Tczew – Restauracja Vela

There were a fair number of closed places in Tczew, so I thought it’d just be easier to get an evening meal at the hotel that I was staying at. I would say that there were views over the river, which there technically are, but it was dark and so I couldn’t see them.

There was a reasonably good choice of beers, about six different ones, which is a decent effort that I was pleased to see. This is the Komtur from the Browar Gościszewo brewery, a perfectly acceptable, if not exceptional, black lager. But it’s something different, and that’s always good to see. The venue isn’t hugely featured on Untappd, I was only the third person to tag a beer in at the restaurant, and the last time was over two years ago. I have noted it’s being used more even in remote Polish towns, hopefully that trend will continue.

The service was polite and attentive, although the staff weren’t overly strained by the number of customers in the restaurant, which made that easier.

I wondered in advance why a restaurant which has signs for pizza up everywhere, including a large banner outside, had no photos of pizzas on their on-line reviews. It transpires they’re not doing pizzas at the moment, which seems an odd arrangement given they seemed to have them as something of a priority in their marketing. But, perhaps their wood fired pizza oven they refer to is broken, or too expensive to operate in the winter.

Back to the food, the photo here is a bit distorted, the elements on the side look large and so this chicken kiev looks smaller than the tomato ketchup container. It was much large than this photo suggests, the chicken was tender and the chips were very moreish. That heap of pickled (or fermented, I get them muddled up) vegetables added some nice sourness to the arrangement, and the chips were suitably moreish.

The prices were all reasonable here, although the atmosphere was a bit muted since for the most part I was the only customer. I accept that my asking at check-in if I needed to reserve a table was a bit aspirational, but it had been quite busy earlier on in the day so I thought best to check. I probably would have had a pizza if they were available, but the chicken kiev turned out to be a good choice, so I left happy. I’d say this is probably quite a safe bet for a meal, especially during the summer months when it’s possible to see the river and bridge and there’s some external seating as well for when it’s not snowing.