A Weekend in Warsaw: Pierogi, Wedel & One Famous Visitor Who’d Done Her Reading
In January, ‘The Times’ named Warsaw the number one European city break destination for 2026. The write-up was warm, funny, slightly flirtatious – ‘Hello Warsaw, you up?’ – and mentioned pierogi, milk bars, and the general sense that the Polish capital had been quietly getting excellent while nobody was paying attention. But it looks like Dua Lipa certainly was.
When The Times published its list of 16 city break destinations for 2026, Polish social media went through a predictable cycle: delight, smugness, more smugness, and a studied shrug that tried very hard not to look pleased. Then, this weekend, Dua Lipa posted an Instagram carousel from a Warsaw hotel room. The cycle restarted.
What made the visit more interesting than a random celebrity stopover is that Lipa has form with Poland. Through her Service95 book club, she interviewed Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, probably the most internationally celebrated Polish writer alive, and someone whose novels have a habit of making readers feel that Poland is a place worth paying serious attention to.2
Whether Warsaw was always on the itinerary after that conversation or whether The Times finally tipped the scales is not something we can verify. But the visit doesn’t look accidental.
The carousel itself was instructive: a lot of wardrobe changes, a plate of delivery pierogi, and a small pile of Wedel chocolates. This is, objectively, the correct shortlist for a first encounter with the city for a trendsetter.
Now, pierogi are worth understanding properly before you dismiss them as comfort food. Yes, they’re dumplings – stuffed, boiled, sometimes fried, frequently topped with sour cream and caramelised onion – but they’re also one of the more contested culinary objects in Central Europe, argued over regionally, seasonally and philosophically in ways that would surprise anyone who encountered them first as a freezer-aisle product abroad. The delivery version Lipa photographed is a perfectly respectable entry point.
Wedel is a different kind of institution. The company has been making chocolate in Warsaw since 1851 – it predates the current skyline, both world wars, and the entire communist period, through which it operated under a different name and the same basic commitment to good chocolate. A handful of Wedel sweets on an Instagram carousel is a small thing, but it points at something that has been here a long time and knows it.
Warsaw has been accumulating these small endorsements for a while. Three Michelin stars, a new Museum of Modern Art, a riverside bar scene that keeps improving, a Nobel Prize-winning novelist being interviewed by one of the world’s most famous pop stars. The Times noticed. Visitors are noticing.
The city maintains the expression of someone trying not to make a big deal of it, which is its own kind of charm. The pierogi are still excellent. The Wedel hasn’t changed. And it turns out that if you interview Olga Tokarczuk, Warsaw has a way of ending up on your itinerary eventually.