Busting myths about Polish foods at new Wood Street restaurant

GOOD timing and an attractive location are paramount, as any restaurateur worth their salt knows.

So when the perfect venue opened up unexpectedly in Wood Street and an experienced chef came a-knocking, the months spent pondering the possibility of launching Swindon’s first Polish restaurant were brought to a frenzied head.

What was simply a castle in the air suddenly turned into a frantic mission to gut the former Los Gatos tapas bar, completely refurbish it and create a menu from scratch – just in time for the busy festive season.

On December 4, a mere three weeks after co-owners Craig Gavin and Andrzej Swietek picked up the keys to the building, Karczma Polska welcomed its first customers.

“It took 20 days, from the moment we picked the keys up to the opening,” said Craig, 42, who also owns plumbing, heating and building businesses.

“We had to get through licensing, do the whole refurb. It was mayhem. That’s one way to describe it. It all happened so quickly.”

Craig and Andrzej first met when the latter joined his firm. Soon Craig was immersed in Polish culture and invited to family celebrations in his new friend’s native land.

The desire to broaden Swindon’s horizons and introduce the locals to Poland’s rich culinary tradition while filling a gaping hole in the market slowly began to grow.

When Andrzej’s wife Marlena, a professional chef, moved to Swindon last autumn from Northern Poland and Los Gatos relocated to Devizes Road leaving a vacant unit on the Wood Street – one of the town’s most vibrant foodie destinations – the decision was made.

“Andrzej had worked for me on and off and I’ve quite a lot of people from the Polish community working for me as well so I became familiar with their culture, their food,” explained Craig. “I was invited seven or eight times to Poland.

“There is a huge Polish population in Swindon.

“I had been thinking about it for a long time. Andrzej approached me and asked me if I would be interested in setting up a restaurant with him. I thought it was a pie in the sky; I thought, ‘let’s wait until Marlena gets here first’.

“She came to Swindon and this place came up. Of course we were looking to find the right location before we committed to anything. “When this became available we just jumped at the chance. There were eight other people interested but the landlord liked the idea of bringing a different type of cuisine to the Old Town area.”

Previously the Polish community has been served by delicatessens, the most well known being Maryla in Groundwell Road which has served the community for over 40 years.

Karczma (pronounced car-j-ma) Polska, The Polish Inn, was designed to answer the demands of the town’s growing Polish community as well as offer British guests a real taste of Eastern Europe – setting the record straight about what the country’s gastronomy actually entails.

Let it be said once and for all: sausages are not a Polish staple and you will be hard-pressed to find any on the menu.

Some of the traditional delicacies served include Pierogi dumplings and Placek, a potato pancake with beef Stroganoff.

“We serve traditional Polish cuisine. With Poland being a vast nation there are specialities in different areas. That’s a challenge, let alone bringing a little twist. It took a while to come up with the menu. It was printed the night before we opened.

“It’s aimed at the Polish community in Swindon. We are providing them the opportunity to eat the food their mum served them and they are loving it.

“The menu is quite small, and we will keep changing. And people from different areas of Poland have already put requests in.

“One of the dishes everybody has been talking about is Bigos, which is a hunter’s stew that takes three days to make.

“And we want the English community to come and try different flavours and types of food.

“There is so much people don’t know about Poland and they don’t know much about the culture and the food.

“There is definitely a lot of cabbage but there is more to it than that. They eat a lot of meat but not a lot of sausage, like a lot of people think. There is not a single sausage dish on our menu. And there are quite subtle flavours.”

To emphasise this marriage of culture, the restaurant’s logo merges the British and Polish flags.

Not simply a restaurant, Karczma Polska hopes to become a family hub and a place for the community to gather and celebrate milestones, birthdays and weddings, in keeping with Polish tradition.

“Some people have never been able to get their own food in Swindon. Now they can and they can also socialise and meet.

“People have been asking if they can book the whole restaurant for birthdays and christenings. This is traditional for them. They never had the chance to have family parties in a Polish restaurant here before like they would do back in Poland.“

They may have had an inkling that a Polish restaurant would be welcome in Swindon but Craig and his team were not quite prepared for the constant influx of guests – all after a taste of Marlena’s mouth-watering stews and dumplings.

Front of house manager Paulina Merwa, who moved to Swindon with her family seven years ago, said: “We didn’t expect it to be so popular so quickly. We knew there was a market for it but not that big a market.”