ll never stay awake long enough to get both legs in. I’m sure they’ll be much too small for him anyway, she told the assistant they were for someone with “snake hips”, for heaven’s sake! Snakebite, more like. After our blow-out at Da Pietro we waddled off down towards Kazimierz, which is where the action is in Kraków these days. The bars are so trendy that some of them don’t even have signs outside. Habana is, as you might expect, a Cuban-style bar at the end of Miodowa by the New Synagogue, where we happily sat for a couple of hours sampling cuba libres and mojitos. Harold would have enjoyed it there in his “Che” period, it had a huge poster of the esteemed Dr Guevara on the back of the toilet door and the soundtrack from Buena Vista Social Club was playing in the background. And of course no-one would have had the cheek to waft his cigar smoke away.
I have just finished reading Harold’s Christmas present, “The Great British Battleaxe” by Christine Hamilton. The Major and I have been compared on occasion with Mrs H and her hapless husband, but frankly I can’t see the resemblance – she’s so frightfully pushy. I see myself more in the mould of the Divine Margaret: emanating terror by the merest glint of those steely eyes. The stiletto between the ribs rather than the sledgehammer over the cranium. An offer nobody, especially Harold, can refuse.
