Karczma u Starego — Restaurant in Zakopane

Wow - what a restaurant. We would eat here everyday if we could. It's warm and about as authentic a Polish cuisine experience we could find.

As always, I'm a sucker for good customer service and the service staff did a great job. All very friendly & understanding of our unfamiliarity with their food and systems.

Excellent selection of Polish drinks. We liked the Grzaniec miodowy (Honey Mulled wine) & the beers were excellent too.

We tried the pizza, fried trout and fried chicken fillet over a couple of days. All impressed and we were very surprised how fresh the dishes were. We did need to add more salt, but that's possibly a personal preference. Portions are good and we were impressed that the staff offered the option of a box to take the food home in when we couldn't finish it. Not enough restaurants care about food waste!

When we're next in Zakopane, we'll definitely pop by. Really hope they can keep this incredible service...

FAIL!

The place is supposed to be open until 10pm, we walk in at 7:40pm, wait a few minutes for a table — attracted by an offer of a big juicy burger (300g patty for 15 PLN - advertised at the entrance) — we sit down, wait few minutes more, but nobody approaches us from the restaurant staff. A waitress shows up to clean the adjacent table and looks at us funny, we say “good evening”, to which she responds: “but the kitchen is already closed” (it’s 7:50pm!!). Expressing surprise, we ask, “but isn’t the restaurant open until 10pm?” ..her response, “yes it is, but the kitchen closes at 8pm”

..it really would’ve been fine (no complaints) if someone approached us right away to inform us of the situation, but letting us wait for a table, then at the table, and then casually saying they don’t serve anymore when called on by ‘hello’

..THAT’S BAD...

Place mostly for locals, here you often can see Strama school instructors, sellers from nearby shops and so on. Small and cozy racy place with national polish cuisine, tasty big dishes. It seemed to me that beer was deluted and pancakes was not fresh, like previously cooked, cause it wasn't delicate and it was hard to cut it. Despite this we loved the place more than other nearest ones, visited it almost every day....