Amongst copper vats

We had almost run out of options to eat when I noticed that one of the best bars in Wroclaw also did food.

So after some time sat in chairs admiring the great square and the people who walked through it we made our way down. Spiz was positioned on a corner by the town hall. Outside there were benches and tables and signs that didn’t give a great deal away. We made our way down a stone staircase. On one side there was a great vaulted basement room full of people drinking beer and then down a short dark corridor another room full of people eating food.

As it was food we were after I strode into the room down the corridor and past a table filled with plates of salad. As I did so a lady got up from her chair and started to remonstrate. We quickly established that I didn’t speak Polish but that she she spoke enough English to tell me the place was closed. It appeared we had walked into a private party and wooden doors were pulled across the end of the corridor as we walked out.

In the big vaulted room people were still drinking beer but there were tables with chairs free and the odd empty plate to indicate that food could be had.

We sidled in and sat ourselves down and waited. It wasn’t long before a man in a white shirt came over to see what we wanted. All was communicated with the word “Eat!!” and he was back with a pile of black covered menus. On the drinks order we were just about able to get away with a request for. A glass of water but the suggestion that we should have a bottle of wine from the list in the menu was met with ridicule. Couldn’t we see that they made beer here. Who needed wine. So beer it was all round.

The food did the place proud. A trout fried with potatoes, a rack of pork ribs with pickles and spicy sauce and a pork snietzel. We ate it all washed down with beer that had been made in the copper vats that surrounded us.

Opposite from where we sat a group of men crowded about a round table in the middle of which there was a large China beer tap with half a dozen taps there to keep your glasses full. We looked on with some envy.