Departures Switzerland Spring 2021

DEPARTURES TRAVEL

DEPARTURES TRAVEL DISPATCH 32 Warsaw, Here We Come Whether it’s dining, overnighting or exploring, the Polish capital’s enticing new repertoire strikes a delicate balance of old and new. by Claudia Whiteus STROLLING AROUND Warsaw’s picturesque old town, it’s hard to believe so many of these magnificent edifices – which span medieval, Gothic and Renaissance influences – are just a few decades old. This year marks 50 years since reconstruction work began on the Royal Castle, the final stage of the phoenix-from-theashes story of a city all but burned to the ground in the final throes of the Second World War and which is now back to life with a verve all its own. The Polish capital today stands testament to its denizens’ buoyant spirit, a pretty city with plenty of green oases, glam-filled shopping streets, a new meandering promenade along the mighty Vistula and now, its first big-name design hotel, Nobu Warsaw (warsaw.nobuhotels.com), a modernday palace in its own right. While the past decade has seen a top-to-toe refresh for the city’s pair of grandes dames in the old town – the Bristol (marriott.com) and the Europejski Left: the industrial-chic in Nobu Warsaw’s Nobu Suite; below: sous vide duck with black cherries and elderberry chutney at Bez Tytułu (raffles.com) – Nobu Matsuhisa’s first Eastern European outpost holds court as the freshly crowned king of cool in the city’s burgeoning creative hub of Śródmieście Południowe. The district is Poland’s best approximation of Williamsburg or Shoreditch, filled with craft cocktail bars, indie boutiques and buzzy sidewalk bistros – an apt home for the Japanese marque that elegantly fuses style and cultures. The very structure of the hotel demonstrates its cosmopolitan approach: one ultra-modern new wing has an eyecatching glass-and-steel façade as well as a towering living wall, while the adjacent Art Deco wing is the erstwhile quarters of the Rialto hotel. In the latter, rooms reflect the design sensibilities of the era (think dark wood furniture and geometricpatterned parquet floors), as does the swish ground-level cafe. The new part, meanwhile, trades the trimmings of yore for a minimalist aesthetic in its rooms and suites, with their stark concrete walls, natural woods and slatted doors. It’s a theme that extends to the street-level seeand-be-been restaurant and bar, where guests can get their fill of the blockbuster chef’s mouthwatering Nipponese-fusion dishes – à la carte or omakase-style – before heading down to the subterranean jazz club for post-prandials and live tunes. FROM LEFT: © NOBU HOTELS, © BEZ TYTULU PLEASE CHECK THE LATEST GOVERNMENT ADVICE BEFORE BOOKING TRAVEL OR DEPARTING ON ANY TRIP

Above: the glass-walled exterior of the sprawling Polin Museum, which boasts some 13,000 square meters of usable space; below: the operatic interiors of Epoka restaraunt FROM TOP: WOJCIECH KRYŃSKI, TOMO YARMUSH A similar old-meets-new, transnational approach stands out across the Polish capital. A short walk from the hotel, the aptly named Bez Tytułu (beztytulu.com) – Polish for “untitled” – defies categorisation: the charming town house comprises a contemporary art space, a cosy, speakeasy-style cocktail club and a brick-walled eatery helmed by chef Erwan Debono, whose concise, constantly changing menu of French classics (like ribeye served with shortbread and gruyère or duck with elderberry) is largely informed by seasonal Polish produce. Epoka (epoka. restaurant), abutting the Raffles hotel, boasts a likewise eclectic appeal: the interiors – designed by acclaimed opera scenographer Boris Kudlička – are a deeply theatrical vision in rich blues, velvets and heavy, baroquestyle drapes while homegrown chef Marcin Przybysz (who cut his teeth under René Redzepi and Massimo Bottura) applies his experience with global cuisines to reinvigorate recipes from centuries-old Polish cookbooks for the 21st-century palate. And yet. There is something incredibly poignant about a rebuilt city. Which is why, paradoxically, the best way to truly understand Warsaw’s new sparkle is by looking back, and there is nowhere better to do that than a pair of world-class, perspective-bending museums. The eight-year-old Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews (polin.pl), set in an architecturally awe-inspiring structure in the former Jewish ghetto, acts as both a memorial to those murdered during the Holocaust and a celebration of 1,000 years of Jewish life in Poland, with hitech installations alongside handcrafted masterpieces like the ornate reconstructed ceiling of a 17thcentury wooden synagogue. The Warsaw Rising Museum (1944. pl), set in an erstwhile tram power station, is an affecting reckoning of the periods before, during and after the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, the largest military resistance movement to Nazi rule. Labyrinthine and by turns ecstatic and harrowing, a feeling of oppression and estrangement lingers after you emerge from this dark maze. And that’s exactly the point: most cities wear their triumphs and scars on their (metaphorical) sleeves. In Warsaw, you have to dig a little bit – and what you discover is a richly textured history paired with a bright, optimistic, compelling future. DEPARTURES 33