More Than Pierogi: A Polish Restaurant Serving the Food of the Highlands in a Chicago Suburb

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In 1833, the year Chicago was founded, Polish immigrants were already making their way to what was then barely a village. Many of these Polish people were refugees from the 1830 November Uprising, a revolt by Poles against Russian rule. No doubt these early Polish Chicagoans brought some of their traditional recipes with them. Polish food has been a part of Chicago culture for a long time, and with more than 700,000 Polish people living in the Chicago area, Polish culture continues to have a powerful presence on many dining room tables.

Over the years, Chicago Polish restaurants have come and gone. Standouts like Red Apple Buffet (6474 N. Milwaukee Avenue), The Jolly Inn Restaurant & Banquet Hall (6501 W. Irving Park Road) and Podhalanka (1549 W. Division Street) have been serving the community for decades – but Podhalanka recently closed when its owner moved back to Poland with no one to take over the restaurant. Many Polish restaurants have established themselves in both the city and the suburbs, giving all of us a chance to sample dishes that go way beyond the pierogi (though we do enjoy those savory and sweet stuffed Polish dumplings).

Polish families started to move to the Chicago suburbs after World War II, and were joined by new immigrants displaced by the war and later the harsh repression of Poland’s Communist regime. Although there are still high concentrations of Polish Americans in Chicago neighborhoods like Portage Park, the suburbs have proved increasingly attractive to many families of Polish descent. As of the 2020 census, 65 percent of all Polish Americans live in suburban Chicagoland. Such concentrations of Polish residents have given rise to places like Orland Park’s Tradycja Polish Fusion Cuisine (14478 S. LaGrange Road), Justice’s Szarotka (8100 S. Roberts Road) and Wood Dale’s U Gazdy (270 W. Irving Park Road).

“At a lot of Polish restaurants, you see buffets,” says U Gazdy owner Betty Pierscionowski. “But at U Gazdy, we don’t have a buffet where the food is sitting around for hours. We make everything fresh.”

U Gazdy serves the food of the highlands of Poland’s south, where Pierscionowski herself was born. “Highlander foods use everything from an animal or product,” she explains. “For instance, when they drain the sauerkraut, they don’t waste the water that comes out: they create a soup out of it. And because it’s colder in the highlands, the foods – like our pork shank – tend to be heartier, to help you stay warm in the winter.”

Kiszka (pronounced kish-kuh and meaning “intestine”), another hearty food common in the highlands, is a sausage traditionally made by stuffing a pig intestine with a starch (grain, potato, etc.), protein (often organ meat), and pig’s blood – nothing is wasted. At U Gazdy, they serve the oat-heavy blood sausage with cooked sauerkraut and a choice of mashed potatoes or “hoof-shaped,” amazingly light dumplings. Kiszka has been immortalized in the well-known polka song “Who Stole the Kiszka,” which goes:

Fat and round and firmly packed
It was hanging on the rack
Someone stole the kiszka
When I turned my back
Who stole the kiszka?
Who stole the kiszka?
Who stole the kiszka?
Someone bring it back!

This catchy tune won a place on Chicago radio charts in 1963 when it was performed by Grammy-award winning Frankie Yankovic. 

What do you pair with kiszka? Consider sampling one of the excellent Polish vodkas they’re pouring at U Gazdy’s bar, either in shots (which is how many of the patrons seem to enjoy it), or in mixed drinks like martinis and Cosmos. There’s also a good selection of Polish beers in bottles and on draft. Beer and vodka cut the richness of this lush food.

Tripe stew, like kiszka, leverages offal. Tripe is cow or lamb stomach, and it has a faintly organ-y tang; it benefits from a savory sauce, because, like tofu, it absorbs flavors. What sets tripe apart from other animal products is its slightly spongy texture. Like menudo, the Mexican tripe soup, Polish tripe stew is believed to be a hangover cure: the thinking is that if you have a bad stomach, eat stomach. Makes some kind of sense, though this has not been our experience. For an ailing tummy, Pierscionowski personally prefers sour sauerkraut soup.  

Bigos, or hunter’s stew, is a national dish of Poland, and it’s one of those preparations that can vary a lot from household to household and restaurant to restaurant. Along with the requisite fresh cabbage and sauerkraut, bigos can be made with whatever meat is available, including pork, chicken, goose, turkey, or random game like venison or rabbit (thus the name Hunter’s Stew). It’s usually seasoned with spices such as paprika, marjoram, and garlic. “You find all kinds of different meats in bigos,” Pierscionowski told us, “But the spices and the flavors remain the same.”

If the U Gazdy menu seems rather meat-heavy, there are some vegetarian options, like zucchini pancakes with garlic sauce and smoked sheep’s cheese, which Pierscionowski explains is “a big highlander food.”

Despite the size of the Chicago area’s Polish community, Pierscionowski told us, “I started the restaurant because I felt Polish food was under-represented. It was all buffets, very basic. You have your stuffed cabbage rolls and sausage, which we do have on the menu, but here, it's not mass-produced.”

The exterior and the interior of U Gazdy uses a lot of blonde wood, which is homey and suggestive of a log cabin – or more to the point, a Polish hunting lodge. Sliding into the chunky wooden seats at U Gazdy, you’ll find yourself among many robust folks who like to eat.

Polish bakeries are renowned, and the bread at U Gazdy is a thing of beauty. At the table, you’ll be served a ramekin of lard to smear on the bread. Much like lardo in Italy, this super-rich dollop of fat is to be enjoyed in modest portions. Consuming straight-up fat might be a stretch for some palates, but you should dab a little on the bread… and you just might chase it with a shot of vodka. As the Polish cheers goes: Na zdrowie!

This story has been updated to remove a reference to Weird Al Yankovic. He is not related to Frank Yankovic.