BEHIND THE GOTHIC FACADE – A MEETING WITH SIMON TAXACHER IN HOTEL COPERNICUS (KRAKÓW)

A few years ago I stumbled upon a magazine article about Hotel Copernicus in Kraków. Just two things from the article have stuck in my mind: the hotel's Medieval origins and a wonderful view of the Wawel Castle stretching from the roof terrace. The hotel is often visited by celebrities staying in Kraków (including my favourite actor, Benedict Cumberbatch) but because I'm definitely not a celebrity, the only thing I could do was to stroll along quaint Kanonicza street and wonder what's hidden behind this impressive Gothic facade.

However to my great surprise and delight, a few weeks ago I received an email inviting me for “snacks” and a press conference with a famous Austrian chef Simon Taxacher, which was going to take place in the Hotel Copernicus itself. As you can guess, I couldn't miss such an opportunity. :)

The meeting took place on the 17 October 2014 as part of the prestigious Gourmet Relais & Châteaux Festival, whose highlight was a seven-course dinner prepared by Simon Taxacher, an acclaimed chef (awarded numerous prizes, including 2 Michelin stars) and the owner of an Alpine hotel and restaurant Rosengarten in Tyrol, Austria.

Here are a few interesting facts that caught my attention during the conversation around a solid, wooden table in the hotel restaurant.

• Simon Taxacher combines regional products from Tyrol with ingredients from other countries so that his cuisine is both local and varied
• he pays a lot of attention to not only the look and structure of his dishes, but also the tableware on which they're served
• because he usually works up to 16 hours a day in his restaurant, at home he prepares only simple, quick dishes
• he values team-work and thinks highly of his co-workers
• even though he's pleased with the awards and praises, he always cooks to please his clients, not critics   

The “snacks” mentioned in the invitation email were actually three of the seven dishes from the menu prepared for the festival dinner. The food was not only delicious but also beautifully served. Some dishes looked like little pieces of art. Sommelier Andreas Katona matched the food with Austrian wines. And this is what we had a chance to eat:

Beetroots (old variety), sea-buckthorn, cottage cheese

According to Mr Taxacher, the beetroots are grown in a traditional way in Tyrol. They were served with mountain cottage cheese, sea-buckthorn and beetroot juice meringue. All the ingredients created a perfect blend of flavours but I especially liked the delicious, creamy cottage cheese made by the chef and his team from Alpine cow milk. The beetroots were served with 2012 Grüner Veltliner wine with a spicy, black pepper flavour.

Veal cheek, date malt, Jerusalem artichoke

Apparently beef cheek meat is a relatively rare restaurant dish as it's often used for veterinary inspections. That's why the chef has to cooperate with a vet who won't destroy the meat structure during the check-up. I can't say anything about the veal cheek as I don't eat meat but Ada from blog Pora coś zjeść praised its taste and tenderness. In the meantime, I happily nibbled at the date sauce and all the titbits served with the meat, especially Jerusalem artichoke – a traditional but now forgotten vegetable which is slowly coming back into culinary fashion. Even though I'm not a great fan of red wine, I fell in love with 2009 pinot noir from a small Austrian vineyard. It was definitely one of the best wines I've ever tried.

Garden - plums, nitro-chocolate, gin and tonic

For dessert, we had nitro-chocolate, in other words chocolate foamed with liquid nitrogen and tasting like something between chocolate mousse and ice cream. It was served with a delicious plum sauce, gin and tonic mousse and fresh clovers. The pink dessert wine Rosenmuskateller had a pleasant rose flavour but was a tad too sweet for my liking.

The whole meeting passed off in a pleasant atmosphere. I left the hotel with new culinary experiences, new acquaintances and a box filled with delicious things from Tyrol (including my favourite elderberry syrup). Finally, I discovered what's hidden behind the Gothic facade of the Hotel Copernicus and I must admit reality exceeded my (already high) expectations.

PS. I would like to thank the owners and staff of Hotel Copernicus for their invitation, professional organization of the meeting and a warm welcome. Special thanks to Simon Taxacher and his whole team for preparing all the delicious dishes and for sharing with us his culinary expertise. It was a great pleasure to meet you all. :)

Address: Hotel Copernicus, Kanonicza 16, Kraków (Old Town)

Website: www.copernicus.hotel.com.pl

Address: Hotel Restauracja Spa Rosengarten, 

Aschauerstrasse 46, 6365 Kirchberg, Tyrol, Austria

Website: restaurant.rosengarten-taxacher.com

Gourmet Relais & Châteaux Festival: www.gourmetfestival.pl

MY ROMAN HOLIDAY, PART 2: ICE CREAM VS. BULL'S MILK

Here we go with the second part of the story about my Roman adventures. Part 1 is available here.

No visit to Italy can be complete without real Italian gelati. That's why my friend and I went to Giolitti, an ice cream parlour near the Pantheon, which is recommended by most of the guidebooks. It was a very touristy place but the taste of the ice cream was worth the wait in a long, chaotic queue consisting of tourists from around the world. The vendors majestically served big scoops of gelati, trying to pay as little attention to the frenetic crowds as possible. My chocolate and pistachio ice cream were absolutely brilliant! The only disappointment was the champagne flavour ice cream – it did taste of champagne but, to be honest, it was barely edible.

Among the more interesting things I ate in Rome was mozzarella di bufala – cheese made from buffallo milk. Not bull's milk – as my friend jokingly suggested. ;) I also tried a mysterious fruit called nespola (loquat), which tasted like a cross between an apricot and pear. I wonder if it's available somewhere in Poland?

On our way back home, we stopped in a Tuscan town to make supplies of genuine Italian food. I bought loads of pasta, pesto, olive oil and cantucci – delicious almond biscuits from Tuscany. Because cantucci are really dry, you need to soak them in coffee, tea, or preferably in Tuscan fortified wine called vin santo. Below you can see a photo of cantucci and vin santo taken by my friend Jasmine during her trip to Pisa. It was delicious! :) 

Rome enraptured me with its art, cuisine and friendly atmosphere. I especially loved the quiet neighbourhood of Trastevere, where carefree kids were playing football in front of an ancient church, Italian mammas were hanging out the washing, and the life was going by very lazily.

Even though a lot of the monuments in Rome are impressively huge and lavish, I didn't feel any pompousness that can be found, for example, in Paris. In the narrow, winding streets, happy dogs walk with their elegant owners, cats live in the ancient ruins and the Forum Romanum smells of freshly mown grass. The city is full of greenery, fountains and crystal-clear water reportedly transported through aqueducts from the mountains.

But not everything in Rome was so perfect. Apart from the crowds teeming around the most popular sites, my visit was constantly interrupted by street pedlars who tried to sell either sunglasses or umbrellas (depending on the weather, which was very changeable). After a while I was afraid that when I open the fridge in my hotel, a pedlar will jump out of it screaming “Ombrello!” and shoving an umbrella into my face. :P

Finally, I discovered that in Italy not all that looks delicious is real. For example, the yummy cupcakes you can see in the photo below are... bath bombs. Fortunately, their soapy smell warned before I had a chance to take a bite. ;)

Giolitti (ice cream parlour), Via Uffici del Vicario 40, Rome, Italy, www

More photos

PS. If you'd like to read more stories about my travel, you can check the tab “My culinary trips” at the top of the page. :)

MY ROMAN HOLIDAY, PART 1: BAROQUE VS. PIZZA

Here's the first part of my culinary and cultural adventures in Rome. 

The second part is available here. Enjoy! :)

This April I went for the first time to Rome. I came, I saw... I fell in love. Rome turned out to be even more beautiful and charming than I'd expected. Here are a few things I discovered during my Roman holiday.

In Rome, I could live solely on art. Before the trip, I had an ambitious plan to go to as many restaurants and cafés as possible. But then I was so engrossed in visiting Baroque churches and squares that I didn't feel hungry at all. Well, almost at all...

When I finally managed to tear myself away from the art battle between two Baroque giants: Bernini and Borromini, I went for dinner to Gallo Matto (which means 'Crazy Rooster' in Italian) near the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. The restaurant's interior looks as if it was really designed by a crazy chicken but the food was quite nice.

Out of all the dishes that turned up on our table, I especially liked my ravioli with ricotta cheese. As the atmosphere in the restaurant was very casual (not to say familiar), I could personally congratulate the chef, who was sitting at a nearby table, laughing out loud and gesticulating wildly. Is there anything more stereotypically Italian? :)

In Gallo Matto, I found out for myself that the Italians love women and cheese. And especially the women who like cheese. When I told the waiter that “I love ricotta,” he immediately replied, “And I love you!” Not sure how he would react, I decided to conceal from him the fact that I also like mozzarella and pecorino romano. ;)

My biggest concern about Rome was that the city would be crowded with wild tourists. There were indeed a lot of people but only at the most popular sites. Like lemmings, people thronged around Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon but as soon as I turned into one of the side streets, I was almost totally alone. In one of such quite streets in the vicinity of Piazza Navona, we discovered a pizzeria Il Corallo.

My friends were surprised that a Roman pizza is flat as a pancake and doesn't resemble the dishes served in Polish restaurants. But I knew what to expect so I ate with a great pleasure a part of the pizza and even focaccia – pizza crust without any toppings, eaten with loads of olive oil. The food in Il Corallo was fresh and delicious (even the artichoke was quite edible) and the waiters and the chef (in the photo) – extremely friendly. But fortunately, this time no one professed his love for me. ;)

To be continued...

More photos

Gallo Matto, Via Cavour 107, Rome, Italy, www

Pizzeria Il Corallo, Via del Corallo 10/11, 00188 Rome, Italy, www

ROME, WARSAW, CRACOW – MY CULINARY TRIPS

Chocolate in Venice

To be honest, I hadn't intended to stay away from my blog for so long. But I was swamped with work and then the longer I procrastinated, the more difficult it was to get down to work and write my weekly posts. But here I am again to tell you about my culinary trips and reveal a few announcements regarding my blog. :)

Roman motto

In April, I spent a lovely weekend in Rome, where I lived on art and Roman pizza. A full account will appear on my blog very soon!

Aleksander Gierymski, In the Arbour, 1882, detail.

My trip to Warsaw was less exotic but equally interesting. I went there to see the exhibition of Aleksander Gierymski, a famous Polish 19th-century painter, and to do research for an article on food in art which will appear in Apetyt, a magazine published by Kraków bloggers. More details to follow.

Café Rue de Paris, Warszawa

While in Warsaw, I discovered a very nice French bistro, Café Rue de Paris, which is situated near the roof garden of the University of Warsaw Library. The café offers delicious quiches, tasty cakes, very good coffee and nice ambiance. I'm sure it'll be one of my favourite destinations during my future trips to Warsaw.

Chochołowy Dwór

I've also visited a few restaurants in and around Kraków, including Zbójcy w Pałacu and Chochołowy Dwór, but sadly I didn't it like any of them well enough to go back there and write a review...

Wielopole 3, Kraków

Fortunately, my favourite places in the Jewish quarter Kazimierz: Kolanko No. 6 and Bombonierka are still great so I could safely invite there my fussy family from abroad. In the meantime, I also discovered two inconspicuous but very tasty restaurants: Wielopole 3 and Dobra Kasza Nasza. You can expect their reviews quite soon.

"Sherlock" - BBC series

Finally, I've decided to write more articles about food in culture and I'm currently working on my posts about food in Jane Austen's times and in my favourite TV show “Sherlock.” So stay tuned! :)

Zbójcy w Pałacu, Kraków

PS. If you want to know what food festivals will take place in Kraków and Lesser Poland (Małopolska) region this summer, you can check out the new tab on my blog: Food Festivals - Summer 2014. :)

Artichokes in Rome

WEEKEND IN DUBLIN, PART 2: SEAFOOD AND PUBS

See also: WEEKEND IN DUBLIN, PART 1: TRADITIONAL IRISH CUISINE

SEAFOOD

Situated on the River Liffey near the Irish Sea, Dublin is full of tasty fish and seafood. The Irish love making songs about their food and the most famous one is "Molly Malone" about a pretty fishmonger selling "cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!" Molly has even her own statue in Grafton Street called humorously "The Tart With The Cart" or "The Trollop With The Scallop". 

To try fresh seafood, we went to a quaint seaside town of Howth, which can be reached by DART rail in less than 30 minutes from Dublin's city centre. Having worked up an appetite during a stroll on the pier, we decided to order a seafood platter for two in Deep restaurant recommended by our friend. But because it was a sunny Sunday afternoon, we weren't the only ones wishing to have lunch on the seafront and the restaurant was fully booked. We went resignedly next door to Brass Monkey, where we managed to seize the last free seats at the counter. 

I've got mixed feelings about Brass Monkey. Some dishes were really tasty, especially rich, creamy chowder (fish soup, EUR 6.50), but some were almost inedible, for example extremely sour Thai soup (EUR 5.50). Similarly, the fish platter (EUR 40) contained lovely grilled salmon and fried calamari as well as breaded fish which didn't have any flavour at all. And the waiter was very nice but he tried to cheat us out of 1.50 Euro. I know it isn't a lot of money and he apologized profusely when we pointed out the mistake but still...

Brass Monkey

Address: 12 West Pier, Howth, Dublin

Website: www.brassmonkey.ie

PUBS

Fortunately, Dublin pubs were as great as I'd expected or maybe even better. To shelter from the rain, we went to cosy Peter's Pub near St Stephen's Green. When we asked a friendly bartender for a drink to warm us up, he gave us warm cider with cinnamon sticks and cloves (EUR 3.90) and Irish coffee decorated with the shamrock - the symbol of Ireland (EUR 7.00). Both drinks were delicious and warming. What surprised me in Peter's Pub is the fact that it's a meeting place for everyone: from families with kids, to tourists like ourselves, to the elderly, who enjoyed themselves (and drank ;)) as much as the younger customers.

Peter's Pub

Address: 1 Johnson Place, Dublin 2

Website: www.peterspub.ie

IRISH BEERS

The aim of our second outing to the pub was to taste famous Irish beers. When during our trip from the airport I had told the taxi driver that I didn't like Guinness beer, he gave me two pieces of advice. Firstly, Guinness doesn't like to travel so you must drink it as close to the brewery as possible. Secondly, if you don't like its bitter taste, you ask a bartender for some "blackcurrant". But the second tip applies only to women because, according to the driver, drinking beer with juice isn't manly. ;)

When the other night we went to O'Neills Pub near Trinity College, we found out that the taxi driver was absolutely right. Guinness tastes much better in Dublin than in Kraków and if you add some blackcurrant juice it is even more delicious. We also tried some local pale ale charmingly called Galway Hooker (EUR 5.60) and I couldn't resist hot chocolate with Baileys Irish Cream and marshmallows. Yum! :)

O'Neills Bar and Restaurant

Address: 2 Suffolk Street, Dublin 2

Website: www.oneillsbar.com

After such an amazing weekend filled with lovely food and drinks we didn't really feel like coming back to snowy Kraków. But duty called and the following day we boarded the return flight, carrying with us 5 packages of Irish cheddar and planning to buy Baileys as soon as we land. Slàinte! :)

More photos

Wersja polska

WEEKEND IN DUBLIN, PART 1: TRADITIONAL IRISH CUISINE

See also: WEEKEND IN DUBLIN, PART 2: SEAFOOD AND PUBS

What can you eat and drink in Dublin? It was my first thought when I started preparations for our weekend in Ireland. Of course the trip was also full of cultural activities: admiring Old Masters' paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland, visiting Trinity College or watching “Pride and Prejudice” adaptation at the Gate Theatre. But the culinary aspect was equally important to me. That's why with some help from my Dublin-based friend, Kasia, and an Irish follower of my blog, Gary, I've decided to prepare for you a short summary of the best Dublin goodies.

Most of the traditional Irish dishes consist of potatoes, meat, and vegetables so they are quite rich and hearty. We had our first Irish lunch at Quays Irish Restaurant in a lively neighbourhood of Temple Bar. We found the restaurant by chance but it turned out to be a great choice: the interior was cosy, the food tasty and the service friendly. In fact, all the Irish people we met were really nice and genial. :)

Being so close to Guiness Brewery, we had to try the slow cooked beef and Guinness stew (EUR 10.95, lunch special). It was thick and aromatic, perfect for the rainy weather that greeted us in Dublin.

I also wanted to try boxty, or Irish potato pancakes, served at Quays with dressed leaves and a yummy sauce (EUR 6.95). Boxty turned out to be absolutely delicious – I especially liked the combination of creamy, buttery mashed potatoes, meaty pieces of bacon, and crunchy breadcrumb coating. I think it was the best dish I tried during my whole stay in Dublin.

Unfortunately, fish and chips I ordered as the main course wasn't the best choice (EUR 10.95, lunch special). The chips were very good but I hadn't expected the fish to be so soaked in grease. Now I know why some people pack it in a newspaper... Finally, I managed to eat only the chips with lots and lots of ketchup to hide the oily aftertaste. Well, maybe it was my punishment for ordering an English dish in the country that doesn't really love England? ;)

As to other Irish specialities, such as black pudding (blood sausage) or Skirts and Kidneys, their very names and list of ingredients were enough to put us off. Sorry, Ireland! :)

But we did want to try fresh seafood, which is an important part of Irish cuisine, and to have a beer or two in a tradition Irish pub. So if you want to read about our restaurant adventures in a quaint town of Howth and about the drinking tips from a genuine Dublin taxi driver, please check my blog tomorrow. Stay tuned! :)

More photos
Wersja polska

Quays Irish Restaurant

Address: 10-12 Temple Bar Square, Dublin 2, Ireland

Website: www.quaysrestaurant.com