Belvedere: a restaurant with a view of history, worlds politics and gourmet cooking

The Belvedere Restaurant in Warsaw’s Royal Łazienki Park has been hosting queens, presidents, and world-class celebrities for over thirty years. It offers much more than just an elegant address on Warsaw’s culinary map—in this 19th-century orangery, history, architecture, and high-class cuisine create one of the most exceptional settings the Polish capital has to offer. We look closer at this venue together with our strategic partner, Vilea Christie’s International Real Estate, which is celebrating a significant event there today.

A building that remembers the king

Before the restaurant opened here in 1992, the New Orangery building had already had over one hundred and thirty years of history behind it. It was built in 1860–1861 as the second facility of this type in Łazienki—to distinguish it from the classicist Old Orangery from the times of Stanisław August Poniatowski, it was called the New Orangery. Its function was purely practical: in the cold months it protected orange trees and exotic plants—camphor trees, magnolias, myrtles, pomegranates, cypresses—displayed in the garden in summer. The glazed façade on the south side provided plants with access to light and heat even in winter.

What today seems like an original concept for a leafy restaurant interior originally served a simple, down-to-earth function. It’s worth noting, however, that the orangery architectural style itself has a much older origin—since the 17th century, it has been a fixture in parks and gardens adjacent to royal and aristocratic residences across Europe. Łazienkowska’s New Orangery thus aligns itself with this grand, pan-European tradition, connecting it with the local, Polish context of Stanisław August’s court.

To this day, a 120-year-old palm tree, the oldest in Poland, still grows inside, a living witness to the building’s history and the most tangible link between the former function of the orangery and the present-day restaurant.

The Grand Architects

The architects behind the design of the New Orangery were Adam Adolf Loewe and Józef Orłowski. Both represented a period-specific approach known as historicism—they did not seek their own innovative architectural language, but consciously drew on proven stylistic solutions from bygone eras, treating them as models of enduring, timeless value. This approach is evident in the Orangery itself—in its classicizing proportions and disciplined composition.

Adam Adolf Loewe (1811–1885) was educated at the University of Warsaw, as well as in Berlin and Munich. He was a student of Antonio Corazzi, the leading architect of Warsaw Classicism. It was in this environment that his sensitivity to palatial and classical forms was shaped. Loewe’s achievements extended beyond the Orangery: he rebuilt the Palace on the Island in Łazienki Park after a fire in 1859, designed the neo-Gothic Evangelical Reformed Church in Warsaw, expanded the Czapski Palace, and also designed the railway station in Pruszków and several landed gentry residences.

Józef Orłowski (1819–1880) designed one of the most important, though now defunct, pre-war buildings in Warsaw—the Hospital of the Holy Spirit on Elektoralna Street. It was the first hospital in Warsaw designed with free-standing pavilions, considered the last example of the Palladian style in Polish architecture of the period. The building was destroyed during the air raid on Warsaw in September 1939. Orłowski also designed the Church of St. Stanislaus the Bishop and Martyr in Warsaw’s Wola district.

In other words—the New Orangery is the work of architects who left a lasting mark on the architectural fabric of 19th-century Warsaw, even if not all of their projects have survived to this day.

Metamorphosis AD 2014

More than a century and a half after its construction, the building has undergone a thorough transformation. In 2014, the interior of the New Orangery was redesigned by Boris Kudlička, the renowned set designer of the National Opera, in collaboration with the WWAA architectural studio. The result is impressive: six mezzanines conceal intimate balconies reminiscent of theatre boxes, while the steel mesh of Corten steel intertwines with vibrant greenery, creating a sculptural composition in the spirit of theatre and scenography. At the heart of the hall, against a backdrop of a wall covered in dense moss, a bar combining white Corian and red Corten steel was placed.

It is this interplay of light, shadow, and texture that gives today’s Belvedere its intimate, almost theatrical character—and makes the interior equally suitable for an intimate dinner or a large corporate gala.

Kitchen with titles

Today, Wojciech Okoński, a chef with fifteen years of international experience, holds the culinary helm at Belvedere Restaurant. His vision of elegant and contemporary Polish cuisine combines French precision with local Polish roots. His style and skills were forged in the demanding environment of British and French gastronomy, alongside such luminaries as Marco Pierre White, Jason Atherton, and Pascal Ausignac, not to mention the renowned Gordon Ramsay.

The list of accolades the restaurant has garnered over the years is impressive. Since 2008, Belvedere has been listed among the Michelin Guide’s recommended restaurants, awarding it three cutlery symbols—a distinction for the “most charming place.” In 2014, the restaurant was included for the seventh time in the elite group of places recommended by the Michelin Guide for Europe’s major cities, and in the same year, it won the titles of Best Restaurant in Poland and Best Chef in the Poland 100 Best Restaurants poll. In 2023, Belvedere placed second in Forbes magazine’s TOP 50 Restaurateurs ranking.

The table at which crowned heads sat

However, it is the list of guests who sat at the tables of Belvedere that makes the greatest impression on the world—and it is this list that most often appears in the media, not only in Poland.

In 1996, the restaurant hosted a gala dinner for Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain. Six years later, in 2002, the Belvedere hosted a luncheon in honor of the Emperor of Japan. And in 2007, the Rolling Stones dined in the Łazienki conservatory. Other famous guests include Barack Obama, Queen Sofia of Spain, Hillary Clinton, Jacques Chirac, Mick Jagger, and Claudia Schiffer.

Belvedere also regularly hosts gala dinners hosted by the President of the Republic of Poland during international visits to the Presidential Palace—a testament to the restaurant’s established reputation as a host for the country’s most important diplomatic and cultural events. It’s hard to find a better recommendation for a place where history literally meets the present at the same table.

Belvedere today

Sitting in the New Orangery, it’s impossible not to recall the distinguished figures who have previously graced the occasion. This evening will be no different, though this is, of course, an event on a completely different scale than the visit of a head of state. But it is precisely this continuity—from the royal palm house, through the botanical pavilion, to one of Poland’s most recognizable restaurants—that makes Belvedere a place where every celebration, even corporate ones, takes on a touch of historical splendor.

Belvedere Calendar

Image: Paweł Kuligowski