Wioletta’s Taste of Poland

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For a city with the fourth highest Polish American population in the country, a town where I know of not one, but three unrelated people with the surname “Lazarski,” Milwaukee has a serious pierogi shortage.

Look no further than Wioletta’s auspicious opening weekend earlier this month, where there was a run on Polska market fare like it was toilet paper in March ‘20. They sold 1500 pounds of meat in three days. Not to mention everything else. Walking in on day four of business operations I was met by apologies, empty shelves, and reduced to pity buying nothing but some cream-filled Caramelo-like chocolate indulgences that made me reschedule a looming dentist appointment so that I could get in one more week of scrubbing. Apparently having one Polish restaurant, Polonez, and one Polish deli, A&J, isn’t cutting it by way of demand. 

Now we have Wioletta’s, from husband-and-wife team Adam and Wioletta Bartoszek, who both hail from the area around Lodz, Poland’s third-largest city. Wioletta, a trained chef, ran deli shops in Warsaw, Poland’s largest city, before moving to the U.S. Now, the couple’s Howell-and-Howard outpost sits on a dated but promising business corridor that many Milwaukeeans still only consider as the last few blocks before you reach the airport to leave Milwaukee. 

Next to the venerable greasy spoon Copper Kitchen and across from the unfortunately shuttered Soup Otzie’s, a feel so spunky and bright feels refreshingly out of place, in a way the southside neighborhood likely hasn’t seen since the opening of Hawthorne Coffee in 2013. Such a spiffy rehab of a long-vacant True Value might hint at the area’s untapped potential, in a scope outpriced Bay Viewers and prospective Bay Viewers may start to realize if they just keep going a bit, keep matriculating, further south.  

The Real Paczki

Restocked by day five, picked over again by day 10, Wioletta’s shelves seemed to be finding their stock groove by about the middle of week two of operations, especially on a pre-rush morning. Here, in front of the baked goods case, you might stop and think donuts are but an easy way to let yourself off the hook, to give up on the day before it starts. But then you might think, these are not donuts, they are paczki. Which you will most likely mispronounce at the counter. But it is all a learning opportunity, also a chance to take one of the pillowy frosted plum or pudding or raspberry pockets down the street to pair with a fresh pour over from Hawthorne, in a combo making for the best possible start to a morning under the planes in Town of Lake. 

Also there are fresh rolls, beautiful still-warm soft white beds that act as canvas for the butcher case’s bounty of multiple hams, irresponsibly buttery smoked turkey, roasted rolled bacon with spices (a bold cold cut that makes one wonder on the pig’s tender side), and aggressively overgrown kielbasa that resemble shriveled little league bats. The Weselna, or wedding sausage, looks like a formidable implement of self-protection. Double smoked, as fragrant and fatty as an offensive lineman, it seems meant to be sliced and dunked in mustard and binged while watching whatever is the afternoon game.    

Pierogies, frozen, ship from Alexandra’s in Chicago, and span the flavor gamut between potato and cheese to meat to kraut to mushroom to sweet cheese—all the indigestion-inducing comfort fare corners are covered. Fried or boiled, your home is set to be filled with the smells and feels of grandma’s house, of holiday time when you want to eat as fortification against winter and as reward, for, well, maybe just living. Topped with fried onions, possibly sour cream, these little protein delivery devices represent at least one healthy reason to need to sleep in a different room from your significant other for a night.   

Eastern European Soul

Likewise, take heed of the fresh Polish sausage, when you can, continuous Facebook page checks necessary it seems, at least for the time being. The slick links assert their stinky personality from the time they get positioned on the front seat of your car, and really start commandeering olfactory matters if they get more than a few hours in your fridge. A batch recently made for an ideal grill season opening day, smoke plumes billowing over the neighborhood like it was a religious ceremony, links sizzling and ready to be paired with one of the aforementioned rolls, some kraut, some Koop’s, and whichever beer was closest and coldest. An extra thick casing begs for a hot grill sear, the snap countering yieldy insides that are redolent of marjoram and garlicky Eastern European soul.

The latter is impossible to forget at Wioletta’s. A corner is dedicated to the giftshop-like doling of Polska t-shirts, sweatpants, doodads of the sort you usually grab at the airport in a last-ditch effort for a present or to remember a visited land. A glimpse of the white eagle, the red and white, seems to mean something different these days though, stirring a kind of nostalgia and belief beyond thoughts of Riverwest’s Polish Falcon bar. Of course, as a logo, it looks good, regal and bold and nobly able.

But really, the country has a newly prominent place in the geopolitical sphere, situated on the front lines of whatever you can call the current devastating calamity of Ukraine. Via an email interview Adam spoke not only of hope for “more Polish businesses” and advocating for “the younger generation to help keep the heritage and traditions alive,” but of partnering with the Polish Community Center for collections for families taking in refugees. Whether pierogies or sausages are in stock, whether you know where to begin with the sprawling smorgasbord of seasonings and pickled things that time and curiosity will certainly reward, whether you have the sweet tooth or enough kids to keep pace with the glut of sugary temptings, it clearly seems the time to celebrate our city’s, and the world’s, Polish heritage.