Bordesley Street, Birmingham (0121 448 0017). Meal for two, including service: £60
There may be restaurants with more unpromising entrances elsewhere in Britain, but not many. The door to the Karczma – it means "the inn" – is on the ground floor of Birmingham's Polish Centre, a dreary grey brutalist shoe box of a building, complete with a memorial to the Polish officers murdered by the Soviets at Katyn in 1940.. Through the door, however, and you are somewhere else – a place that demands a suspension of, well, everything: cynicism, self-regarding urbane sophistication and, of course, disbelief.The ceiling is thatched with straw. The walls are painted with murals of pre-war farm life. There is gnarly farmyard-style furniture draped with sheepskins. There are lines of fake greenery spun through with fairy lights which may just be there for Christmas but could quite as easily be there all year round. Roaring Polish songs play and a flatscreen TV shows the news from home. It is meant, I think, to look like a country cottage in the Tatra mountains, only with consumer electronics. It is high camp with a very straight face.You really could laugh at all this, along with the slightly odd Polish-to-English menu translations with their unintended comedy. Then again you should try my English-to-Polish translations. Absolute pants. That would be to miss the point. There is something very special going on here: a true instinct to feed, a massive generosity of spirit, and an outstanding love affair with the noble pig. This is Polish food the way you want it: deep, rich, soothing, hearty. It is one long hug on a plate. It is two fingers up to the caprices of fashion. A friend of mine once spent Christmas Day in Egypt with 10 Polish men who drank vodka all day and at 4pm started weeping; I imagine a lot of men have wept at the Karczma. I wanted to.
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