In Plano, Texas—far from the cobblestone streets of Kraków or the smoky butcher shops of Chicago’s Polish enclaves—you’ll find Taste of Poland, a restaurant that makes no apologies for doing things the old-fashioned way. Inside, the air carries the scent of smoked kielbasa, onions sautéed in butter, and slow-braised meats—a sensory prelude to a meal that doesn’t just aim to satisfy, but to transport.
The restaurant’s vibe is pure comfort: modest tables, Polish folk art, shelves lined with jars of imported preserves and pickles, and a dining room that often fills with the quiet hum of families speaking in both English and Polish. Taste of Poland isn’t trying to reinvent anything—it’s a home kitchen scaled up, honest and unhurried. The food is prepared with a kind of stubborn pride that feels rare in an age of fast-casual fusion.
The owners are immigrants from Poland, have been serving the DFW area for over a decade and are often seen greeting guests or running plates. You will catch them behind the deli counter with the focus of a craftsmen. Their deli case alone is worth a visit: slabs of cured ham, coils of smoked sausage, and jars of horseradish that bite back.
But the soul of the place is on the hot menu, where pierogi reign supreme. These are not the frozen, doughy imitations from grocery store freezers. Taste of Poland’s handmade pierogi are pillow-soft, stuffed generously, and pan-fried in butter unless you know to request otherwise. The potato and cheese version is the crowd-pleaser, but the sauerkraut and mushroom variety has a quiet, earthy power—slightly tangy, deeply savory.
Then there’s pyzy, meat-filled potato dumplings with a texture somewhere between gnocchi and matzo balls, topped with smoky bacon and served alongside a shock of sweet cabbage salad. The bigos, a hunters stew rich with fermented cabbage, sausage, mushrooms, and pork, tastes like something simmered for hours in a countryside hearth—sharp, salty, and nourishing in the most primal way.
Traditionalists will be drawn to the golabki, cabbage rolls in a zippy tomato sauce; others will fall hard for the beef goulash ladled over crisp-edged potato pancakes, cut with pickled peppers and dusted with grated Polish cheese. The Chef’s Cutlet, topped with egg, mozzarella, and tomato, is the kind of plate that makes you grateful for forks and napkins.
Desserts are spare but worthy—cheese blintzes that lean sweet but not cloying, and a slice of makowiec, the traditional poppy seed cake, that is tender, nutty, and complex.
There’s no flash here. No irony. No desperate Instagram-bait plating. Just Polish food, done earnestly and excellently, by people who know exactly what it should taste like. And that, in today’s restaurant world, might be the rarest delicacy of all.
Taste of Poland | 2301 N Central Expy, Plano
