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 Anna and Szymon at their new delicatessen
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Camden review | Restaurants | Polish food | Red Pig Deli | Poland
Josh Loeb meets Szymon Malochleb and Anna Bebenek at their new ‘Polski sklep’ venture
POLISH food is good” proclaims a sign above the door of the Red Pig deli.
It is a simple claim, but one which might have provoked more cynicism before 2004. That was the year Poland joined the European Union.
Since then many thousands of Poles have come to Britain, and they have brought with them rye bread, herrings and much more.
Supermarkets now stock eastern European specialities, and it is not unusual to find beers like Zywiek and Lech alongside Stella and Guinness in off-licences.
Strangely, Camden Town has been less noticeably marked by this influx than Willesden or Hackney, and so perhaps Szymon Malochleb and Anna Bebenek can still claim to be blazing a trail, having opened the area’s first Polski sklep, or Polish shop, last month.
“Polish food is now attractive for the whole nation, not just for Polish people,” said Szymon, who moved to London nine years ago.
It was as a student here that he met Anna.
They subsequently opened their first deli in Willesden and started a family.
“I remember when I moved here I missed Polish food,” said Szymon.
“Every time I went home to see my mother I would say to her, ‘Please make the dumplings!’ Then with the EU it became easier to import food from Poland, and so the idea of opening a shop was born.”
Despite its apparently specialised market, Szymon and Anna stress that their deli offers something for everyone.
According to Szymon, British people have experimental palates as a result of a long history of immigration to the UK from further afield than eastern Europe.
Anna, meanwhile, is optimistic enough to predict Polish food following the same trajectory as curry and becoming an integral part of the British diet.
As well as food, Red Pig stocks magazines, cosmetics, and even medicines from Poland, all of which are delivered every 10 days by lorry.
“It is a family business,” said Anna.
“Szymon’s mum is in Poland and looks after that side of things. We don’t like to source from big warehouses where the quality is poorer, so we try to get everything straight from small producers.”
The sign above Red Pig’s door appears to be correct.
Polish food is indeed good, particularly kabanos (a thin salami sausage), pierogi (fried dumplings with meat and mushrooms, or sweet fillings like berries) and hunter sausage (an ingredient of sour rye soup).
The juniper sausage tastes pleasingly rustic and farm-yardy, and the marinated smoked hams are also very nice. There isn’t much in the way of vegetarian food, though.
Do Szymon and Anna have plans to return to Poland?
“Perhaps,” said Szymon, “but there are so many other places to settle. But the lease here lasts 10 years,” said Anna.
So all being well, I will be able to get my fix of gherkins and sauerkraut for at least another decade, and, if Anna’s predictions are correct, by 2018 we might all be eating Polish food.
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