Fortuitous detour
Pizzeria Positanoul. Kasprowicza 30
Telephone 834-4810, 639-8841Reservations and credit cardsacceptedOther Warsaw locations:Panorama, al. Witosa 31Tel. 642-8711, 640-1488ul. Woloska 74aTel. 848-2455, 646-2455Hit, Ursynów - KabatyTel. 649-4460, 649-4464
It's not very often I go to Zoliborz. For someone who can live for weeks without venturing outside downtown Warsaw, Zoliborz seems so far away that a journey there requires a packed lunch. This northern district barely makes it on the Insider's Warsaw map! It's not famous for its parks, palaces or its hypermarkets and shopping malls. Apparently Old Zoliborz the emphasis being on "Old" is one of Warsaw's finer districts, but whenever someone tells me they actually live there, my eyes glaze over and I nod knowingly, pretending I actually know the place well.
But so it came to pass that on a recent rainy, cold Tuesday night, I found myself inside a taxi heading for Zoliborz. Outside the foggy windows, it looked just like the rest of Warsaw at this time of year: gray buildings with little stores lining the streets, and lots of trees in the last throes of winter.
It was the search for a new dining experience that had taken me into Warsaw's far north. I knew nothing about Karuzel other than a blurb I'd read, saying it had a circus carousel for decoration and it played music from the 1950s and 1960s, but nothing about the food.
A zl. 30 taxi fare later, we found the restaurant on ulica Kasprowicza, but let's just say I exercised my rights as a freethinking, independent-minded restaurant reviewer and decided that no, we wouldn't be dining at Karuzel. Yes, there was a carousel on the roof, but it looked like something I could have made in my high-school Wood-shop-101 class. The restaurant resembled the kind of shed your ancient widowed Uncle Harry would tack on to the back of his weekend home using some leftover galvanized iron sheeting and chipboard.
I admit I based my decision purely on aesthetics, but it's amazing how easy that is to do when you're sitting in the backseat of a taxi.
Feeling rather despondent after we'd come so far, for seemingly so little, we spotted another restaurant just across the road with cosy lighting, tall glass windows, and a great big neon sign that said "Pizzeria Positano." I think David felt like he'd just experienced a moment of divine intervention.
I didn't want to go to Pizzeria Positano. It looked like a chain restaurant and I'm not a big fan of chain restaurants: the kind of place where you get paper place mats with puzzles on them, and a photo of a pimply faced employee of the month hanging on the wall. The food is usually guaranteed to be soggy enough so that everyone from the very young to the very old has the mastication abilities to cope. Likewise the desserts are either extracted from a machine or pre-packed and airfreighted in, frozen.
My suspicions were confirmed at least partially. Pizzeria Positano is indeed a chain: There are four of them in Warsaw. And while the food turned out to be surprisingly good, the decor left me feeling like I was sitting inside a Croatian seaside disco decorated by an Elvis fan.
Two walls were mirrored with big fluorescent plastic cutouts of sailboats stuck on them. The furniture was decidedly modular with upholstery in a busy, blue-gray pattern, perfect for hiding mozzarella grease spots. Bright orange candles flickered on the tables and plastic floral arrangements stood in the windows. Thankfully the blue shag-pile carpet had been left where it belongs in Elvis' TV room in Graceland.
At one end of the restaurant a couple of pizza chefs, wearing their customary floured whites, waited patiently in front of the gigantic pizza ovens. It certainly didn't have the sparkle of the Pizza Express San Marzano restaurants, but the business of making pizzas is a hot, dusty affair. I couldn't see a "goodfella" walking into a San Marzano restaurant: He'd go to mama's homestyle joint round the corner.
For a weeknight, there was a steady flow of Zoliborz locals visiting Pizzeria Positano and obviously they already knew what we were about to discover: This place makes good pizzas.
The menu is pretty comprehensive with 39 varieties of pizza including Vesuvius, Maffia, Capri, Ciao-Ciao, Siciliana and even a geographically challenged Africana. There is also mushroom or seafood risotto, plus a smattering of fish dishes such as grilled salmon or scampi. The "carne" dishes include all your standard Italian fare such as sirloin steak with truffle oil and Parmesan cheese, veal Marsala, and chicken in a tomato sauce with olives, capers and anchovies. And of course, there is a huge selection of pastas such as your traditional spaghetti Bolognaise, or tagliatelle al gorgonzola and even an experimental fusillia al curry con carne the type of pasta sauce that, in my experience, is best never let out of the kitchen cupboard. The whole menu was supported by a decent wine list.
The husband-and-wife owners opened their first Pizzeria Positano 10 years ago with some guidance from their Italian friend and Positano restaurateur, Enrico, and it seems to have paid off. We ordered the Positano pizza, topped with cheese, ham, mushrooms, capers and garlic. The pizzas aren't as cheap as San Marzano's, but they're bigger, and possibly even better as long as you like your pizza base thin and crispy with a topping that is light on cheese, and a smattering of extras and good flavor. For anything else, visit Pizza Hut Hollywood's salty interpretation of an Italian classic.
For my main dish, I chose the Tagliata di Mazo Su Rucola a grilled and sliced beef tenderloin on a rugola salad. I loved it. The meat was cooked medium-rare, just how I'd requested it. The dish was tender and tasty and the rugola (ah, bliss, how hard is it to find rugola in Poland) was dressed with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. The molded cup of soggy boiled rice was the only blight.
David chose the veal scallop with lemon sauce. The veal was tender, but it was swimming in a sauce that looked a bit like a milkshake with green flecks floating in it. But it tasted great: light and lemony. David was excited to see some crinkle-cut chips on the side of his plate something he hadn't eaten since his university days.
Our green salad was just that a few green leaves with one black olive and an onion ring sitting atop as an afterthought, with a bright-orange honey-mustard dressing that was a bit disconcerting.
Desserts ran the standard course: tiramisu, panna cotta, creme caramel and of course, Polish cheesecake.
So my disastrous evening in Zoliborz had turned out better than expected. And I'd discovered a pretty good pizza place that sold competent Italian food just don't pay too much attention to the decor. And the good news is, for those people who don't make it to Zoliborz very often, there are three other Pizzeria Positano restaurants in Warsaw, and they deliver. Dinner for two including drinks came to zl. 174 ($42.50).
On the menu:
Positano pizzazl.24.30Hawaiian pizzazl.19.90Beef tenderloin with rocket salad zl. 42Veal with lemon saucezl. 40Green salad with honey-mustard dressing zl. 12Tagliatelle with gorgonzola saucezl. 25Prawns and butterzl. 43
