Nowadays, the standard of the network of fast-foods, restaurants, and cafes is similar to the European one except for cheap street bars.
In the most expensive restaurants you can expect to pay over 100 zl for a meal for one. If you want something cheaper, go to a small restaurant or bar, or have a pizza (from 20 zl). 'Milk bars' offer the cheapest food (5 to 9 zl). A cake in a Warsaw café will cost you 3-8 zl, a cup of coffee 4-10 zl. The price of a beer in a pub varies from 6 to 10 zl. The majority of larger restaurants accept credit cards.

Do not forget to try the Polish specialities: bigos, made with sauerkraut, fresh cabbage, onions and any variety of leftover meat. Polish meals start with przekaski (starters), such as pike in aspic, marinated fish in sour cream, salted and rolled herring fillets with pickles and onions, kulebiak (a large mushroom and cabbage pasty) or Polish sausages such as the long, thin and highly spiced kabanos or the hunters' sausage (mysliwska) made with pork and game.
Soups play an important part at mealtimes and are usually rich and very thick. Soups such as barszcz (beetroot soup, excellent with sour cream) or rosol (beef or chicken boullion) are often served in cups with small hot pasties stuffed with meat or cabbage.

Popular dishes include zrazy zawijane (mushroom-stuffed beefsteak rolls in sour cream) served with boiled kasza (buckwheat) and pig's knuckles. Poland is also a good country for fish (ryba) such as carp served in sweet-and-sour jellied sauce, and poached pike with horseradish in cream. Herring (sledz) is particularly popular and is served up in countless different ways.

Pastries (ciastka) are also very good. Table service is the norm in restaurants.

There are a few kinds of good Polish vodkas worth recommending ,e.g., zubrowka (bison grass), tarniowka (sloe plum), sliwowica (prune) and pieprzowka (vodka with ground white pepper). Western drinks, such as whisky, gin or brandy, can be obtained in most bars but are expensive. Wine is available but, again, is imported and expensive. The best bottled beer is zywiec, a fairly strong lager-type beer.

You will also find many brands of mineral waters in Poland ,e.g. , "Naleczowianka", "Kryniczanka", "Czantoria".

In restaurants and hotels tips are not included in the receipt. That is why there is a custom to add 10% on the top of the sum of the bill.