Three weeks after the late completion of their whole building renovation, Sto Lat, at the Polish Club/ Klub Polski Ashfield, is cooking at the top of its game. This complete rebuild, said to have cost something in the tune of $72 million, sees the now ground-floor club topped by 88 apartments. It’s a new beginning for a club that has served Sydney’s Polish community and their supporters since 1967. Taking them through the next fifty-odd years the new space boasts a larger restaurant, private dining room, community space, a well-equipped bar and a cafe-deli where you can still buy their famous pierogi after eating them in-house. And you should eat Poland’s famous dumplings, a quartet stuffed with Angus beef and onions ($17.50) come in silky skins dotted with caramelised onions. They’re teamed with white cabbage, beetroot and ‘slaw, and a little pot of sour cream. I was sad to find my favourite potato and farmers’ cheese pierogi sold out in the deli for another week.
There’s an eye to improved presentation across all the menu items, including the equally beloved potato pancakes ($24). They’re served pan-fried with the same salads and, if you’re smart, a jug of their savoury mushroom sauce ($4). The celebration of the spud continues in a glossy pat of creamy potato mash with the knife-crowned roasted pork knuckle ($44). With crisp crackling, and sauerkraut to cut the fat, it has enough meat to be shared among multiple people.
Do not forget to include the greatest potato-product of them all: Vodka Nidzicka Ziemniaczana ($14.80). I found it much smoother than the rye version Vodka Nidzicka Zytnia ($14.80). Wash it down with the on-tap Albo pale ale ($9.20/schooner) for a peak Inner West experience. For a liquid dessert, get stuck into the flavoured vodkas. There’s a soft creaminess to the pale green Krupnik Pistacja ($8) made using pistachios. Fruit-flavoured options, like Soplica Malinowa ($8.80) and Soplica Mirabelkowa ($8.80)—raspberry and mirabelle plum—were a bit too cough syrup for me. Joining Klub Polski for the princely sum of two bucks will knock 10 per cent off all of these quoted prices.
