An interview with Pav’s Polska Kitchen

There’s a natural warmth in Pav’s demeanour that fuels the sense of conviviality, inspired by fond childhood memories, which he strives to recreate with his supper clubs. It’s not an easy task, especially when you’re living the nomadic life of a food pop-up and changing venues for every event.

Yet Pav manages to do it. How? By acknowledging that the one thing bringing his supper club concept together – the venues, the customers, him – is the shared trust and the investment that all parties have in each other. But he also knows that he’s the one forging his path, and that to a certain degree, he’s entirely on his own.

Pav knows the value of building relationships. In his experience running supper clubs – four years and counting –  he’s been in direct contact with all ends of the hospitality chain, including hosts and customers. He’s had to navigate the wants of each party and learn how to balance them with his own whilst maintaining the integrity of his concept, and understands that it requires a certain level of flexibility and resilience. 

Read on for his journey, from the challenges to the very best advice he has for anyone wishing to set off along their own pop-up path.

It only took one pop-up to convince him that hospitality was a career path he wanted to embark upon. Pav has since hosted in a number of different venues and to great acclaim, but in those earlier days getting started was difficult. With no guidance on how to make it work, the only recourse was jumping in feet first and bearing the brunt of the responsibility if it didn’t go to plan. He relied on word of mouth and previous experience in business development to build those relationships for people to trust him enough to sell his food to their customers, alongside the moral support of his wife and family. Yet the hardships would take their toll. “There was a point, before Spaces came around, when I thought I couldn’t do this anymore. Mentally it’s quite jarring when you’re putting yourself out there and you aren’t getting the responses that you like.”

Pav doesn’t come from a food background and certainly wasn’t planning on getting into the industry in his late 30s. He was working in TV and film until it became too much; work was taking over his life and he ended up quitting with zero notice. After a few odd jobs – including dog-walking and a stint as a boxer – he got in touch with a local café about hosting a food pop-up.

“I didn’t know what I was doing at all. Didn’t know what I was going to serve, what we were going to charge, how we were going to run the day. But we went through 120 covers and after that, I thought this is what I want to do. I didn’t mind the 11 hour days, I didn’t mind having 20 orders to manage at the same time.”

Although it came second nature, he didn’t get it right straight away. It took some trials and errors for him to figure out how to best convey the story he wanted to tell.

“I wanted to create something that made other people feel the way I feel about food and cooking, and specifically my grandma’s cooking in Poland, how it was always at the centre of community-building.” He recounts summers spent in the Polish countryside where his grandmother tended to her farm, growing her own produce and even rearing animals for some time. People would stop by to say hello and end up staying for much longer, indulging in homemade pierogi or doughnuts she’d fried fresh that day. Mornings were spent picking and husking broad beans to be eaten for lunch, so sweet and delicious they required little else as accompaniment. “It’s those memories I want to evoke in the pop-ups, that story I want to tell, and for people who want to enjoy it as much as my family did.” Pav’s Polska Kitchen grew out of that love, presenting the ingredients, flavours, and techniques that are common to Polish food in a way that is different to what people would traditionally expect.

“I just love feeding. That’s ultimately what it comes down to.” 

After that initial successful pop-up, a friend recommended a pub on Essex Road that was looking for someone to come in from time to time and offer the clientele a spin on the usual pub menu. Once a month for just over a year, he was serving Polish pub food to 40-60 covers, relying on the devoted locals to fill up the room. The positive reception of the concept had the owners offering him Sunday lunches – until Covid took the world by storm.

Like for so many others, the pandemic meant his plans for expansion had to be put on ice. Pav found himself at a loss for what to do with the pop-up – should he carry on? Give it a rest? The forced pause had him testing and refining recipes, ultimately confirming his drive to continue. A brief return to the Myddleton Arms post-lockdown brought him back to the kitchen albeit to a sparser, Covid-conscious audience.

“But I felt it was important just to keep going. Because this is what I wanted to do, so I had to believe in it and focus on it.”

At the end of 2021 he walked into Dalston favourite Mangal 2 asking if he could come down and cut his teeth in a professional setting. They were happy to let him come back and agreed that he could step in whenever the kitchen was short on staff or just needed extra support, and he’s still stepping in intermittently today. During a time when venues were hard to come by and a bit of a wobble on what to do next ensued, that time in the kitchen was indispensable for maintaining his drive.

Pav’s Polska Kitchen popped-up in various sites over the next couple of years, confirming the concept’s standing in the now up-and-coming scene. Some were more popular than others, hitting a full house through word of mouth and very little promotion. By the second half of 2022, Pav sought a new experience that would boost his skills – he was awarded a scholarship for the Leith’s three month cookery course through Countertalk, which allowed him to develop his culinary skills and introduced him to the professional kitchen setting, to sharing space with other chefs, and to budgeting.

Since February of this year, Pav has already hosted four brilliant pop-ups. Cycling through these different venues requires a spirit of adaptation and a genuine will to collaborate, in order to develop a menu and service that works best for everyone. With each space exhibiting a different set-up, not just in terms of kitchen layout and equipment, but also in terms of the dining room, each pop-up and menu is a different iteration of the last – and according to Pav, that challenge can be a blessing in disguise. “It’s given me a broader range of dishes and techniques to present to future venues. I can now just pick and choose, coming up with a menu in a couple of days based on the resources and space the venue offers me.”

Finding a suitable space still does require effort, even when the process is streamlined. “It still needs some relationship building, a bit of persistence, because you need to keep chasing. People won’t just give you something for nothing. They need to believe in you and believe in what you’re selling.” Luckily, it’s not something Pav finds particularly difficult to sell, because he truly, wholeheartedly believes in his food and in his story.

His advice for pop-ups emphasises that communication is, indeed, paramount. It’s essential to get those logistical details and any agreement terms down as soon as possible, and to not be afraid to have those conversations from the very beginning – especially when it comes to money. Clarity from the getgo makes everything run more smoothly when it comes to the actual event. Being amenable to compromises and acting with good will goes far, and it’s necessary to recognise that both parties might need to make concessions for the relationship to work. The money talk is easy, Pav says, but getting the venue in a position to agree in the first place, is where the real work lies.

“You need to put the effort into meeting them, whether it’s through an initial phone call or a straight up in-person visit. And you can usually judge by an initial conversation if they’re open to your idea, as well as what they might ask of you. If I’m going to meet them in person I’ll bring them a little dish to try, just because so many people have no idea what Polish cooking is.” That shows them that you’re keen, but also gives them a taster of what you’re planning to serve, and they’ll be able to determine if it works for their venue or not. Even once that initial agreement is made, it’s essential to maintain the relationship in the lead-up to the actual event. Small details like how responsive you are to clarifying questions, or how quickly you can deliver a menu plan, truly matter. “It shows that you’re serious, that you know what you’re doing, and that you’re putting in the time to change things if the host doesn’t quite like it.”

That fostered trust extends to the customer too. From a preparation standpoint, Pav prefers ticketed supper clubs but acknowledges that convincing people to pay ahead of time for an experience they might not be familiar with is another exercise in relationship-building he constantly needs to navigate: “it’s an investment in people’s trust in you.” Luckily, “people have responded well to it, and keep responding to it as the supper club evolves.”

“It’s about building trust with people that are going to come and pay you for food. It’s about building trust with the venues. And ultimately, knowing that to a degree you’re in this on your own. You’ll find out very quickly if it’s not for you.”

Running pop-ups can be demoralising, and from Pav’s perspective there’s no sense in denying that fact. “You are essentially disposable, and venues don’t really owe you anything…but none of that you can take personally.” Instead, he recommends remembering the initial seed that brought the concept to life in the first place. “For me, navigating those tricky waters is about coming back to my core idea, focusing on why I started doing it, what I want my customers to get out of it, and mostly importantly what I want to get out of it.” Sometimes people will be full of feedback and other times will give nothing, and riding that rollercoaster requires resilience.

Not letting the troughs knock him back, Pav stands strong in his convictions. As for the future? It’s not yet set in stone, but Pav certainly isn’t lacking options. One thing is clear – that the drive to change the perception of what Polish food is and what it could be, remains at the very centre of it all.

Check out Pav’s Polska Kitchen for his upcoming dates, and experience his delectable  and compassionate cooking for yourself.