Paweł Oszczyk is the talented Executive Chef of Mamaison Hotel Le Régina Warsaw and he is responsible for the hotel’s signature restaurant called La Rotisserie. With an Executive Chef with a background from Michelin starred restaurants in both Italy and Germany the aim is set high and the goal is to be the best restaurant in Warsaw. Well, the goal is reached; La Rotisserie is the best restaurant in Warsaw right now.

Set within the Mokrowski Palace, the boutique hotel only has 58 rooms and three suites and the main dining room of La Rotisserie is not a big one either with room for 30 guests. You can dine outside as well during warm days in the summer courtyard which is nice, but we recommend the dining room with its arched ceiling and ambience.

There is no tasting menu and the menu is changed by the seasons. We have tried La Rotisserie’s winter and spring menus and recommend starters from the spring menu like the warm salad of scallops with pine nuts and cauliflower, spring onion and capers beurre blanc. Another delicious starter is the ravioli of crab with asparagus, champagne sauce with ruccola leaves and tomato. Both starters here do excellent paired with a glass of perfectly tempered champagne. The main fish dish with baked filet of Atlantic cod, cherry tomato & ginger salsa and Parma ham is good as well and the same with the main meat dish with roasted filet of Irish beef Hereford with beet root leaves risotto and crayfish sauce. All desserts are good, but our favourite is the mille feuille of extra bitter chocolate with pumpernickel and beer sherbet.

Experienced Executive Chef Paweł Oszczyk does a good job in the kitchen and he manages his kitchen team well indeed, but there should be a Restaurant Manager in the dining room both for lunch and dinner. The lack of a Restaurant Manager and a sommelier as well in the dining room results in uncertain waiters who take too long time, forgetting what is ordered and returning to the table asking the same questions over and over again. It took more than ten minutes to just get an answer of how much a glass of the house champagne costs and there were no wine menu with the champagnes presented and that is of course a no, no.

Only 25 percent of all that is served at La Rotisserie is from Poland and that is of course both sad and leaves nasty carbon footprints and that in a country with plenty of agriculture so it should be no problem of being able to produce and sell the best vegetables, meat and herbs directly to the fine dining restaurants. Executive Chefs like Paweł Oszczyk has to buy ingredients from Germany and Norway to just mention two examples and that should be quite easy to change if the Polish farmers can change their way of producing and distribution. The financial situation of Poland has unfortunately affected the fine dining restaurants and its suppliers as well.

If the service can be more professional and compete on a more international level in combination with Executive Chef Paweł Oszczyk and his team in the kitchen, La Rotisserie can go from decent that it is today to something great.

Written by Andy