In South Ken for a Prom we were tempted by Ognisko’s pre-Prom set-menu priced at £29 per head. But not before we’d hung out in the V&A for a couple of hours, where the photography and tapestry galleries proved mercifully free of babbies and their buggies. And joy on emerging to find that England had finally beaten the weather to square the Ashes.

I hadn’t been to what was the Polish club for more than a decade and I was glad to see that the revamp had left the bar with the same boho feel that it had the last time I was there. Pictures of generals share wall space with charming cartoons of obscure figures. Arriving early we took an aperitif of a Burak for him (beetroot cocktail – delicious) and a Campari Soda for me, which aided some free-wheeling conversation solving the great mysteries of our time, such as whether Québec is the Liège of Canada, or rather whether Liège is the Québec of Belgium? I guess we’d have to go to Québec to find out.

Dinner was taken on the terrace but it being the Summer of 2023 we were wrapped in plastic to keep out the elements. But we could still dine while watching students hang out in the square behind Exhibition Road. While we perused the menu we were brought bread of three strengths of rye with beetroot slather and gherkins. Up front I had a potato salad with grilled sausage. This was delicious with further great hunks of gherkin and the smoky grilli makkara reminding me of Saturday nights in Kerava. A main of grilled sea bream was equally good, washed down with a carafe of Viognier selected by the old boy.

Service was swift and enabled us to get to the bar at the RAH to meet up with friends to see Matt starring in a performance of Adams’s Harmonium, a piece I was very happy to rediscover after not having heard it for many years. As opposed to Copland’s clarinet concerto, which was just a mixture of spurious virtuosity and sheer boredom.

A few of us not being in a hurry we snaffled back to the Polish Club for a nightcap of vodkas and beer that we hugged happily in the mind on the Piccadilly Line back home.

9/10

To see where else I’ve been click on the google map below.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/embed?mid=18qCyiPZih_gzhGG8mwfacnNRWD3b0bo&ehbc=2E312F

Food London Food London Music Polish