From Nobu to North Brooklyn: Krolewskie Jadlo

Generally speaking, Gothamist isn’t moved by most of Greenpoint’s many Polish restaurants. Perhaps owing to some early scarring experiences at a fading Borsht Belt resort, we’re seldom inspired to board the G Train and make the long haul north for a plate of boiled cabbage.

Still, Krolewskie Jadlo, or “King’s Feast” piqued our interest. Chef Krzysztof Drzewiecki (formerly a chef at Nobu as his website repeatedly portends) traded maki for herring to open “a restaurant that Polish people would not be ashamed of.” To that end, Krolewskie’s menu is dotted with enough pork tripe and ham hock to make Jarosław Kaczyński (that’s the Prime Minister of Poland, or so we’re told) smile.

This time, Gothamist went the less adventurous route, beginning with a plate of crisp potato pancakes topped with herbed crème fraiche and a delicate slice of smoked salmon followed by an artless, but haunting dish of bacon-wrapped plums. The “Polish Plate” included three lightly fried pierogies, two potato pancakes, one heavily sauced log of stuffed cabbage and a comparatively scant cylinder of kielbasa—truly an insurmountable heap of food. Ditto the Hungarian Pancake, a farcically large potato pancake stuffed with saucy, pepper-laced beef and topped with a thin puddle of cream.

Paired with an equally hefty bottle of Tyskie Gronie, a full flavored Polish beer, the meal didn’t disappoint on a recent icy Saturday, but it didn’t make believers of us either. For all of its meat and potatoes, the restaurant falls short of the chutzpah Chef Drzewiecki seems capable of delivering. If nothing else though, Krolewskie Jadlo promises a meal sized, if not entirely fit, for a king.

Krolewskie Jadlo
694 Manhattan Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11222
718.383.8993