ON THE WATER IN PRAGA: NOMAD WARSAW'S FIRST WEEKS

Someone reviewed us before we opened the doors.

One line, no photo, no rating for food we hadn’t served yet: “Just waiting for you to open :)” We don’t know who it was. We only know that somebody walked along Port Praski, saw lights on, and thought it worth mentioning.

We opened on 3 August 2026. This is a short account of what’s happened since.

The riverside restaurant Praga had been waiting for

Warsaw has an odd relationship with its own river. For decades the city stood with its back to it, growing inland while the water became something you drove past on the way to work.

Praga is the clearest example. For years it was described in every way except the one that mattered: that it sits on the water.

When we saw the space at Józefa Sierakowskiego 1, the decision took less time than it should have. Port Praski, the boat basin, a terrace running down towards the water. One of our first guests later put it better than we ever managed in a pitch deck: he wrote that Praga had been waiting for a place like this.

We won’t argue. We’ll only note that they aren’t our words.

From Naples, through Bangkok, to Port Praski

Opening a restaurant on the Vistula took a long way round.

Anna started in her grandmother’s kitchen in Naples, where recipes came in units of “a pinch of this and a splash of that.” At twenty-one she was running her own Italian restaurant. Then Rome. Then Singapore, as the city’s only female Italian executive chef. Then Bangkok.

Philippe arrived from somewhere else entirely: a PhD in economics, lecture halls in France, diplomacy in Poland. He came to restaurants late and completely, founding D’ARK in Bangkok.

Between them they spent twelve years in Thailand. They came back with one thing that doesn’t fit in hand luggage: the conviction that the food we remember longest is almost never pure. It happens where one thing has rubbed up against another.

Which is where our kitchen comes from. A Polish, Italian and French base, a Thai accent, and no pretence that the meeting was planned from the start.

A menu that changes regularly

We change the menu regularly. It’s really just what happens when you buy seasonally and in small quantities.

It’s had one side effect we didn’t foresee: guests started coming back for specific dishes before they disappeared.

The one that came up most, in conversation and in photographs, was Arbuzowa Słodycz i Ogień — watermelon, prawns, minced pork, nam jim. A dish with no business working on paper.

Also Rybne Tacos Baja-Blast, Paccheri w Mięsnym Uścisku, Ostry Kurczak i Ryż z Kalafiora and Obfitość Oceanu. And the pastas — not one in particular, just the pastas, which we hear about more than anything else.

On the pizza, a guest wrote a sentence we’d never write about ourselves: “Best pizza I’ve eaten in Poland.”

We’ll leave it there. His verdict, not ours.

The terrace, golden hour, children and dogs

We learned more about the terrace from guests than from our own plans.

We knew it would look good at sunset — the boat basin handles that for us. What we didn’t anticipate was that it would become a place where children can run themselves out while the adults finish the conversation.

We didn’t design a playground. We’re not going to argue.

Dogs are welcome. No asking at the door, no explaining yourself, no water bowl grudgingly placed round the corner. If your dog likes looking at water, he has one of the better seats in the city.

And one more thing you noticed before we did: lunch here is quiet. No crush, no queue. If you want a table that doesn’t need a week’s notice, that’s the hour.

The walls somebody noticed

We opened with bare walls. Not to save money — we simply didn’t know yet what belonged on them.

A guest wrote, plainly, that the room was asking for something.

On 23 August it stopped asking. The muralist travelled from Paris and painted on site, in front of guests, in a full room. People ate lunch while the wall behind them turned into something it hadn’t been that morning.

Somebody pointed something out, and a mural happened. That’s roughly how it works here.

Eight languages at one table

We called this place NOMAD Warsaw before we had any right to know whether the name would hold.

In our first weeks you wrote to us in Polish, English, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Hebrew, Italian, French and German. Someone left a line that sounded like a proverb and probably is one: “If you set out, you reach wonderful places.”

The name wasn’t a statement of intent. It turned out to be a description of who walks in.

Come and find us

We’re open daily, 9:00 to 22:00, at Józefa Sierakowskiego 1 on Port Praski. The terrace runs as long as the weather allows. Dogs welcome. The menu changes every Monday.

Book a table . Or just turn up — at the quiet hour there’s almost always something.

See you by the water — Philippe & Anna