A Guide to Eating and Drinking in Krakow
- Krakow Information
- Eating & drinking in Krakow
- Night life in Krakow
- Getting around in Krakow
- Things to do in Krakow
- Where to stay in Krakow
- Krakow street map
Krakow is one of the best places in Poland to enjoy both great food on a budget and something a little more upmarket. Whether it’s local delicacies that visitors to the city are after or something more international, Krakow can increasingly satisfy all tastes.
There are a great deal of restaurants on or around the main square of Rynek Glowny, as they look to capitalize on the growing numbers of visitors. However, these are often slightly more expensive than elsewhere in town and travelers looking for typical Polish fare on a budget may be a little disappointed.
Soups and stews feature heavily on the city’s menus. 'Barszcz' (beetroot soup) and ‘bigos’, a delicious stew of sauerkraut and meat, are both popular Polish delicacies. Other hearty dishes like ‘zurek’ (vegetable soup) and ‘pierogi’ (dumplings) make effective fortifications for travelers visiting the city during the biting winter.
Cheaper restaurants are not hard to come by once you leave the center of the city. Tomasza, Bracka, Poselska and Karmelicka streets all have a variety of places serving large portions of traditional Polish cuisine at low prices.
The Jewish quarter of Kazimierz is also a great area for eating and drinking. Many places have a rustic quality with rough-hewn benches, stone walls and dark wood interiors atmospherically lit by candlelight.
In addition to this supply of top-notch kosher food, the city is blessed with a few excellent vegetarian restaurants. International options such as Mexican or Italian are possible in a city, which, if not historically known for being particularly cosmopolitan, has been trying its hardest to become so in recent years.
Although the humble Soviet ‘bar mleczny,’ or ‘milk bar’, is becoming increasingly scarce, they can still be found in some parts of Krakow. The ‘pierogi ruskie’ is a simple but filling potato dish that can be sampled on even the tightest of budgets.
Another tip for cheap food on the go is to the typical ‘Krakowski obwarzanek’. A bread-like snack (with salt, cumin or poppy-seeds) these can be picked up for next to nothing from one of the carts dotted around the city.
During the afternoon, the city's cafés fill up with crowds drinking cups of strong coffee or, more frequently, tea. In the winter months, people huddle around tables behind steamed up windows to escape the cold outside. And in the summer, the streets echo to the sound of chatter and laughter from the many terraces that line the elegant streets and squares.