Stellar Plates: Thank you very much for finding the time to speak with us. You hold many prestigious positions – first and foremost, you are an entrepreneur who has spent the last 30 years in the field of strategic consultancy for companies. In addition, you serve as Vice-President of the International Academy of Gastronomy, headquartered in Paris, President of the Polish Academy of Gastronomy, and the exclusive partner of the Michelin Guide in Poland. Could you tell us in more detail what the model of collaboration with the Michelin Guide looks like?
Maciej Dobrzyniecki: My collaboration with the Michelin Guide has been ongoing for more than a decade. I must emphasize, however, that I cannot officially speak for the Guide or comment on its behalf. What I can confirm is that I assist in identifying the most suitable cities or regions that may be included in the Guide’s selection.
Moreover, as the exclusive Partner of the Michelin Guide, I have the unique privilege of presenting the Michelin Guide Plaques each year to Polish restaurateurs, who must confirm their restaurants’ standards annually in order to maintain, improve, or sometimes lose their status within the great global Michelin family.
The Polish Academy of Gastronomy, which I have headed for nearly 20 years, is an organization that brings together enthusiasts who are not professionally involved in gastronomy. What unites us is our passion for food. We take an active part in various gastronomic missions organized by our headquarters in Paris. We travel all over the world to compare the gastronomic standards of different destinations, always keeping in mind the subtle difference between the terms “gastronomic” and “culinary.”
SP: That is very interesting. Are those numerous trips undertaken on behalf of the International Academy of Gastronomy in Paris in any way linked to assessing whether a given region might stand a chance of earning Michelin Guide distinctions in the future?
MD: Absolutely not. The journeys organised by the International Academy of Gastronomy in Paris have no connection to the activities of the Michelin Guide. Rather, they represent the fulfilment of our statutory missions, which we have been carrying out for decades. When we visit one another, we always engage in what we call constructive criticism: after each menu we invite the chef to the table to share our remarks about what we enjoyed and what could be refined or modified. These trips—and the training sessions associated with them—are a completely separate initiative from the Michelin Guide.
The International Academy of Gastronomy, headquartered in Paris, also confers its own prizes: the international Grand Prix and the national Prix. The most prestigious of these is the Grand Prix de l’Art de la Cuisine (Grand Prize for Culinary Art). Among the 43 chefs worldwide who have been honoured with this award—virtually all of whom hold three Michelin stars—only one Pole has ever been distinguished: Wojciech Modest Amaro, who at the moment of receiving the prize held a single star. That exception highlights the tremendous amount of work and argumentation we, as the Polish Academy, had to undertake in promoting the candidacy of a Polish chef who was competing against a constellation of the world’s most eminent culinary masters.
SP: It is undoubtedly a tremendous honour for Wojciech Modest Amaro to find himself in such a prestigious group of the world’s top chefs. Mr Modest Amaro is currently running a project called “Forgotten Fields Farm,” where dinners are held on a farm near Warsaw. We had the pleasure of attending one of these events, and it was a truly memorable culinary experience that we rate very highly.
MD: I have not yet been to the farm, so I shall refrain from comment. Of course, I have visited Atelier Amaro many times at both of its locations, and I have always been deeply impressed by Modest’s talent, technique, and palate—after all, he was the first chef in Poland to be awarded a Michelin star.
SP: Let us move on to the next question, which concerns the development of Polish gastronomy. Does the Academy of Gastronomy in Poland have—or should it have—an influence on how cities and regions promote their cuisine and restaurants? Does the Academy assist Polish regions in promoting their restaurants?
MD: Yes, absolutely. In April, for instance, a nationwide culinary competition was held under our patronage, where the Polish Academy of Gastronomy once again funded the two main Grand Prix awards. The competition took place at the Gastronomy School Complex in Gdańsk.
What is more, the partners of the Polish Academy of Gastronomy, who have worked with us from the very beginning, support us in all our training projects and initiatives that motivate young people—the future adepts of the culinary arts. We also conduct a series of training sessions in several Polish cities for chefs, sommeliers, and restaurateurs. These meetings cover culinary techniques, guest service, restaurant management, and the so-called “second menu,” meaning everything a restaurant can offer beyond its food. Each session attracts several dozen restaurateurs in every city, and the feedback we receive afterwards indicates the tangible benefits that restaurateurs and chefs gain from them.
SP: Among our Instagram followers are several thousand chefs, so we would like to ask: what actions should the Polish gastronomic sector take to attract more international guests and earn greater recognition on the global culinary scene?
MD: At the beginning of the 2000s the hegemony of French cuisine came to an end, and new, interesting trends began to appear—regional cuisines, product-driven cooking, and the fashionable New Nordic Cuisine among them. For the past dozen years or so there has also been a strong worldwide movement to showcase regional products and the so-called “zero-kilometre” concept, though its definition is rather debatable. In my view, the radius of a regional product can extend to as much as 300 kilometres, provided we can substantiate the story of its provenance.
So, what should be done to make ourselves attractive to a tourist who comes here to eat? In my opinion, we should copy the Spanish experience, which I have been observing for the past thirty years. At the end of the 1990s the only dish widely known to visitors in Spain was paella. Today, foreign tourists inject €30 billion a year into the country’s budget, spending that money solely on gastronomy—and these are tourists who state that the main reason for visiting Spain was the desire to enjoy gastronomic experiences in specific restaurants or to taste very particular products.
A further €27 billion is what foreign visitors spend on culinary experiences while getting to know the country’s culture more closely. I would like the Spanish example to become a model for the development of Polish tourism.
Five years ago, at the initiative of the European Parliament, the European Gastronomic Capital project was launched. Last year Madrid held that title. As a result, from March 2024 to March 2025 tourist traffic in Madrid rose by 12 per cent, and restaurants recorded a 16 per cent increase in occupancy. And we are not talking exclusively about fine-dining restaurants. If we use the Michelin Guide’s categorisation, statistics show that the establishments most favoured by foodie groups are those bearing the Bib Gourmand designation—places with an excellent value-for-money ratio, where it is understood from the outset that the bill per person will not exceed about €50.
In answer to the question of what steps need to be taken, the foremost requirement is to be authentic and to offer what we do best. We should by no means shy away from our strengths. Around the world we are chiefly associated with dishes such as breaded pork cutlet, pierogi, and bigos. Yet we have outstanding chefs who shape Poland’s image through their exceptional dishes, on a par with the leading culinary masters globally—though I certainly would not turn my back on pierogi! To date I have visited more than 550 starred restaurants, and during my travels across Europe and beyond I have seen that our country possesses a very robust gastronomic scene that continues to grow. Poland has excellent produce: wonderful vegetables, superb dairy and meat products, great beers, and outstanding spirits. We shall still need to work on our wine, and let us hope that a more favourable climate will assist us in the future. The most important thing is to remain natural and to be able to tell the story behind the dish we present to our guests. In the coming years a crucial criterion will be the demanding ability to “show the chef’s personality on the plate.”
Our mistake in Poland is that we lack gastronomic communities. I always tell restaurateurs that we should compete less and collaborate more—whether by forming purchasing groups or by developing a joint strategy for a single product. Such an approach could arouse the interest of foreign tourists. Recently I invited a two-Michelin-starred chef from Spain—Juanlu Fernández—to Poland. In one Wrocław restaurant he tasted Polish trout. The very next day he had already devised a complete menu that he intended to serve in another establishment. That night he had several kilograms of trout couriered in, prepared his Spanish interpretation, and served it to the guests—the result was amazing! So, we have trout, we have our own caviar, and we have many other exceptional products.
SP: Wow! That’s a very interesting insight—thank you so much for sharing it. As an aside, we’d like to add that a recent article on the gastronomy portal E-Hotelarz reported that this very chef will be developing a new restaurant concept, including the menus for Artesse in Kraków and Wierzbowa 15 in Wrocław.
MD: I am delighted by this news and would like to congratulate both Destigo Hotels and Juanlu Fernández for achieving a synergistic effect—the combination of a two-Michelin-star chef’s experience with the interesting concept of the two restaurants mentioned. I would remind everyone that I first invited Juanlu to Poland in 2019, on the occasion of awarding Kraków the title of European Capital of Gastronomic Culture. In subsequent years he has twice been a guest at major events organised by the Academy. I am convinced that this is precisely what sparked his interest in Poland and his fondness for our country. I believe that 2025 and 2026 will bring exciting challenges for Gdańsk, because from March 2025 to March 2026 it is Gdańsk itself that will assume the title directly after Madrid, having outpaced a number of European cities and presented an exceptionally interesting calendar of gastronomic events. I warmly congratulate Gdańsk and the Gdańsk Tourist Organisation, which will be responsible for implementing the declared programme. I look forward with great anticipation to the series of events the city will prepare over the next twelve months.
SP: Time for the next question. Across Europe and Asia we see restaurants that do not serve elaborate tasting dinners yet still manage to earn Michelin stars. Do you think a similar scenario is possible one day in Poland? Can restaurants that favour a simpler style of presenting dishes also stand a chance of receiving that coveted star? What is your opinion on this?
MD: Absolutely yes. I have eaten in three restaurants—each with one Michelin star—and none of them had a dining room: two operated right out on the street, and the third under a simple tarpaulin. All three served outstanding regional cuisine and were located in different parts of the world outside Europe: one in South America and two in Asia. So it is perfectly possible. I am deeply convinced that, sooner or later, Poland will reach a level at which such restaurants—those that enchant the inspectors with truly exceptional flavour—will be distinguished with a Michelin star. Polish restaurateurs are doing everything they can to make that number grow year after year. Note that the first plaques I presented on behalf of the Michelin Guide covered only a handful of restaurants, whereas last year there were already seventy-seven.
I would like to add one more thing, stressing that this is solely my personal opinion, not that of the exclusive partner of the Michelin Guide in Poland. In my view, Poland’s potential is far greater than the current selection suggests. Here I must underline the enormous role that the promotional and training initiatives undertaken by the Polish Tourist Organisation in Warsaw and its regional partners play in developing the Polish selection of the Michelin Guide. Advertising campaigns that promote the Poland brand through our ever-improving restaurants are, in my opinion, an excellent idea, and I thank the Polish Tourist Organisation for running this initiative. At present we have five one-star restaurants, one two-star, sixteen with the Bib Gourmand distinction, and fifty-five recommended establishments. I am certain that Poland’s gastronomic scene will continue to grow in the years ahead.
SP: Yes, we really do have outstanding cuisine. We have many Polish chefs doing fantastic work, and when we talk with them they often tell us they dream of earning a Michelin star—yet they also add that a star immediately means having to offer elaborate tasting dinners. At this point we would like to show you a map we have created that highlights restaurants across Poland offering tasting menus—it is available on our website. The map is interactive and lets you check whether a particular city has any tasting-menu restaurants. What we observe is that there are only a few urban centres in Poland with a rich tasting-menu offering: roughly seven or eight larger cities where there are several, or even a dozen, such restaurants, while most other cities have just one or two. Of course, not every city needs a starred restaurant; some may instead receive a Bib Gourmand or a recommendation. Yet this raises the question: if a restaurant does not offer tasting dinners, does it realistically have any chance of earning a star?
MD: If we glance at the global rankings, there is no obligation to offer a tasting menu. What matters is the ability to express the chef’s personality through the artistry of each dish.
SP: What have been your most interesting or surprising culinary adventures over all these years? What surprised you the most, and where?
MD: The greatest surprise was my visit to Eleven Madison Park in New York, run by Chef Daniel Humm. I went there right after the pandemic, when he had boldly decided to transform the restaurant into an entirely plant-based concept. He was unsure whether he would manage to keep his three Michelin stars, yet he did—and I was deeply impressed by the transformation. I know how hard it is to achieve full depth of flavour without an ingredient as fundamental as butter!
My second unforgettable experience was a dinner with Chef Gaggan in Bangkok. Originally from India, he is renowned for his innovative take on traditional cuisine. He served us a private meal in a room where each course was accompanied by his favourite music—the soundtrack changed with every dish. The climax was a course served without any cutlery; we were literally meant to lick it off the plate, in line with the chef’s concept. It was an extraordinarily original and fascinating experience.
Another three-star experience was at Osteria Francescana in Modena, where I had the pleasure of savouring a fantastic dish that lay outside the day’s menu. Chef Massimo Bottura treated us to ravioli prepared according to his grandmother’s recipe, accompanied by an exceptional Parmesan made from the milk of so-called “white cows” — its flavour was completely different from any variety I had known until then. As we left, each of us received a piece of that cheese, and I must admit it disappeared very quickly. By the way, within our cooperation the Polish Academy of Gastronomy has already sent several trainee chefs for internships at the above-mentioned establishments.
As for your question about the region that has particularly enchanted me, it is definitely the Basque Country. I adore the simple, uncomplicated local cuisine. Interestingly, it is the region with the highest number of Michelin stars per capita — much like Tokyo. Even so, I once ended up in a place that could hardly be called a restaurant. It was located in a basement, entered through an inconspicuous door; you had to knock and give a familiar name as a “password.” If you knew the right person, they let you in. There was no menu — they simply kept bringing plate after plate, and at the end you paid a fixed amount (about €60). The food was phenomenal.
Let me add a little anecdote. The next day, after we had bought a bottle of wine and begun talking with the owner, I asked how he actually ran this “business.” He replied that it was not a business at all, but a pleasure, and that the money collected served only to buy ingredients for the following day. He also told me that a French chef with three stars had once tried to get in but did not know the right name, so he was turned away. “I don’t care who you are — I don’t know you,” he heard at the door. It may sound amusing, but I remember the experience very fondly. The place had no guidebook recommendation whatsoever, yet it was truly exceptional.
SP: What incredible experiences! Which places on the world’s culinary map do you particularly enjoy? Are there destinations you always visit with great pleasure?
MD: I have already mentioned the cuisine of the Basque Country as well as Mediterranean cooking. I may not be entirely objective, but I believe Spanish cuisine is extraordinarily rich in flavour and rests on products of outstanding quality. Importantly, you do not need fine dining to be captivated by it.
Beyond Europe, I am a great fan of Levantine dishes, especially Lebanese cuisine. Unfortunately, for political reasons it is difficult at present to travel to Lebanon itself, but elsewhere in the world—for instance in the United Arab Emirates or in London—you can find superb Lebanese restaurants that are well worth visiting for their exceptional flavours. I sorely miss a truly authentic Lebanese restaurant in Poland!
SP: What myths or misconceptions about Michelin-starred restaurants do you most often encounter in Poland? For example, we frequently hear people say that such places serve “microscopic portions” and that it is impossible to leave feeling full. Yet we have experienced quite the opposite—time and again we leave such restaurants feeling more satisfied than after dinner in a standard à-la-carte establishment. What is your perspective?
MD: Much depends on what guests expect. I would not like to limit the discussion solely to starred restaurants, so I will speak more broadly about fine dining. A visit to such a venue should always end with complete satisfaction, because every chef knows the caloric value of the dishes served and, although portions may appear small, they are absolutely sufficient in the final reckoning.
In fine-dining restaurants the point is not merely to quell hunger but to experience a veritable festival of flavours. Often, in addition to the tasting menu, an à-la-carte option is available so that, if a guest particularly enjoys a certain tasting-menu dish, on a subsequent visit they can order it as a full plate. I must admit that I have never left a tasting dinner feeling unsated.
We often see on social media a photo of a single component from a tasting menu, followed by comments such as “How could anyone get full on that?” Yet that is only one of many courses that make up the entire menu. Add amuse-bouches, starters, main courses, pre-desserts, then several desserts and petits fours—when you total it all up, the meal not only brings satisfaction but also delivers a genuinely substantial amount of energy.
SP: In addition to the roles you have already mentioned, you also serve as the Honorary Consul of the Kingdom of Spain. From that perspective, how do you assess the potential for collaboration between Polish and Spanish restaurants, chefs, or industry organisations?
MD: That is precisely what I have been working on for almost twenty-five years—I strive to ensure that the exchange between Spain and Poland runs as smoothly as possible. I have no complaints about the number of Spanish restaurants in Poland. Very soon a new project will be launched—you are among the first to hear about it. We plan to set it in motion before the summer holidays, and it will be an extremely interesting initiative linking Poland and Spain.
I am delighted that more and more Spanish chefs are appearing in Poland. For example, Paco Pérez initiated a project in Gdańsk six years ago, and Juanlu Fernández, whom we mentioned earlier, is also expanding his international activities here. Other chefs are likewise interested in this dynamically developing market.
SP: And now for the last two questions. If you feel you cannot answer, we will of course respect that and not press the issue. Will there ever be a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Poland?
MD: For nearly twenty years the task of the Academy of Gastronomy in Poland has been to pursue our statutory goals, above all the continual elevation of Polish gastronomy to the very highest levels.
SP: Our final question: in the near future, can we expect the Polish list of Michelin-distinguished restaurants to grow to include new regions?
MD: Every new city or region that enters the Michelin Guide selection brings me great joy. In addition, we are speaking on a special day for Polish gastronomy, because today—after an intensive period of preparation, training, and consolidation of the gastronomic community—another Polish city with a rich culinary offer is joining the global Michelin family. I congratulate the authorities of Wrocław on their determination, motivation, and highly effective efforts in building the city’s recognition as a tourist destination.
SP: Thank you very much for your time and for the comprehensive answers.