Over-the-top decor matches whipped cream extravaganza
So you've just treated her to dinner at the most romantic restaurant and now you want to impress her with your sensitivity. You take her on a stroll through the quieter side of old Warsaw's Nowe Miasto and as you head down ulica Freta, you stop at a doorway with antique furniture and flower arrangements outside. Soft music calls you from beyond the Christmas lights in the window into a kitsch little cafe that looks a little like your crazy aunt's tearoom.
Genie took one look at the Caffe Belle-Epoche and said, "It's 'Harold and Maude' meets Rhoda Morgenstern." It certainly is an eyeful, with antiques and oddities sitting on shelves, strewn over lamps, dripping off the wall, and poking up from every square centimeter of available space.
Musical instruments, shawls, etchings, leather-bound books, glass jars, old lanterns, dried flowers, fresh flowers, candle holders, statuettes, sewing machines, cherubs and mirrors are among the bric-a-brac and knickknacks that spill out of every corner. In fact, it's all for sale. Because, you realize, Caffe Belle-Epoche is an antique gallery that serves coffee and dessert. Incense burning, flowers, and the sweets made the gallery smell like a summer bouquet.
The menu placed on the table is smaller than the average greeting card, and printed in both Polish and English. The short list mentions coffees (zl. 12-zl. 18), teas (zl. 12), juice (zl. 8) and desserts, which include cakes made on the premises (zl. 15), Ice Cream Belle Epoche (zl. 18) and other selections such as fruit with grenadine (zl. 18). And Bell-Epoche has made an adaptation for those not arriving straight from a romantic dinner: A small piece of paper tucked into the card announces you can order toasty for zl. 15.
Well, as a matter of fact we were hungry, so we both decided to give the toasty a try. We had two iced coffees (zl. 18), two toasty (zl. 15) and two waters (zl. 4). We had hardly ordered a snack and were already down zl. 74. I must admit, it was the most attractively prepared toasty I have had the pleasure of downing, grilled in a beautiful fan shell pattern and garnished generously with olives and lettuce. The iced coffee, or kawa mrozona, was quite rich, topped with generous amounts of whipped cream and sprinkled with chocolate and cinnamon. Genie adored hers. "It's the closest thing to a milkshake I've had here," she said. Then she paused and thought of all the goodies she could get at Zielona Budka.
That was the first of several desserts we were to receive. After downing our zl. 74 snack, we settled on the menu again. The smiling but slightly eccentric people led us over to the refrigerator case for a closer look. I chose a strawberry torte (zl. 15) and ordered it with ice cream, expecting pie `a la mode. Genie ordered the chocolate nut cake (zl. 15) and a cappuccino (zl. 12).
As we waited, Louis Armstrong played at the perfect volume, loud enough to be heard but not so loud as to interfere with conversation. Satchmo put a happy glow on the room. Genie made a run for the restroom and announced another type of glow. "They must have gotten a special deal on red paint," she said, and her description was so intriguing I had to go see for myself. The downstairs contains another gallery, this time without food service, and adjacent to it, the restroom, which is, in a word ... red.
Maybe the coffee was so rich that dessert was unnecessary, but when the sweets arrived, neither of us was impressed. Genie, the chocoholic, got her fill in a few bites. My torte left me longing for ... I don't know what. The pie was simply strawberries suspended in gelatin over a crust. After the coffee, it seemed lacking. And it did not come `a la mode. After reminding the staff that I did not get my scoop of ice cream, I received a sundae (zl. 18). They ruined all that good ice cream with syrup, whipped cream and cocktail fruit. I picked around a little, but by that time I was suffering from a cream overdose.
Genie's cappuccino was also doused in whipped cream. With sprinkles of nutmeg, cinnamon and chocolate, it was probably the tastiest dessert we had. When we left, the whole thing came to zl. 135 ($33). We couldn't believe we racked up such a bill in a dessert place. We also couldn't believe we had ingested so much whipped cream. Definitely the parlor of someone's crazy old aunt who keeps the kids from noticing the mothballs by putting lots of whipped cream on everything. We enjoyed the atmosphere. In fact, the interior itself was worth coming for. It was like a museum, where everything was for sale. Live piano music Thurs-Sun 7-10 p.m. is also inviting. But we wished we had come with lesser appetites. We served our penance the next morning by jogging at dawn.
