Lazienki restaurant lives up to its glorious setting
That time of year has come again when it is just too horrible to be crammed into some smoky basement eatery. Beer gardens are blossoming all over town and restaurants are bringing out their patio furniture. One recent Saturday, Genie and I decided to take a stroll through Warsaw's most renowned garden and test the reputation of one of the city's classiest eateries, the Belvedere.
Situated toward the western end of Lazienki Park, the restaurant provides a beautiful setting for watching the evening change colors. Because it's now that time of year when the weather is warm but bugs aren't omnipresent, we chose a parasol-shaded table outside.
"It is fun to watch the people," Genie proclaimed.
The outside had more of a garden-party ambiance rather than the romantic atmosphere of the indoor Orangery, where the flowers drip off the walls. The white piano in the center of the dining room was quiet, and a CD provided the Chopin. It was a heavenly afternoon for people watching and chardonnay, so after receiving some Perrier (zl. 12 for .75 liter), we perused the wine list. It started out expensive and went higher. There is not a bottle under zl. 100.
Reds ranged from zl. 115 for a Veneto Bardolino '98 to zl. 7,320 for a Chateau Petrus '83 A.C. Pomerol. The whites varied from zl. 115 for a Muscadet de Sevre & Maine '98 to zl. 2,480 for a Montrachet '88 Grand Cru. Sparkling wines were equally pricey and went from zl. 580 for Pol Roger to zl. 1,210 for Dom Perignon '90 Brut. But fear not. If you can't afford a bottle, you may order the Pol Roger by the glass for a mere zl. 110. Red and white wines are also available by the glass for zl. 26-zl. 95.
After recovering from the price shock, we settled on a Spanish El Coto '96 D.O. Rioja (zl. 165). It was light and delicate and turned out to be the perfect complement for what was to follow. It was also the only properly poured bottle of wine I have had in Warsaw since, well, the last time I ate at Restaurant 99. In fact, the service was impeccable throughout the entire meal. Dishes came and went without us noticing. We only had to wish for something, look down, and discover that our waiter had already placed it on the table.
The menu consisted of a well-chosen two pages that did not take a whole bottle of wine to digest. The appetizers started with caviar at zl. 94-zl. 105, hors d'oeuvres at zl. 34-zl. 99, soups at zl. 24-zl. 27, and salads at zl. 35-zl. 62. The main dishes were in two sections: fish, which ranged from zl. 66-zl. 152, and meat dishes for zl. 70-zl. 92. The menu also had a pasted-in card with daily specials.
Genie started with what the menu called a "bouquet of salad served with roasted prawns on a bed of sweet potatoes with exotic virgin sauce" (zl. 62). It was exquisite. Four huge prawns sat around a sweet-potato mousse that was practically a dessert in itself. It was light, airy and sweet. The plate was surrounded by a salsa of mango, pomegranate, and chives sprinkled with extra virgin olive oil. The prawns were so big they were practically small lobsters, but they weren't just large, they were also tasty and perfectly grilled with a slight hint of butter. This was the kind of food you let slide around on your tongue while you savor every bit of taste, and then take another sip of wine before doing it over again.
My starter was not quite what I expected. It was included among the salads as a "terrine of goat cheese and grilled vegetables served with a bouquet of salad" (zl. 42). In the village I come from, if you list something as a salad, the vegetable content should exceed the other ingredients. What I received, however, was a slab of cheese with token amounts of grilled zucchini and bell pepper. What we had here was a classic case of a failure to communicate. But after my initial disappointment, I found the terrine wonderful, even if it was higher in cholesterol than intended. Dragging the feta through the ring of balsamic vinegar and olive oil surrounding the plate created a tart sweetness, which washed down softly with the delicate chardonnay.
It was somewhere around this stage of the meal that the Chopin changed to an easy-listening medley of all the songs you never wanted to hear when they were hits. The sound was just loud enough to make the music intrusive. It would have been far more preferable to dine to the sounds of birds and playing children as the sunlight changed to deeper shades of gold. Instead, the glory of Lazienki was diluted by "Nikita," Elton John's touching gay love ode to a communist dictator.
The musical intrusion was muted by the arrival of our main dishes under silver-plated domes. Genie was delighted by the salmon (zl. 82), which was pan-fried and served over a bed of risotto in a creamy mushroom sauce. The risotto created a neutral background that subtly emphasized the taste of the fish.
I veered from the chardonnay course with my dinner selection by heading into darker meat. The filet of venison (zl. 92) served with red cabbage and a chutney of dried fruits proved to be more of a "fatten you up for winter" dish than a "skinny you down for the beach" dish. It was exceptional. The meat was tender and not too gamey. Even the red cabbage was surprisingly delicious. And it left room for half a dessert.
Genie and I finished by splitting a delicate vanilla mille (zl. 28), a French wafer filled with vanilla cream, topped with powdered sugar and chocolate, and surrounded with a berry sauce. It was a light complement to what had preceded it. We washed it down with cappuccino (zl. 12) for me and decaf coffee (zl. 10) for her.
Dinner for two with wine, dessert and coffee came to zl. 505 ($120) expensive but worth every grosz.
If the Belvedere has a fault, it is the ridiculously inflated wine prices. The canned dining music in lieu of the usual live piano was also questionable, but the restaurant excelled in every other category. The service was amazing. Even my cross-cultural misunderstanding of the menu resulted in food that was exquisitely prepared and full of delightful surprises. And you could not ask for better surroundings. Inside and out, Belvedere is one of the most romantic spots in the world. After dinner, Genie and I took a nighttime walk through the park and found a quiet spot to listen to the peacocks call from the lawns.
