Café-Guide #4: Zaremba Café, Warsaw, Poland
Zaremba will have the unique honor to be the first place that receives a mention in three different categories. Starting out as a tailoring shop, which revived old Polish craft, soon expanding to ready-to-wear items and decorative products. As such, I had previously written about Zaremba on my former website, back when I was working in the classic menswear industry and sartorial subjects were my focus. The first sign, that the team behind Zaremba would boldly keep expanding, should have been the elegant porcelain coffee cups they offered in their shop many years ago. I did of course buy one of those as well.
The space right off one of Warsaw’s main boulevards was previously the long-standing atelier of the Zaremba family and their tailors and while the clothing store has moved into a more open space on the opposite street corner, the old place is now Zaremba Cafe, an island of continental Dolce Vita that has something for every hour of the day. But don’t be fooled by the name, the spirits have character and regularly guest shifts from bar industry greats crew the counter.
Copyright: Zaremba Café
A bit of Art Deco, a bit of marble, mirrors and polished surfaces together with travel pictures on the wall. While some bars will add the pictures simply for the aesthetic, at Zaremba they are sepia-shaded reminders of the history behind that name. Both the photographs at the tailor shop and the café show scenes from the previous owner’s travels. It is absolutely fitting that they kept the old sign above the door, and not changed it for ‘Zaremba Cafe‘.
On offer is a wide selection of Italian inspired ‘dolci’, which to no one’s surprise, go perfectly with a dark espresso. When these are gone, they are gone and in true Italian fashion you have to be there before the regulars if you want the good stuff. Coffee however never runs out, just don’t expect to see third-wave style light roasts.
The selection of drinks is an unpretentious look back at a time when the first drink was served in the office and the last after midnight when the jazz club was getting too boring. Here and there a modern Gin or Amaro or Grappa, or sometimes a local product shows up on the shelves, but if the entire atmosphere of Zaremba Cafe does not feel inviting to you, then likely the drinks will not change that. Much like the reinterpretation of Zarembas tailoring style, their interpretation of coffee and cocktails is rooted in a more jet-setty attitude and less in the revival of purely Polish drinking culture.
Zaremba Cafe feels a bit like the intimate hotel bar in an internationally well known Grand Hotel. I tried an Espresso accompanied by Cannoli, a Cappuccino and finally a cocktail, the Hemingway based on a blend of Rum, Maraschino, Coconut Sugar and Grapefruit. Since we are publishing this article in both the café and the bar categories, we are not going with the usual formatting for drinks. The drink was as straightforward and to the point as the coffee, a little look back at drinking at its most ‘distilled’. It’s a drink that works best between coffee and food and even better with another two right after, just like any classic Martini. The Maraschino is dry and the Rum not adding much of the tropical sweetness other Rum would add. But the craftsmanship, the dilution, the temperature, it’s all there. Just like a suit or a jacket designed by the heirs of the Zaremba family and then handmade by local tailors, the drinks are crafted with the family heritage in mind, by capable hands.
If you’ve been to Warsaw or plan to go, feel free to also check out our other articles about the city.
Cheers
/jf
