Dining Out: Belvedere Cafe (New Britain, CT)

 

This is one of a handful of Polish eateries in the "Little Poland" neighborhood in New Britain.

Exterior: 2/5

(It's the building on the left with the black awnings.)

There's nothing about this facade that screams "great Euro food inside." In fact if we hadn't been using Google Maps to find it I'm not sure we would have known where to go. We even had trouble finding the front door. Now, this is not an especially posh neighborhood and I wouldn't want them to look out of place, but I do want them to look more like A place.

Ambience: 4/5

Not huge amounts of seating, but what's there is nice.

I don't know if the restaurant was named after the vokda, but it's at least a nice coincidence.

Honestly the real hilight of the decor for me was the Chanel No. 5-themed women's bathroom.

Like, they worked really hard at decorating this.

I'm in awe of the collecting that was done to make this happen.

Ok all my grumps about the facade aside, the inside of the cafe is a great place to be. It's small and the tables are a little close together, but the decor keeps the vibe relaxing anyway. There's a well-stocked bar that blends nicely with the upscale-urban feel the place seems to be aiming for. I especially enjoyed the use of interior brick. My kid was impressed with the matching tablecloths and napkins and kept rubbing them and saying how soft they were.

Variety: 4/5

It's an extensive enough menu to captivate you for a little bit when you arrive, that's for sure.

Sheep cheese appetizer!

There's so much cool stuff on the menu here. Lots of different flavors of pierogi, both sweet and savory, plus some meat/veggie entrees that span different regions of Polish cuisine. If you want to try a deeper cut go for the tripe, sheep cheese, or lard appetizer. You can also go a little more American-posh with things like bruschetta or seared ahi tuna. The "Taste of New Britain" Prix Fixe menu is a great way to sample a lot of different things. 

Quality: 5/5

A variety of sweet and savory pierogi.

Rolls that came with the meal.

The kielbasa meal with potatoes, mustard, and that delightful Polish sauerkraut with carrots in it.

So as an American trying new things, I geeked out hard about this restaurant. I loved every single pierogi and couldn't get enough of my kielbasa, which was crisp on the outside and moist and delicious on the inside. I also inhaled that carrot sauerkraut. Now I should point out that I was texting photos of my food to a friend from Poland and she was less impressed with things than I was. She wasn't a fan of how the sheep cheese appetizer had been Americanized with breading and said that the potatoes that came with my entree shouldn't have been there. I would imagine that if you're Polish and you eat here you can talk to the staff about getting what you want, because everyone working there seemed to be from Poland themselves. But since I was the audience for whom the Americanizing had been done, I was pretty chuffed with everything. There wasn't a single menu item I tried that I didn't enjoy.

Kid-Friendly: 4/5

I was concerned about my kid drinking from this mug without spilling, but objectively it was a really pretty design.

Everyone was super into the pierogi.

We decided to roll the dice and take our five-year-old so he could get exposed to a new cuisine. (We left the 1YO with Bubbe and Poppy, though, which was probably a good call since she would have been a little too excited to play with the soft napkins, etc.) I was shocked and thrilled to discover that my kid was as psyched about all of the food as I was. Like, literally everything he tried, he liked. He wouldn't try a couple of things, like the sauerkraut, but watching him inhale the sheep cheese and the different pierogi was a great feeling. 

Would Eat Again?: Green Light

I want to go back here again and again and try all the different things on the menu. If the quality is consistent across dishes then the other stuff should be amazing too. I would also like to investigate the desserts - but that means leaving room for something at the end of the meal and that's a rough prospect when the appetizers and main course options are so awesome. We live far away from the Belvedere Cafe, but when we're back on the East Coast visiting family again I'd love to get back to Little Poland and keep the good stuff coming.