Hello from the seaside! 🙂 I know you haven’t heard from us lately but you know how it is. When we leave Maks at our parents’ we don’t seat in front of the monitor but try to enjoy our precious FREE time. Sea, beach, a book and a beer with juice, night trips and of course: a flounder, chips, traditional white cabbage salad and yet another must – waffles with whipped cream and some extra ingredients such as blueberries, strawberries, chocolate and our biggest discovery of 2013: cherries in chocolate (in Hel)! Countless beers with juice, a sweet bun, mackerel icefish, burbot, turbot and even more flounder! There’s no trip to the seaside during summer without such attractions. But when we got tired of the tourist resort atmosphere and food we decided to go to Tricity and eat something more exquisite…
We had a few ideas. We decided to start with Sztuczka in Gdynia, recommended by Agata Wojda, a chef at Warsaw’s Opasły Tom. Such recommendation makes you go from Jastarnia to Gdynia, spent some time in a car just to be able to eat something. And it’s worth it! 🙂 Come with us and see the tricks in Sztuczka!
Sztuczka is located in quite a busy ul. Władysława IV (address: ul. Abrahama 40, entrance from Władysława IV). Fortunately the trees and the lawn separate the restaurant from the street, and you can have your lunch in a quiet garden…
stylish interior in Sztuczki
learning from the best?
The interior is quite minimalistic and elegant but not too exquisite – we’re wearing very casual, beach clothes and don’t feel like intruders. There’s a pile of books next to the bar with Gordon Ramsay on top – that adds to the general atmosphere of Sztuczka. Rafał Wałęsa is the owner and the chef. Remember his name as he does real tricks on plates!
We want to try as many dishes as we can, so Łukasz chooses a tasting menu consisting of 7 little dishes. The whole menu without wine costs PLN 150. For PLN 100 you can also order a vegetarian version. I stick to the regular menu and order a 4-course lunch (a starter, a soup, main course and a dessert) for PLN 120. Quite a good price compared to similar restaurants in Warsaw.
waiting for the specialties
The descriptions of the dishes from the tasting menu are a bit similar to those in Atelier Amaro where there are only ingredients pointed out without any clues about how the meal is prepared. Here, the descriptions are a little bit more detailed though. e.g baked bacon, burned aubergine puree and compressed apples – the latter were among the most delicious meals.
We start with a salmon gravlax /beetroot, horseradish/ salmon’s roe. Tasty, but not astonishing. But the baked bacon served next tastes wonderfully smoky, is juicy and sprinkled with crumble made from kabanos sausages.
salmon with an essential addition in every modern restaurant — the foam
one of my favourites: bacon with crumble made of the kabanos sausage
Next comes the crab tartare, cucumber gazpacho and dill emulsion – all very light, green, holidayish and decent but not so special. It all tastes pretty dull.
I’m feeling green!
Łukasz enjoyed foie gras / duck rillettes / pickles / hibiscus consommé – the combination of duck meat with delicate and almost perfect foie gras tastes delicious.
foie gras i kaczy rillettes
After a meaty starter it’s time for fish – cod mousse with guacamole and chorizo salsa. Spicy chorizo is a great counterpart to the fish mousse, making it more distinct. Yummy! The last dish from the tasting menu is a mini beef tenderloin / roquefort / truffle duxelle / celery veloute. Truffle duxelle makes the beef taste quite interesting – good idea! 🙂
cod spiced up with chorizo
meaty dish No 1 of the meal
I start with a green beans mousse, salmon tartare with a “tube” filled with creamy wasabi and rosemary emulsion (PLN 29). Tartare is delicate but tasty with the rosemary emulsion and mustard sauce adding to it. The cookie “tube” is quite weird for me, I prefer a classic sweet version with cream. Łukasz liked it a lot though!
salmon tartare an original “tube” filled with creamy wasabi
Next, I go for gazpacho – mine is traditional, Spanish but with cucumber granite and a compressed cucumber (PLN 20). St. Jacques mussels salad on a cracker is served as a side dish – the salad’s cool, the cracker – not really.
For the main course, I choose a traditional Baltic dish – a cod, but an Atlantic one here, served with crumble made from pine seeds, cauliflower mousse, caramelised cauliflower, green beans and bacon vinaigrette (PLN 49). The fish tastes delicious and the pine seeds along with the bacon vinaigrette serve as a colouring for a usually boring cod. Łukasz eats my cauliflower mousse – cauliflower is not too high in my favourite foods ranking. I was also tempted by a salmon served with ravioli with liquid parmesan cheese, basil beurre blanc and a selection of tomatoes (PLN 37). If anyone tried/tries it – let us know how it tasted!
cod with pine nuts and cauliflower mousse
We couldn’t do without desserts! We got two from the tasting menu: lemon assiette with mint – ice cream and a sorbet – unfortunately not too distinct, and a great petit four (chocolates in various forms – mousse/cream and powder made from burned butter served with a berry sauce). Delicious!
chocolate and more
I just had to order a coconut partaif with a mango sorbet and mango and coconut tagliatelle (PLN 19). The dessert tasted like… Thailand! 🙂 Coconut ice cream and a mango sorbet sprinkled with delicious coconut crumble. The only thing I left was a warm coconut biscuit that tasted like a stiff steamed knedlik… The rest was great, even though it was the petit four that won my heart! You can see the coconut parfait in the beginning of the entry!
It was worth the trip. We could try some exquisite dishes still wearing shorts and a beach dress! Go for it!
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Although there was no topinambour in the menu, which is quite popular in modern an original restaurants, there were still some complicated words 😉 I won’t pretend that I knew them all, check this little dictionary if you don’t want to look like an ignorant in places such as Sztuczka:
rillettes – a French dish somewhere between a pate and a meaty lard. The meat is cooked in its own grease long enough to become a kind of paste. You can prepare rillettes from a duck (as in Sztuczka), a goose, a rabbit or from some types of fish
consomme – French cuisine again, a clear soup
duxelle – to keep it brief – a mushroom paste
veloute – a type of delicate sauce
gravlax – finally something that’s not French but Scandinavian! Gravlax is usually a snack made from raw salmon, pickled in salt
Sometimes it’s something completely normal but doesn’t it sound more magical in French? 😉
Practical info:
Sztuczka
http://www.sztuczka.com/
ul. Abrahama 40 (entrance from ul. Władysława IV)
T: 58 622 24 94
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