Zurek is the sour rye soup that builds on a fermented rye-flour starter (zakwas), enriched with smoked sausage, a halved boiled egg and marjoram. The Polish working week's anchor lunch.

Zurek originated in medieval Poland as a peasant Lent soup, the fermented rye starter giving a sour acid the meatless period needed. The soup was associated with the spring equinox and Easter Monday, when it remained a Lent leftover before the meat-rich Easter table. The 19th-century Warsaw milk-bar movement and post-1945 state subsidies kept zurek on every cheap-lunch menu, and the addition of smoked white sausage (biala kielbasa) and boiled egg made it a full meal. Today every pierogarnia, milk bar and traditional restaurant in the city pours a bowl, sometimes inside a hollowed-out rye-bread bowl.

4 editor picks for Zurek in Warsaw, ranked by editorial score. All Warsaw signature dishes · Zurek across every city.