Say pierogi and most people need no explanation: fried or boiled, these filled dumplings are nearly as integral to Chicago’s local cuisine as deep-dish pizza and giardiniera.
Maybe you’ve also tried other Polish classics such as gołabki (stuffed cabbage) or makowiec cake (poppy seed roll). Every cuisine is a reflection of geopolitical history, and in Poland’s case, quite a bit of culinary inspiration can be traced to Turkey and Central Asia.
Poland has had historic connections with Turkey for over 600 years. One current case in point is Polonezköj, a Polish neighborhood in Istanbul that’s been documented by a few YouTubers in recent years. Situated on the transcontinental city’s Asian side, this small community was founded shortly after Poland’s 1830 uprising against the Russian Empire, when the Ottoman Empire offered the area to Polish exiles for settlement.
This connection remains embedded in classic Polish cuisine. Gołabki is like a larger version of dolma, but with a Slavic spin, featuring ground pork. Pierogi supposedly came to Poland in the 14th century with the Tatars, Turkic nomadic tribes from Central Asia. Steak Tatar, a popular Polish appetizer that drops the “e” of France’s tartare, is another tip of the hat to history (although it’s debated whether its origin truly is Tatar or French). When Asian culture was in vogue in Western Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries, coffee and Middle Eastern sweets such as halvah became the craze in Poland; today you’ll find it renamed as chałwa in lots of sweet shops in Poland.
Polish cooking certainly has a strong personality of its own, centered around local meats, root vegetables, fermented or pickled vegetables, mushrooms and grains. The technique of frying beans, cauliflower and asparagus with breadcrumbs is known as polonaise. But the use of dried fruits, nuts and aromatic spices really illustrates Poland’s past exchanges with Ottoman culture: roasted duck or bacon with plums, hot soups with fresh strawberries or dried prunes with cloves and cinnamon, and baked treats like the poppy seed roll or keks cake with dried fruits and walnuts are just a few examples.
Here are five Polish restaurants and a bakery in Chicagoland, listed in alphabeticalorder, where you can explore these sweet and savory flavor combinations.
Located in northwest suburban Schaumburg next to a Polish supermarket, Bacowka offers down-home Polish classics, with quite a few highlander dishes. As you wait for your order, servers bring out little wooden boards with rye bread slices, pickles and pork fat — Poland’s answer to chips and salsa, or bread and olive oil.
Get their Golabki stuffed cabbage rolls ($8.50) over tomato sauce and mashed potatoes, and the Szaszlyk shish kebab ($12) with marinated pork tenderloin, potatoes and mixed salads. Vegetarians should try the pierogi ($8.50) with cheese and potatoes or sauerkraut and mushrooms, a side of beets ($5) and the excellent braised cabbage ($2.50).
1120 S. Roselle Road, Schaumburg; 630-283-0023; bacowkail.com
Step into Highlander House and feel like you’ve been transported to an old log cabin in the Carpathian mountains of southern Poland, where the indigenous Góral people reside and keep merry with pierogi, grilled meats and cherry vodka.
“Highlander cuisine comes with its own characteristic culture, traditions and people,” says David Zygmunt, who manages the Palos Heights restaurant and bar together with owners Agnieszka and Staszek Bobak. “Lamb chops, steak tartare and sheep cheese are not your typical Polish dinners. Here, dishes are prepared from scratch according to recipes from the southern region of Poland called Podhale.”
Start off with a grilled sheep cheese appetizer ($11) with grilled bacon and cranberry sauce, followed by sauerkraut soup ($8) served in a steel cauldron. For a main course, look for the duck breast ($29) accepted with plum sauce, highlander dumplings, carrot and asparagus. Complete your meal with a mountaineer-style tea spiked with cherry vodka, and you could almost imagine you’re on a horse and carriage in the town of Zakopane, a mere 4,700 miles away.
12333 S. Harlem Ave., Palos Heights; 708-942-3688; highlanderhouserestaurant.com
Many Polish restaurants in Chicago have disappeared, in part due to gentrification and an aging population (fewer migrants come here since Poland joined the European Union), but the family-owned Staropolska has been standing strong in Logan Square since 1978. Its interior of beamed ceilings, brick walls, wrought-iron chandeliers and mural paintings of historic scenes make many Polish expatriates stop by whenever they feel the old motherland nostalgia.
Try bacon-rolled plums ($11) and strawberry pierogi ($13) to experience the Polish take on sweet and savory flavor combinations. If you aren’t big on fruit in cooking, another option is mushroom soup ($7) followed by Chicken Devolay ($17), a breaded and fried chicken stuffed with cheese and parsley butter.
3030 Milwaukee Ave., 773-342-0779, staropolskarestaurant.com
If you’re hungry for a modern version of Polish cooking, head to Tradycja Polish Fusion in Orland Park, where owner and executive chef Damian Piekarczyk enjoys pairing classic Polish lamb rack with chimichurri, or duck breast with cherry sauce and hummus.
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“Turkish cuisine has had a huge impact on the development of Polish cuisine,” he says. “New settlers introduced spices like paprika and cumin centuries ago and gave us new flavors. One of the most popular Turkish dishes in Poland today is kebab, but we upgrade it a little bit with grilled lamb, beef or chicken, a napa cabbage slaw and amazing garlic sauce.”
If you’re here with a larger party, start with the beef tartar ($18) with raw egg yolk, dill pickle, onion, mushrooms, smoked sprouts and mustard puree, and maybe also the Chef Board ($24) with sheep cheese, crispy bacon, house pate, fried pierogi, plum and pepper dressing, marinated mushrooms and pickled veggies. But if you’re dining solo or with a date, you can’t go wrong with the fried pierogi and stuffed cabbage ($17) with mushroom sauce and balsamic onion.
14478 S. La Grange Road, Orland Park; 708-949-8109; tradycjarestaurant.com
Lots of Polish bakeries and supermarkets in Chicago sell poppy seed roll (makowiec), but it’s not always easy to find a good one: it needs to have a generous amount of poppy filling, and most of all it can’t taste dry. But makowiec, paczki with plum and rose fillings and more are on offer at Wiklanski’s, in the Dunning neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side. The bakery, run by husband-and-wife pair Waclaw and Dorota Wiklanski, the bakery also has a variety of breads and, if you’re lucky, sometimes there’s a honey cake studded with nuts. Don’t be shy about the lack of English signs — just point at what looks good.
6006 W. Belmont Ave., 773-853-0077, facebook.com/WiklanskisBakery
Nikki O’Neill is a freelance writer.
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