A Royal Banquet in Cracow: Difference between revisions

In Cold-War-era Poland, the Wierzynek restaurant was synonymous with Old Polish grandeur. This was where the few hard-currency tourists were directed to when they asked for the best restaurant in town and where international delegations were invited to sample what fine dining meant this side of the Iron Curtain. As Edward Szot, the restaurant's long-time manager, reminisced, the Kennedys came here to enjoy beef escalopes, George H.W. Bush consumed a venison haunch and a pork-loin roulade, and Fidel Castro was served export-grade chocolate. One of the most troublesome patrons of this establishment, known for its selection of game and other meats, was Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru -- a vegetarian!<ref>{{Cyt  

[[File:Reklama Wierzynka.jpg|thumb|upright|Wierzynek restaurant advertisement from the 1960s]]

In the 1980s, Wierzynek declined from communist Poland's shop window to communist Poland in a nutshell; beyond a decrepit façade, the restaurant was busier cooking books than food, with the management habitually turning a blind eye to widespread theft and graft. In the following decade, Poland was no longer communist, but little changed at Wierzynek, which continued to be state-owned. Employees sold their own unrecorded merchandise, managers destroyed financial documentation and prosecutors failed to investigate it all properly. In the end, in 2002, only the restaurant's director, officially identified as Stanisław K., was sentenced to two years of probation for mismanagement.{{Cyt  

Meanwhile, in 2000, the Wierzynek Tourist-Gastronomic Establishment was finally privatized. Mr. Janusz Filipiak, founder of the Cracow-based software house Comarch and one of the richest people in Poland, decided that inviting his wife to dinner was too cliché and why not buy her the whole restaurant instead?<ref>{{Cyt  

  | data    = 1 June 2013

  | data    = 3 January 2001

  }}</ref> And so Mrs. Elżbieta Filipiak and her daughter began their work on restoring Wierzynek to its former glory, in keeping with their own vision of medieval cuisine.

| In the Wierzynek menu, as on medieval tables, reigns the golden roast duck, quail eggs, barrel-cured herrings and steaming-hot sour ryemeal soup with rabbit stock, served alongside smoked ribs. There is juniper-scented wild-boar ham, Mikołaj Wierzynek plum brandy and Casimir the Great vodka. This is how I imagine the menu composed by the Cracow councillor's chefs and this is what I serve.

| źródło = Elżbieta Filipiak as quoted in: {{Cyt  

  | data    = 24 September 2012

  }}  

| oryg  = W menu wierzynkowym, niczym na średniowiecznych stołach, złoci się kaczka, goszczą jaja przepiórcze, jawią się śledzie z beczki czy paruje żur na króliku, podawany z ziobrem wędzonym. Jest szynka z dzika, która pachnie jałowcem, śliwowica Mikołaja Wierzynka i wódka Koronna Kazimierza Wielkiego. Tak wyobrażam sobie menu, które układali kucharze krakowskiego rajcy i takie podaję.}}

Right next door, she also opened an Italian restaurant, a sushi joint, a steakhouse and a chocolate shop -- or just anything to keep abreast with Cracow's rapidly expanding gastronomic offer. As for Wierzynek istelf, it remains one of the city's many decent eateries (although not among the [https://guide.michelin.com/pl/krakow/restaurants?max=30&sort=relevance&order=desc 25 places in Cracow that have made it into the Michelin Guide]) and certainly one of the most expensive.

== Pike in the Polish style ==