If you only have time for one city in Poland, make it Krakow: it has the history, the green spaces, the day trips and amazing food. My first impression of Polish food was pretty limited. The longer I spent in Poland the more I found: big regional differences and, underneath them, cooking that’s fresh, handmade, seasonal and local.
A Krakow food tour is the quickest way into all of that. I’ve done food tours in cities all over Europe and never had a bad one. So I’ve picked them on what guests keep saying, how much food actually turns up and how much of it is genuinely from Krakow.
In short: Book the 4-Hour Polish Food Tour, because it’s a full meal spread across four to six venues with a group capped at eight.
Krakow Food Tours
Top Pick
Krakow: 4-Hour Polish Food Tour
Duration: 4 hours, starting at Plac Wolnica in Kazimierz
Guest rating: 4.9/5 on GetYourGuide
Around 10 tastings: cold starters, traditional mains, street food and a regional dessert with a story that leads to the Vatican. You walk between stops through the Old Town and leave with a written list of everything you ate. It’s my pick because it treats Polish food as much more than pierogi.
Guests love: portions that feel like a progressive dinner, guides who tie every dish to Polish history and places they’d never have found alone.
Watch out for: the menu leans heavily on pork, so vegetarians will miss a lot. Skip lunch.
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Street Food Tour
Krakow: Street Food Walking Tour
Duration: 1.5 or 2 hours
Guest rating: 4.8/5 on GetYourGuide
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There are two versions. The shorter one stays in the Old Town, with a market stop, highland cheeses oscypek and bundz, and a Polish vodka. The two-hour Kazimierz option starts at the Hala Targowa market with sausage, pierogi and pickles, then moves on to bigos and smalec on bread in a retro communist-style bar.
More than 400 reviews and the praise barely varies: friendly guides, history between stops and more food than people expected. Groups go up to 15, the biggest here, and vegetarians need the shorter option.
For Vodka Lovers
Krakow: Vodka Tasting Tour: Tapas & Tipsy Tales
Duration: 2.5 hours
Guest rating: 4.9/5 on GetYourGuide
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Seven vodkas, clear and flavoured, across a run of Old Town bars: a communist-era shot bar, a cafe that flavours its own and a candlelit hole in the wall with more than 100 bottles. It finishes at a pierogi place to soak it all up.
Guests say the shots are well spaced, so it never turns into a drinking session, and the stories are half the fun. The one warning that comes up is to eat dinner first, because the food is snack-sized.
Cooking Class
Krakow Pierogi Cooking Class
Duration: 2 hours
Guest rating: 4.8/5 on GetYourGuide
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Two hours in a restaurant near the city centre, on ul. Czapskich. You make the dough from scratch, fill and boil your pierogi, then eat the lot with a local beer or a glass of wine.
I love a cooking class when I’m travelling. You meet people and you come home with a recipe, and here the instructors share family recipes. Reviews keep coming back to how patient they are with complete beginners.
Stay at one of these boutique hotels in Krakow.
What to Eat in Krakow
My best Krakow food tip: treat the market stalls as a tasting menu. Six pierogi and you know whether you like them, and then you can order the restaurant version later in the trip. One of my favourite meals here was at Arenda Cafe, where the food was amazing and the service was unexpectedly five star without the five-star bill.
Obwarzanek
Krakow’s own bread ring, sold here since at least 1394 and protected by the EU since 2010, is twisted strands of dough boiled and then baked, topped with poppy seeds, sesame or salt. Buy one from a blue cart on the Rynek Główny early in the morning, when the square by the Cloth Hall is quiet and lovely, and eat it there because it goes stale within hours. The Old Town version of the street food walking tour includes one.
Zapiekanka
Half a baguette toasted under mushrooms and melted cheese, then finished with sauce and chives. Its spiritual home is the Okrąglak, the round building in the middle of Plac Nowy in Kazimierz, where the hatches keep serving late into the night. Kazimierz deserves a few hours on foot anyway for its cafes, gourmet shops and street food, and the two-hour Kazimierz street food tour stops here for one.
Plan your visit to coincide with the Krakow Christmas Market.
Pierogi
I ate a lot of pierogi from the Christmas market stalls and the quality was very good. For an everyday plate, go to a milk bar (bar mleczny): I was completely out of my depth ordering in Polish at one, but came to love eating at them. If you’d rather make your own, the pierogi cooking class does a savoury batch and a sweet one, usually potato and cheese, then apple.
Maczanka Krakowska
Krakow’s other sandwich, and a much older one: pork neck cooked down in a caraway and onion sauce, served in a roll that soaks up the juices. It was cheap fuel for carriage drivers and poor students. Look for it at the Judah street food market on ul. Świętego Wawrzyńca, or take the longer version of the street food tour, which serves it in the retro bar.
Kiełbasa from the Blue Van
A Krakow late-night institution. For more than 30 years a blue Nysa van on ul. Grzegórzecka, near the Hala Targowa market, has been grilling sausages over wood and serving them with fried onions, mustard and bread. It’s a night-time thing, so save it for after the bars.
Oscypek
Smoked sheep’s milk cheese from the Podhale highlands south of Krakow, pressed into carved wooden moulds and protected by the EU. It’s usually grilled and served with cranberry, which is how I ate it at the Christmas market with a mulled wine to wash it down. Smoked mountain cheese is part of the opening spread of bread and cured meats on the vodka tasting tour.
Żurek and the Soups
Polish soups deserve their own stop. Żurek is a sour soup made from fermented rye, usually with sausage and a boiled egg, and at the Christmas market I warmed up with mushroom soup. Hot soups are part of the spread on the 4-hour food tour, where the guide explains why fermented doesn’t mean gone off.
Polish Vodka
Polish vodka is nothing like the harsh shot I knew from home. The flavoured ones are sweet and mild, closer to an aperitif, and it goes into hot coffee and tea as well, which I never imagined enjoying but is surprisingly delicious. On the vodka tour you choose from more than 200 flavours, from salted caramel to elderberry flower and Christmas orange.
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Recommendations are independently chosen based on personal travel experiences and extensive research.