A ‘milk bar’ in this city is not what you might expect
If there is one good thing to have come out of the communist era in Poland in 1993, aside, that is, from the communists finally coming out of Poland in 1993, it is to be found in two words, “bar” and “mleczny”. In English, they translate, rather puzzingly, as “milk bar”.
Gdansk is a colourful, historic city with great food.Credit: iStock
Yet these milk bars are not milk bars as we know them in Australia, as I’ll soon discover here in the Polish port city of Gdansk, and you’ll be rather disappointed if you rock up and demand a milkshake at one.
Gdansk was home to the revolutionary Solidarity movement whose rise contributed to the downfall of Eastern bloc communism (nowadays there’s a whole museum here dedicated to the former fearless trade union).
During the austere communist rule of Poland, milk bars were a rare bright spot spread right across the country.
They were effectively the canteens of the proletariat, affordable enough that the working class could – and can still do – rely on a daily, hearty and affordable traditional, home-style Polish meal in convenient and central locations.
Thanks largely to today’s post-communist, democratically-elected Polish government, many of these utterly unpretentious gastronomic relics of Poland’s turbulent and tragic past, have been retained and subsidised.
While now fewer in number than during the communist era, the milk bars remain popular among Poles, while for the willing and inquisitive visitor they’re an opportunity to easily sample the fundamentals of an Eastern European cuisine that remains largely unfamiliar to Australians, me included.
Tourist-friendly Bar Mleczny.Credit: iStock
I’m visiting Gdansk which is one of the ports that forms the itinerary for my 15-day cruise around the North and Baltic Seas aboard Viking Jupiter, one of nine ocean-going ships belonging to the Viking Cruises line, and which has been voyaging from Bergen, Norway, en route to its final destination, Stockholm, Sweden.
The 930-passenger vessel is docked close to the memorial dedicated to the site where hostilities more or less marked the start of World War II in 1939 after the Germans attacked the port of Free City of Danzig, now modern-day Gdansk, with the Poles mounting a valiant but ultimately short-lived defence.
I’d read about the milk bars of Gdansk before I left Australia. My main objective once here on this relatively short visit is to not so much uncover the city’s centuries of history, which is immense, but more to milk, as it were, its working-class culinary culture.
Perhaps the most English-speaking tourist-friendly milk bar in Gdansk is the self-serve Bar Mleczny Stagiewna, located close to the boundaries of the gabled Old Town.
(It seems that the term “milk bar” comes from the fact that the earliest versions were vegetarian-based though it still doesn’t completely explain the nomenclature).
Gdansk’s captivating Old Town is jam-packed with colourful, tall and narrow 16th and 17th-century Dutch-style merchant houses.
They were meticulously rebuilt, using only old architectural plans and monochrome photographs for reference, after the city was virtually destroyed by wartime bombing raids.
Unlike its counterparts, such as Bar Neptun, elsewhere in the old town, Bar Mleczny Stagiewna, with its attractive frontage and signage, has been a little spruced up, seemingly for the benefit of foreign clientele, with “Traditional Polish Cuisine” emblazoned on its windows and facade.
However, the dishes do ook and taste authentically Polish, at least to my palate, and there are more Poles dining here at lunchtime than foreigners like me.
Lunch at Bar Bambino, a Polish milk bar: a glass of kompot, and pork schnitzel with red cabbage and buttered potatoes. Credit: Alamy
Although English can be limited or non-existent at Polish milk bars there’s often some English translation on menus and signage. Failing that, simply point to what you fancy as all of the dishes are on display.
I order a main dish consisting of a pair of plump and tender chicken dumplings served in a light white sauce with rice and carrots along with a refreshing and summery cucumber and dill salad side.
While delighted with my dish I do have a pang of food envy in passing up the pierogi - the classic Polish potato or cheese-filled dumplings - that’s a feature of many plates around me in the al fresco dining space just outside Bar Mleczny Stągiewna.
I don’t notice any milk shakes on offer but customers can order a variety of flavoured smoothie-like milk drinks.
Our strawberry-flavoured number almost perfectly matches the near fluorescent pink colour of the ubiquitous Chlodnik, Polish cold beetroot soup, a dish popular in summer and the chilled version of borscht.
All in all, a meal for two here costs the equivalent of not much more than $30 (and it would have been even cheaper had I settled for those bargain pierogi).
This is classic and delicious comfort food, Polish style and, really, don’t even bother thinking about dining at the city’s fancier establishments, unless you’re here for more than a day or so.
Pleasingly, there’s time to visit another milk bar for lunch again the next day as we have an unplanned and bonus day in Gdansk after a visit to the Swedish port city of Karlskrona is cancelled due to bad weather.
Pierogi dumplings - a Polish staple.Credit: Alamy
Elsewhere, about halfway along Dluga Street (the Old Town’s main pedestrian drag) there is Bar Neptun, named after Neptune’s Fountain, the historic mannerist-rococo water feature below to the imposing Gothic Renaissance Town Hall which houses a worthwhile museum.
A trifle less fancy than Bar Mleczny Stagiewna, here I order a potato pancake filled and topped with generous, yes, lashings, of goulash and mushrooms and is served by a beret-wearing cook with a Rasputin-like beard.
Bar Neptun is the sort of place you can imagine Lech Walesa, the former Polish president, Solidarity dissident and adopted son of Gdansk, recognisable for bushy walrus-style moustache, frequenting.
If anything my chosen Bar Neptun dish, consumed streetside in mid-summer overlooking the Town Hall, is even more enjoyable than those chicken dumplings back at Bar Mleczny Stągiewna.
Here in Gdansk, there’s still time, though only just, before we need to return to the ship for the next leg of the cruise, to visit one final milk bar for a quick dessert.
We choose Bar Turystyczny which houses a wall decorated with enlarged black and white photos showing scenes of the establishment, which dates to 1956 including a white-robed waitress or cook (who somehow resembles a nurse) ladling some kind of soup from a giant pot.
This milk bar’s name translates as “Bar Tourist” but we seem to be the only tourists, at least non-Polish ones, here, and some considerable confusion ensues between us and the non-English-speaking cashier of our choice of eating implements for our shared dessert.
Let’s hope it stays that way and most of the Western tourist hordes stay away, lest these milk bars become commoditised let alone, heaven forbid, franchised. The truth is these eateries sure are Poles apart from a McDonald’s (you want a cold shocking pink soup with that?)
THE DETAILS
Cruise
Viking Cruises’ 15-day Northern European “Viking Homelands” voyage from Stockholm to Bergen, or vice versa, and including a stop in to Gdansk, from $9595 a person, including 11 shore excursions, with a $2000 flight credit on offer per couple until August 28. There are departures available between May and August 2024 and April and August, 2025. See viking.com.au
Fly
Qatar Airways flies from Sydney to Oslo, with air and rail connections to Bergen, as well as to Stockholm via its Doha, Qatar, hub. See qatarairways.com
More
The writer travelled as a guest of Viking Cruises.
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