Fine dining - what is it and what does it offer?

Exquisite, artistic and original. It brings back to the table game, mushrooms, fish from Małopolska's rivers and ponds, and locally grown herbs in the form of sophisticated dishes. If you are looking for fine-dining cuisine in the Małopolska region, i.e. one that elevates regional flavours to the art and mastery level, you will not be disappointed. Restaurants where food is not just calories, but works of the highest art create an extraordinary map for taste connoisseurs and culinary tourism fans. They show a given region, place by product and recipe at the highest gastronomic level. They entice with their original decoration in both historic and modern spaces, the quality of the food served and the respect for the product and the guest, who is served royally.

Regional dishes of Małopolska - discover their original style

Fine dining - what is it, and what does it offer?

It is a cuisine full of fantasy and courage, but also humility in the face of diverse tastes, for which it is uneasy to find one common denominator of culinary expectations. Visitors who come only to Kraków, Zakopane, Oświęcim or Krynica-Zdrój are missing out on the wealth of flavours and possibilities that Małopolska boasts. They are missing out on places serving thymus in the old-fashioned way, delicious venison, or an essential crayfish soup inspired by a Kraków recipe from 1897. The menus of Małopolska restaurants, both large and small, are the scenes of real revolutions. You can try a combination of Japanese sushi with local tradition (Youmiko sushi at Kraków's Józefa Street), eccentric lobster, or black ramen with local plums in cream. That is because the restaurants of Małopolska draw on the traditions of generations, but are also not closed to other cultures, influences and modern ways of preparing dishes. Many of them reach back to Jewish, Italian, French and Mediterranean cuisine traditions. By combining exotic flavours with local produce such as plums, pear apples and ripened cheeses, for which our climate has also proved friendly, we create a huge culinary melting pot. We have created a Małopolska style that is not afraid to experiment.

The best restaurants in Małopolska

Behind the success of every award-winning or popular restaurant in Małopolska is a human. Without his or her ideas, individual philosophy and ability to put into one dish, culinary touches of exquisite finesse, there would be no such restaurants in Kraków as Bottiglieria 1881, Trzy Rybki or Pod Różą, no Koncertowa or Dwóch Świętych in Krynica-Zdrój, or Salina in Bochnia. The chefs create the menu, make sure it is of the highest standard, invent the perfect culinary scenarios. Their taste, based on what is known and familiar, brought from home, but also forward-looking, drawing on trends and fashions, creates the character of the dishes. Real personalities in the gastronomic world form the strong backbone of Małopolska's restaurants. More and more frequently, they rely on their imagination and on local crops from across the border, and draw on the natural wealth of apiaries, forests, ponds and organic farms. Their craftsmanship and perfection transform simple and ordinary products into exquisite dishes. They are not afraid to combine sweet flavours with salty and spicy ones or return to the herbs our grandmothers used to enchant their dishes. At Dwór Sieraków, the chef prepares, for example, delicious roasted beetroots with chokeberry, brine cheese and nuts; he also serves chicken with celery. In the famous Zakopiańska restaurant near the Tatra Mountains, where tradition is combined with modernity and highlander flair, you can have moskol with jerked duck, onions caramelised in wine with bundz or wild boar cheeks with semolina. In the Koncertowa restaurant in Krynica-Zdrój, you will be served sour rye soup with pickled rye, maturing beef with bear garlic, and in Dwóch Świętych, as well as in Krynica-Zdrój, you can eat trout, cod or dumplings with rye. Beyond the aforementioned, if your culinary GPS leads you to Laskowa, head straight to Gęś w Dymie, a family-run small restaurant, where you will taste a bit of heaven when you sample its coolers, crayfish, goose meat, sea trout, steaks, and even ordinary potatoes, which taste amazing here.

Michelin restaurants in Małopolska

The restaurants of Małopolska are winning more and more awards every year. They can boast recommendations from Slow Food Polska, Gault & Mill, and one of the most prestigious in the world - the distinction of the Red Michelin Guide, of which all chefs and restaurant hosts dream about. In the Michelin Guide, restaurants are awarded the following symbols: Michelin stars - for the taste and quality of the food (from one to three stars), Bib Gourmand (Michelin man head symbol) - for good quality food at a reasonable price, and Michelin plates for fresh and good food. So far, only certain restaurants in Kraków have stars and recommendations, but who knows? It is impossible not to mention here the first and so far, only restaurant near Wawel with a star. It is Bottiglieria 1881, which in 2020, joined the group of the best European restaurants distinguished in the Michelin Red Guide. Behind its cuisine, breaking patterns, and courageously stands Przemysław Klima, a chef creating a new culinary era based on childhood flavours and local suppliers, who found his inspiration in Nature. This is precisely what our top restaurants in Kraków are like: offering fine dining set in beautiful historical interiors, such as Pod Nosem, Pod Różą, Szara or Copernicus.

The most interesting restaurants in Małopolska

The Salina restaurant in Bochnia serves traditional bloody tartare with wild boar and gherkin, red borscht and goose broth, and Parma ham or Italian pasta. Traditional flavours mix with European cuisine, but the duck breast with apples trumps everything here, even the bacon burger. The same is true at the Mountain Restaurant in Białka Tatrzańska, where tartar is on the menu next to shrimps with mango sauce and pork loin next to Italian nuggets. Still, Polish soups reign supreme - broth with noodles, sour soup with eggs and kwaśnica with ribs. You will just love it. It is worth going even further, Drukarnia Smaku Cristina in Zakopane. Housed in the famous "Polonia" printing house, serves original Polish dishes enriched with international inspiration and slow food spirit. Here you can enjoy fried duck liver, crayfish soup, lamb hip or beef rib. There is sea trout with smoked potatoes and sturgeon with swedes and rowan. This restaurant stands out from other highland inns, so characteristic of Zakopane's gastronomic landscape. It has class, finesse and taste. Let us hope there are more such places to be founded.

Wine that carries the scents of Małopolska - get to know Małopolska’s vineyards

Restaurateurs often serve local wines in their establishments, and we need not be ashamed - they are no worse than Tuscan wines. They ripen under the Małopolska sun and draw their juice from the Małopolska soil, guaranteeing an intensive and distinctive taste. The revived winemaking traditions, which were nurtured by monasteries in this area several hundred years ago, and the increasing number of vineyards on the Małopolska Wine Route are a reason to be proud. We are the fastest developing wine-growing region in Europe, and both families and institutions run vineyards; for example, the Jagiellonian University produces its own wine. They are established in beautifully landscaped places, many of them boasting organic, chemical-free cultivation. Every year, more and more wines from Małopolska win prestigious competitions. They get better every year. The quality of white wine, considered easier in our climate, has been high from the very beginning. However, Małopolska's red wine can also surprise even tourists from Italy or France. On the tables of elegant restaurants, local wines with original labels are becoming more and more popular. They differ not only in terms of grape varieties or the region where the vines were grown. In the bottles, you can find the hearts of winemakers who undertook this problematic art, experimented with, based on tradition, and crossed strains to make wine that is proudly labelled “Made in Małopolska”. Our wines are truly worth a taste!