there’s a michelin star restaurant here called eliksir that you can get into on a sunday afternoon without two months of advance planning, and it’s only very expensive, not ludicrously so, so i just did that. i’m priced out of that kind of shit nearly everywhere these days and you have to seize these opportunities when they arise
it’s in a neighborhood called garnizon, which i saw talked up on reddit as a good place for prospective movers to gdansk to consider living in, so i was kind of interested to see it. tbh i wouldn’t live there if i could help it. it’s all newish development—to be clear, i vigorously approve of new development (and there’s a metric ton of it here, the city is building like crazy and big shoutout to them for having the sense to do it) but i don’t terribly want to live in it myself, even though new-build flats are objectively better quality than those in older buildings? the buildings in garnizon are decent-looking, there’s clearly a little money around, not so much that it flips into tacky. another twenty years and i think it will have settled into a decent organic neighborhood with a sense of there there. the street layout seems thoughtful, the transit is great, i saw families, i could kind of imagine a bit of a vaguely 70s wholesome community feel waiting to set in. but for now the aesthetic feels physically artificial, like a movie set, or corporate. and that’s a nope from me, dawg
anyway, that’s where the restaurant is. but if the area gave me misgivings it swiftly dispelled them
their shtick is that they do cocktail pairings instead of wine pairings. and every single choice they make on the plate or in the glass is legit as fuck. there was a gin situation of some kind involving dill salt, paired with a smoked trout with mirabelles and horseradish mousse—anyway. yeah. THEE best meal i’ve eaten since before the pandemic. carry me out of gdansk in a wheelbarrow in the morning because i’m d-u-n done. i just about made it back to base and may never move again (blaming the booze not the food, which was light for how good it was and judiciously portioned, i just don’t have any damn tolerance anymore since the pandemic and the cocktails were not appreciably miniaturized)
