Poland's open-faced street pizza: a long French-style baguette halved lengthways, topped with fried mushrooms, melted cheese, ketchup and chopped parsley, baked under a salamander until the cheese bubbles.

The zapiekanka was invented in 1970s Poland as a cheap way to feed cities during food shortages of the late communist era. The original was a piece of stale baguette, topped with mushrooms and processed cheese, finished with sweet tomato ketchup (an exotic Western import at the time). The dish exploded across Polish university cities through the 1980s as the standard drunken late-night food and became iconically associated with Krakow's Plac Nowy Round House, Wrocław's late-night strips and Warsaw's bus-station kiosks. The simple version is sold from windows everywhere in the centre after midnight.

3 editor picks for Zapiekanka in Wrocław, ranked by editorial score. All Wrocław signature dishes · Zapiekanka across every city.