Vinegre — Restaurant in Gdynia

Booking a table at Vinegre is an unnecessarily frustrating process. Although you can request a booking online—say, via Google—the restaurant doesn’t confirm it automatically. Instead, you’ll likely need to call them directly to nudge them into acknowledging your reservation. For a supposedly modern venue, this clunky system feels archaic and inconvenient, especially when so many other places have seamless booking experiences.

If this is your first visit, brace yourself: just finding Vinegre could turn into a minor detective job. There are barely any signs or clear directions, which makes the search more of a treasure hunt than it should be. A location on Gdynia’s waterfront should be a breeze to find, but not here.

Once we arrived (a party of four), we were greeted warmly and shown to our table. That part, at least, was pleasant. However, a peculiar thing happened during the booking call: I was told the only available table was at the back of the restaurant—implying the place was nearly full. Yet when we arrived on a Sunday late afternoon, it was barely 20% occupied. A bizarre mismatch between the information provided and the reality.

Now onto the menu and dining experience. According to their website (entirely in Polish), Vinegre is meant to be a restaurant, wine bar, and cocktail bar all in one. Great in theory, but if you’re not a Polish speaker, you’re out of luck—there’s no multilingual menu or guidance. Even the Google listing links to their Facebook page as the “official” site. In 2025, that’s just unprofessional and alienating for non-Facebook users.

The menu layout itself is chaotic. Starters and tapas are on one page; turn it over, and you’re faced with mains and entrees—without much cohesion or logic. We weren’t especially hungry, so we opted for a light meal: I went for a Caesar salad with chicken (shrimp was also an option, oddly deep-fried in panko—as if this were a fusion Asian takeout). The others ordered shrimp salads, also from the “tapas” section. We added some focaccia and white wine by the glass.

Here’s where the “wine bar” bit really falls apart: there were maybe three or four whites available by the glass. The house option (Pinot Grigio, first on the list) was out of stock. So, no house wine, and a very limited selection? That’s not a wine bar—just a restaurant with a small wine list. The waiter recommended an alternative, which was fine, but not what I wanted.

The food arrived fairly promptly, and so did the focaccia—though I had to ask for olive oil. When it came, there was no small plate to dip it in, so back the waiter went again. Small details, but they add up.

As for the food: the Caesar salad was generous—too generous, actually, in terms of croutons, chicken, and bacon. It was out of balance with the amount of actual salad leaves. More greenery, less meat and filler, would have made it better. The shrimp salads, on the other hand, were tasty but comically small—more like amuse-bouches than actual starters. The inconsistency in portion sizes was stark.

Later, the girls ordered mussels, only to be told they were unavailable—something we weren’t informed about beforehand. Why leave them on the menu then?

Service throughout was friendly and polite, if a bit inexperienced and disjointed. Nothing major went wrong, but the team lacked the polish and awareness that distinguishes a truly well-run place.

In the end, Vinegre left us underwhelmed. The location is undeniably lovely on a sunny day—great views of the marina, a relaxing seaside vibe—but the experience just didn’t live up to the setting. Between the chaotic booking, hard-to-find entrance, inconsistent food, and lackluster wine offerings, this is not a place I would return to. It could be so much more—but right now, it’s...

We had dinner on Saturday 15th of March at 6 PM (4 persons at the table, 200€ spent).

First of all, we made reservation in the morning and when we arrived, even though all the tables in front of us were empty all the time of our staying, which was 3 hours approximately, we were placed exactly near the toilets!

Second, we ordered starters, to be more precise focaccia and some eggplant paste which came with one slice of bread for a full oily paste of eggplant. Is it bread too expensive? Should I bring bread from home? Let me know next time because there is no way you can eat all that paste with one small slice of bread! So we had also extra focaccia to finish it.

Third the wishkey was brought in cognac glass! If I order whisky, I want to drink for whiskey glass! I would like to add that we had Glenfiddich 12* at first and when we wanted more they said they only have 15* so we ordered! My question is, you had only for two shoths of whiskey? That was maximum 100ml to make it clear what they gave us!

Fourth, the waitress forgot our order sometimes, meaning 2 beers at one time and the burger another time and she brought us even bigger glasses for whiskey then previous saying that they do not have the same or smaller! Keep in mind I am speaking about cognac glasses not even whiskey!

And as a plus, to end the note, the food was not only disgusting but oily as much as it can get!

Now, you tell me, who is in charge and who is faulty for this kind of situations? The manager or the owner? I believe both! For the prices that you charge you should provide better service!

I do not recommend and...

Except the man behind the cashier, all the cheerful faces are gone replaced by the opposite. We had to wait and flag for our waitress to take the order despite that there were only a few tables of customers at the time, the dishes were served rather quickly though, after sometime, she came back to ask if everything was ok, the food were almost as good as before, when we wanted to get the bill, we had to wait and flag to her, after she dropped the bill she went disappeared again, I put in the money and while waiting for her to come back, I scroll down the bill and noticed the bill was longer than the items we had ordered so I looked item by item and strangely enough "tip" was in the middle of the list instead of the usual at the bottom, also I remembered clearly while we were looking at the menu, a 10% service charge for party of 8 or more but it was only 4 of us, so we waited and finally she reappeared and we flag her over, when asked her why there was a "tip" charged for only 4 of us, she was a little shocked and paused with her face dropped, after a moment, she answered because she serviced me in English, the other 3 people were local Polish. She started talking with a cracked voice and said I don't have to pay the tip if I don't wanted to. I wondered if placing the "tip" in the middle of the list was done purposely? If the management knows about this practice or they...