Ahead In The Poles

Poland’s best street food? It’s a doughnut. But not as you know it.

Forget jam. Forget custard. La Pączek has put tuna tartare in a doughnut — and it has just won Poland.

The Warsaw-based pączek specialists are the Polish champions of the European Street Food Awards, beating the competition across a series of qualifiers staged at Gastro Miasto in Warsaw, Wrocław and Kraków.

And this was no popularity contest. An expert panel of food influencers, journalists and Michelin-starred chefs judged the contenders across five categories, with the scores tallied to decide Poland’s overall champion.

La Pączek came out on top.

Their winning formula is summed up rather neatly by their motto: “What’s important is inside.”

In this case, that can mean tuna tartare, cherries, pickled daikon radish, nettle, sesame and teriyaki mayonnaise, all packed into a light, fluffy doughnut. Sweet, salty, sour, savoury and crunchy — essentially an entire tasting menu wearing a pączek costume.

And yet La Pączek isn’t simply about culinary shock tactics. Alongside the more adventurous combinations are classics such as apricot and crème pâtissière, stuffed generously into a rich, buttery, eggy doughnut.

Also selected to compete for Poland at the European Street Food Awards final in Saarbrücken, Germany, 18–20 September, will be Babi Krakow, who are on a mission to make pampuchy cool again.

Pampuchy are a type of steamed yeast dumpling. A cooked pampuch has an oval, flat-on-the-bottom shape, with a soft, pillowy texture. And Babi are reinventing them. And that’s why they blew away the judges at Gastro Miasto.

Gastro Miasto translates roughly as “Food City”. During the summer, the festival turns scenic riverfronts into sprawling outdoor food markets, bringing together restaurants, street-food traders and artisan producers.

For the European Street Food Awards finals (September 18-20) however, Gastro Miasto became something more serious: the proving ground for Poland’s best street food.

With qualifiers in Warsaw, Wrocław and Kraków, and judges weighing up every entry, the eventual winner had to do more than attract a queue.

La Pączek did it with a doughnut. Babi did it with a pampuch.

Next stop: Saarbrücken. And the European Street Food Awards finals.