When Jason Sawicki opened Black Duck Spirits & Hearth in the summer of 2024, he knew he wanted to cook Polish food.
A first-generation immigrant, Sawicki grew up cooking alongside his babcia, watching carefully as she prepared pierogi and other traditional cultural fare. “I grew up eating classic Polish dishes all the time, and I have a lot of those flavors as my nostalgic childhood flavors,” he says.
But something—imposter syndrome, maybe, or the many fires, occasionally literal, one must put out as a first-time restaurant owner—kept Sawicki from leaning into Polish cuisine fully. Black Duck debuted with a menu dotted with Eastern European influences, one that impressed critics from the Strib’s Jon Cheng to MSP Mag’s Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl even if it baffled them slightly.
“I spent a long time trying to figure out what kind of restaurant Black Duck is: a fine-dining place or a fancy bar-food place or maybe an ambitious live-fire Mexican spot? And then there’s the excellent Polish comfort food. How does it all work together?” Moskowitz Grumdahl wrote in her review.
Then, late last year, Sawicki took a trip to his ancestral homeland. Seeing modern takes on traditional cuisine, especially from Polish people who left the country to travel or live elsewhere and then returned, gave him a new appreciation for what Polish food could be.
“It was kind of eye-opening to see the level of gastronomy in the cities and the restaurants,” he says. “And I was like: We need something like that in Minneapolis. That’d be really cool. I think people could relate to it.”
The journey gave Sawicki the confidence to go all-in on Polish fare, along with the knowledge that he could do so authentically. When he returned to Minneapolis, he set about working on a new menu, and in April, Black Duck rebranded as a “wood-fired Polish bistro.”
The reimagined Black Duck is really a natural progression for Sawicki, whose fine dining background includes stints at Lyn 65, Popol Vuh, Alma, and Oro by Nixta. Take the pierogi, for example, which have always had a special place on Black Duck’s menu and in Sawicki’s heart.
Silky, soft, and served with a glistening butter sauce, these potato pockets ($19) are simple, served with sour cream and a sprinkle of chives, and unlike some of the menu’s more modernized dishes, you will never see a “contemporary” take on them. Like the vintage scalloped plate they’re served upon, these are a piece of family history.
But now, those pierogi are joined by regional specialties like Silesian dumplings ($22). Hailing from a mountainous part of Poland that extends into the Czech Republic and Germany, these aren’t unlike the dumplings Sawicki’s babcia used to make with leftover pierogi filling.
There’s also the immaculate sweet potato pancakes ($19), blanketed in a powerfully savory mushroom ragu which inspired my dining companion to laugh, at one point, “I just went for a sip of beer and drank water instead because I didn't want to wash the taste of the mushrooms out of my mouth.” Sawicki’s secret to charring the sweet potato discs without burning them—no easy feat—is to use a little buckwheat flour, a “very Polish ingredient,” to absorb some of their liquid. Working with white sweet potatoes, which are dryer and have less sugar, and deploying “a lot of technique and a lot of butter,” also helps.
While the focus may have shifted geographically, this is still a cozy neighborhood restaurant. One where you can get a fried bologna sandwich ($15), a nostalgic staple that stretches across cultures, although, even this has a Polish precedent: The bologna, made in-house, is not a “true” bologna, as the meat isn’t emulsified. Instead, it’s prepared in the traditional Polish style, sort of “like making a big sausage and slicing it,” Sawicki explains. OK, yes, the American cheese is a little less traditional, but its gooey yellow glow adds to the nostalgia and nicely compliments the thinly sliced meat and tangy mustard sauce.
Who would have thought that traditional Polish food could feel so fresh and so exciting? But then, there just isn’t a lot of this style of food in the Twin Cities, even in Nordeast, where those immigrant groups settled in large numbers. Black Duck welcomes a lot of diners from eastern and northern Europe, including Ukraine and Lithuania—first- and second-generation immigrants who remember their own babcia cooking these foods for them as kids.
“That’s been kind of the most exciting thing for me, is finding this community,” Sawicki says. “It’s really interesting: You put yourself out there, and the community comes to you.”
Black Duck Spirits & Hearth
Address: 2900 NE Johnson St., Minneapolis
Hours: Dinner: Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 4–9 p.m. and Sunday and Monday from 4–8 p.m. Lunch: Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Brunch: Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
