Ognisko Restaurant London is one of the capital’s most beautiful Polish restaurants, located on the iconic Exhibition road in South Kensington, in the heart of cultural West London. With its cocktail bar, restaurant, terrace and event spaces, Ognisko is one of the most beautiful restaurants in London, Jan Woroniecki owns the restaurant and a Polish Vodka brand Kavka Vodka.
“I first came to this building as a boy with my father in the 60’s, it had been given to the Polish community in 1939-40 to maintain the cohesion of the free Polish Émigré community following the Nazi and Soviet invasion of Poland. I remember it has a strong military feeling about it, the clicking of heels and me trying to catch the eye of the waitresses as a young man!”
Year after year I returned and the building got shabbier and shabbier until it closed back in 2012. I had previously owned a number of restaurants and was able to invest in the building, renovated all the current public areas including the restaurant, terrace and event spaces. It remains a community orientated venue, probably only 20% of our customers are Polish, but people enjoy the food, the atmosphere and the setting and we work hard on making people feel at ease when they are here.
I opened my first Eastern European restaurant Kruk in Kensington, a smallish place with about 60 covers which gained something of a reputation as a place to have a good time but fashions change and when the 90’s came big and bold was beautiful and I found a site in Southwark a rundown part of London at the time and bought the freehold. Before long the Tate Modern came in, the London Eye and suddenly it was the hottest area to be in London and we had this beautiful great big building that used to be a factory space making church artefacts for the Suffolk Cathedral. I named it The Baltic Restaurant, the design was done by a friend Seth Stein and was very popular but we had to close during lockdown and didn’t reopen.
Jan on hospitality
“For me hospitality means a generosity of spirit, your customer is your business and you have to keep coming back to these two key fundamentals to run a bar and restaurant.”
Jan on running a bar and brand
“The benefit of owning a bar restaurant and a brand is that you can be your own best customer, it’s very busy in Ognisko and we sell a lot of Kavka and they are both good promotion for each other.”
Jan on the Vodka Category
Jan on The Polish Community
This building was hugely important for the Polish community, recently the population has declined but I know a lot of people never had the intention to put down routes here, the plan was to come, work, have fun and then return to Poland and that is what’s happened. My head bartender spends two weeks here and returns back to Poland for 2 weeks, you can get from Warsaw to London in the same time it takes to get to Birmingham!
On Cocktails in the City
We are looking forward to introducing people to the traditional techniques and flavours found in our Kavka Vodka range. Our cocktails will be using ingredients synonymous with the country, dills and pickles etc, something authentic and delicious.
Meet Jan and his team at Cocktails in the City throughout the summer and enjoy the best of Polish hospitality, sipping on characterful vodkas paired with traditional ingredients and flavours from the region.
