As its
Polish name suggests, French restaurant Zakładka food & wine is
situated behind a footbridge. More precisely, next to the footbridge
connecting Kraków's two historical districts – Kazimierz and
Podgórze.
From the
beginning, Zakładka enchanted me with its stylish interior which
reminds me of my favourite film, “Amélie” (about which I wrote
here): red upholstered sofas, an old gramophone, china
statuettes of dogs and pigs, black-and-white photos of French stars.
It seems elegant and warm at the same time. And noisy - as finding a
free table without a prior booking is practically impossible.
While
waiting for our dishes, we unexpectedly got quite tasty free
starters: a few small pieces of bread, including a warm roll, a piece
of pâté and black olive spread served in an egg cup.
Afterwards
we were served two huge soup plates. My onion soup (PLN 9) was thick
and delicious (much better than the one in Zazie). While
mushroom cream ordered by my friend, Mi, (PLN 12) was very aromatic
but apparently the cook had been slightly too liberal with salt...
After the
starters and soups, we were full up and quite content with our visit
so far because, except for the salty mushroom soup, everything was
very good. Unfortunately, from that moment everything went downhill.
First of all
the snails. Because neither of us was very hungry, we decided to
share one portion of snails, just to try how they taste. We thought
we had clearly explained our wish to the waitress so we were
astonished to see her bring two big plates of snails – one for each
of us (PLN 28 each). When we politely pointed out the mistake, the
waitress snapped that she had read our order back to us and that we
should eat the two portions without any problem. After such a retort,
we decided to end the discussion to avoid further unpleasantness.
The snails
were served on a nice, decorative plate but it's the only positive
thing I can say about them. They were literally swimming in fat
which, according to the waitress, was garlic butter with herbs but to
me it tasted more like ordinary oil. So I have no idea how the snails
themselves tasted because the oily flavour and texture killed all
other sensations.
Secondly,
the service. For the first part of our meal (before the snails), the
waitress was very nice but than she started behaving in a peculiar
way, for example looking at my plate and making remarks whether I had
eaten everything from my plate or not. I think there's a fine line
between directness and incivility and the waitress was close to
crossing it.
So all in
all, I have mixed feelings about Zakładka. On the one hand, a
charming interior, big portions and delicious onion soup, but on the
other – impolite service and snails soaked in fat. And what would
you think about such a restaurant?
Address:
Józefińska 2, Kraków (Podgórze)
Website:
http://zakladkabistro.pl/
