\n
![\"Eye-opening](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/articles-2026-07-01-16-36-35-183.jpg\")
\n <\/p>\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Part 1
My most recent visit to Poland really opened my eyes about the scope and diversity of that country, as well as providing me the opportunity to visit the locations where many of my ancestors lived.
The trip to northern Poland was organized by Polish American Radio Program host Andy Go\u0142\u0119biowski and Wanda Grzesik of Chopin Tours. The cities we visited included Warsaw, Gdansk, Toru\u0144 and Pozna\u0144, and it included such sights as the immense Malbork Castle and the beautiful Gniezno Cathedral. It would be hard for me to cover every aspect of the trip unless I did a 52-week series, plus I\u2019ve already written extensively about traveling to Poland. So, I decided to focus on a couple of aspects of my recent trip. Let me start with one of the things that connects many Polish Americans to their heritage \u2013 food.
The search for czarnina\u2026
or is it czernina?
In Poland pierogi are everywhere, but other traditional dishes can be harder to find. My last time in that country, I went on a fruitless search for czarnina. While there are a number of places in the Buffalo area where I can eat duck soup, I couldn\u2019t find any in cities like Warsaw or Krakow.
In Poland it\u2019s called czernina [chehr-knee-nah], or sometimes czarna polewka [chahr-nah po-lev-kah], depending on the region. It\u2019s a hearty soup famous for its distinct sweet and sour flavor, its brown, chocolate-like color, and the fact that it was traditionally made from duck\u2019s blood. Many people don\u2019t like it, either because of its unique taste or because of the duck\u2019s blood. In my family, however, it\u2019s a big favorite and I was delighted to find it when I went to the north of Poland.
I first found some czernina in Gdansk. Some of my fellow travelers knew about a place called Restauracja P\u00f3\u0142pi\u0119tro, a cozy eatery located near the town square. The soup was fantastic, filled with duck meat and vegetables.
Then in Pozna\u0144, I had czernina at the Bamberka Restaurant in the area of Pozna\u0144 Old Market Square. It was different from the one in Gdansk, but still very good with tasty kluski. As I found out, czernina is not uncommon, especially in northern Poland, but you have to know where to look for it.
When I was traveling around my ancestral villages (more about that later), we stopped at Chata Wiejska in Moglino, an authentic roadside tavern that serves traditional favorites. I enjoyed more excellent czernina as well as potato pancakes, served in large portions. Interestingly, the restaurant had three life-size bison outside that reminded me of the \u201cHerd About Buffalo\u201d art project a few years ago back home. You may known that Poland is home to the world’s largest population of the European bison, known as \u017bubr.
Many in Buffalo\u2019s Polonia came from the area around Pozna\u0144, as did my ancestors. Maybe they brought their love of czarnina with them, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s so popular in Western New York.
Polish your kitchen
In Sczcezin, our group had dinner with Anna and Mark Hurning. Anna is well-known for Polish Your Kitchen, a cooking blog and YouTube show. She and Mark, her American-born husband, hosted us for a dinner at Wyszak Brewery, located in the Gothic vaults of the cellar of the Old Town Hall. The dinner was not only delicious, but it included a tasting of traditionally brewed artisan beers. I was impressed.
Every meal in Poland started with soup, some of which are hard to find in Buffalo. In particular, \u017curek, a rich, hearty soup made with fermented rye, was available just about everywhere. I also had the chance to try cold beet soup, which was surprisingly good.
Overall, the restaurants were outstanding, and inexpensive as well. In Szczecin, I had the best liver and onions (with apples) ever! I love a strong cup of coffee, and the coffee everywhere in Poland was excellent as well!
I also got the chance to visit a milk bar (or bar mleczny) in Warsaw, one of the few holdovers from the communist era. Milk bars offer traditional, no-frills Polish food like pierogi at inexpensive prices. It was cafeteria-style and no-frills, but it certainly lived up to its reputation. There seemed to be more McDonald\u2019s restaurants than I saw on my previous trip, but mostly on the highways as we drove between cities.
For fast food or street food, it seems that Poles favor kebabs. Believed to be Turkish in origin, they typically feature chicken or beef carved from a vertical rotisserie and stuffed into a pita with vegetables and sauces. In Torun, I tried Zapiekanki, another popular Polish street food. Some call it Polish pizza \u2013 it\u2019s basically French bread topped with sauteed mushrooms (and sometimes ham), melted cheese, and ketchup. There are a number of variations as well. It\u2019s a simple dish, but surprisingly good.
In Pozna\u0144 I tried the famous St. Martin’s croissant (rogal \u015bwi\u0119tomarci\u0144ski), which is filled with a mixture of white poppy seeds, nuts, raisins, and candied fruits, and topped with icing and nuts. It’s taken so seriously that it\u2019s a Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) product, meaning only certified bakeries in the Greater Poland region can legally produce it. I found it very sweet and filling, not something I\u2019d eat every day. In Toru\u0144, I sampled some of the many varieties of Poland\u2019s gingerbread, Pierniki, the famous ginger spiced cookies made there for over 700 years. If you like gingerbread, you\u2019ll love them.
Chocolate pierogi?
At the Radio Cafe in Warsaw I ate a traditional go\u0142\u0105bki that was awesome. My group also had an interesting conversation with the owner, Stanis\u0142aw Pr\u00f3szy\u0144ski, a journalist who worked for Radio Free Europe. The comfortable, cozy restaurant had some terrific home-style pierogi as well.
However, not all of the restaurants were traditional, even the ones that offered traditional Polish dishes. One example was Pierogarnia Mandu in Gdansk, which is known for its wide variety of pierogi. But don\u2019t look for a plain potato or kraut pierogi; the fillings ranged from wild boar meat to duck to tofu to chocolate to strawberry. In addition, there was a selection of deep-fried and baked dumplings. All very good!
I really can\u2019t write about all of the amazing restaurants we ate at, because there were so many. That\u2019s due in large part to Andy and Wanda knowing the best places to dine. All the prices for food were reasonable as well. However, I have to make mention of our breakfasts.
Chopin Tours arranged for buffet breakfasts in each of the hotels we stayed at. All of them were great, but the one at the Sofitel Victoria Hotel in Warsaw was amazing. The buffet included made-to-order omelets, eggs, fresh pastries, artisan cheeses, fresh juices and seasonal fruit. Maybe it\u2019s me, but the fruit in Poland seems to taste fresher and more flavorful.
The buffet also had Polish specialties, like pierogi, kielbasa and kiszka. If you\u2019re not familiar, kiszka, also called kaszanka [kasha-nkah], is a sausage made from pork meat, barley or buckwheat and pig\u2019s blood. I never liked it growing up, but it sure tasted good in Warsaw!
My experience with food in Poland drove home the fact that it\u2019s a modern and diverse country. You can still find many of the traditional dishes most Polish Americans are familiar with, but Poles\u2019 tastes go beyond pierogi and czernina. Also, Poland is a large and diverse country, and a food that is popular in one region might be hard to find in another.
It\u2019s hard to believe that, 40 years ago, Poles were waiting in bread lines; today, the abundance is remarkable.
Next: To the villages of my ancestors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Part 1My most recent visit to Poland really opened my eyes about the scope and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10312,250,10311,10308,221,4080,101,10307,9,10306,10310,640,10309,192,45],"class_list":["post-15035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-warsaw","tag-buffalo","tag-culture","tag-genealogy","tag-heritage","tag-history","tag-new-york","tag-news","tag-pol-am","tag-poland","tag-polish-american","tag-polka","tag-polonia","tag-recipes","tag-sports","tag-warsaw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}