The rhythms are different, and knowing them removes the friction
Polish restaurant culture has its own customs, and none of them are difficult - they are just unfamiliar enough that visitors spend the first two days slightly out of step. You will wait for a bill that never arrives. You will eat the bread and then wonder whether you have been charged for it. You will order a main course and find yourself with more food than a British Sunday lunch.
None of this is a problem once you know the pattern. What follows is the practical version: what to expect, what to say, and roughly what things cost.
One broad point first. Krakow restaurant service is friendly but not effusive. Servers will not introduce themselves by name, will not check on you three times a meal, and will not hover. That is not indifference - it is the local standard, and the assumption is that you want to be left alone to eat. If you need something, catch an eye. It works instantly.
Reservations: where they matter and where they don't
Booking is essential at the better restaurants, particularly for weekend evenings. Two or three days ahead is usually enough, longer in June through September, over the Christmas and New Year period, and around the long May weekend when the whole country is travelling.
Casual restaurants and every bar mleczny (bar MLECH-nih - milk bar) are walk-in only, and turning up is the entire system. Weekend brunch spots fill fast: arrive before 10am or expect to stand outside. If you have not booked and it is Saturday night in Kazimierz (kah-ZHEE-myesh), the workable approach is to put your name down at the first place and walk to the second, since the district is dense enough that alternatives are three minutes away in any direction.
A note on the Main Square. Restaurants directly on the Rynek Główny charge a significant premium for the view, and the food is rarely worth it. One drink on the square at sunset is money well spent. Dinner there generally is not - walk two streets in any direction and both the price and the cooking improve.
Sitting down, and the bread basket question
You will usually be shown to a table. In more casual places finding your own seat is fine, and in milk bars sharing a table with strangers is completely normal - you take the free chair, nobody speaks, everyone eats.
Many traditional Polish restaurants bring bread to the table automatically, often with smalec (SMA-lets - herbed pork dripping, and worth trying at least once) or a pot of soft cheese. This is almost always complimentary, though at a small number of places it appears on the bill for a few złoty. If you would rather know, ask: "Czy chleb jest w cenie?" (chih hleb yest v TSEH-nyeh - is the bread included?). Nobody minds the question.
Water is the other thing to get right. Tap water is not automatically served, and asking for it in a restaurant is unusual - you order bottled, gazowana (ga-zo-VA-na, sparkling) or niegazowana (nyeh-ga-zo-VA-na, still), and it will cost a few złoty. Krakow tap water is safe to drink, so fill a bottle at your accommodation for the day.
How a Polish meal is structured, and what to order
A traditional meal runs zupa (ZOO-pa - soup), then danie główne (DA-nyeh GWOOV-neh - the main course), then deser. You are under no obligation to order all three, and most people do not.
But do not skip the soup. Polish soups are frequently the best thing on the menu, and they are a category the country does better than almost anywhere: żurek (ZHOO-rek), the sour rye soup with white sausage and egg, sometimes served in a hollowed bread loaf; barszcz (barshch), clear beetroot, often with small dumplings; rosół (RO-soow), the clear chicken broth with noodles that is the Sunday standard in every Polish home. A soup and a starter will feed most people perfectly well as a full meal.
Portion sizes are generous and main courses in traditional restaurants are large. Ordering a starter, a soup and a main each is a rookie error you make once. Pierogi are usually sold in portions of eight or nine, which is a full meal rather than a side.
Lunch specials are the best value in the city. Look for "lunch dnia" or "zestaw obiadowy" - a set lunch, usually soup plus a main, served roughly noon to 3pm on weekdays, often at half the price of the same food in the evening. Even good restaurants do them.
Paying, tipping and splitting the bill
The bill will not arrive until you ask for it, and the wait is not a hint that you should leave. Say "Rachunek proszę" (ra-HOO-nek PROH-sheh - the bill, please), or make the universal air-writing gesture. Expect to wait a few minutes.
Splitting is common and entirely accepted. Say "osobno" (o-SOB-no - separately) and the server will split by person without a flicker of irritation. Card payment is near-universal; the exceptions are the cheapest milk bars, market stalls and the blue obwarzanek carts, so carry some cash for those. Contactless works everywhere cards do.
Tipping is around 10%, and it works differently from what UK and US visitors expect. There is often no tip line on the card terminal. Instead, when the server brings the machine, you tell them the total you want to pay including the tip, and they enter that figure. Alternatively, leave cash on the table. One thing to avoid: if a server asks whether you want the change and you say "thank you" while handing over a note, that is widely understood as "keep the change" - so if you do want change back, say so plainly.
Service charge is not usually added automatically, but check the bill for a "serwis" line at tourist-facing places before adding a tip on top.
Dress, timing and small courtesies
Smart casual is fine everywhere, including at fine dining. Only the most formal handful of places might expect a collar. Poles do dress well for dinner - noticeably better than the average British visitor in a fleece - but the standard is neatness rather than formality.
Dinner is eaten earlier than in southern Europe. Kitchens in most restaurants run until around 10 or 11pm, and by 10.30 on a weeknight you may find last orders have passed. The main meal of the day, obiad, is traditionally eaten in the mid-afternoon, which is why lunch specials are so good and why restaurants are busy at 2pm.
Two small courtesies that go a long way. "Smacznego" (smach-NEH-go - enjoy your meal) is said by the server and often between diners; saying it back is normal. And "Dziękuję" (jen-KOO-yeh - thank you) attempted badly is received far better than perfect English, every time.
A last practical tip: if you are eating somewhere traditional and cannot decide, ask the server what the zupa dnia - soup of the day - is, and order it. It is the dish the kitchen has made that morning for itself, it is usually the cheapest thing on the menu, and it will tell you more about whether the place is any good than anything else you could order.
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