{"id":168094,"date":"2026-03-19T11:29:38","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T11:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/168094\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T11:29:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T11:29:38","slug":"pierogi-boys-in-ridgewood-queens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/168094\/","title":{"rendered":"Pierogi Boys in Ridgewood, Queens"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a DJ in Ridgewood tells you he\u2019s found local schnitzel that\u2019s better than anything he got during his Berlin years, you go. It\u2019s not as surprising as it sounds: Lately, all the noise-rockers, brand managers, and alt-comedians I know have ventured from Bushwick to Ridgewood, the wedge of Queens that has, and not by accident, been developing at the same time as a dining destination. Rolo\u2019s<\/a> set the tone. Il Gigante<\/a> is its Il Buco<\/a>. Hellbender<\/a> has a serious menu with sloshing margaritas. And late last year, the newest comer came. Look for the crocheted curtains freshly hung in an old funeral home at the corner of Onderdonk Avenue.<\/p>\n

This is the domain of the Pierogi Boys<\/a>, a.k.a. Andrzej Kinczyk and Krzysztof Poluchowicz, partners in life and dumplings. The Boys are not new to pierogi, which they have been selling at the DeKalb Market Hall<\/a> since 2017, and they are not new to Ridgewood, where they have lived since emigrating from Poland 21 years ago. But their 40-seat restaurant with a sizable grocery attached is the largest expression of their ambitions yet. Ridgewood has a significant Polish population \u2014 many Poles moved there after getting priced out of Greenpoint \u2014 but Kinczyk and Poluchowicz aren\u2019t catering exclusively to their country-men. \u201cMany of the Polish restaurants in New York are specifically built toward Polish people,\u201d Poluchowicz told me. \u201cAnd we did it the opposite way. We always wanted our place to feel very open. We wanted to promote Polish food.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the Polish-curious, and those unmoored since the 2015 closure of Greenpoint stalwart Lomzynianka, Pierogi Boys represents a comfortable entry point. Whereas the Boys\u2019 first venture \u2014 the 150-square-foot food-hall counter \u2014 is \u201cpainfully authentic\u201d and employs their grandmothers\u2019 recipes, the new restaurant has a more fluid approach. For the first few months, visiting Poles complained the additions to the menu were not what their babcie, or grandmothers, would serve. Here, the schnitzel comes with a horseradish-prickled salad of hot-pink radicchio rather than a heap of mashed potatoes.<\/p>\n

I found Pierogi Boys easy to love: charming, tasty, unself-serious, and filling, if not to the gut-busting extremes of yore. Kinczyk and Poluchowicz supervise the place, while the kitchen is overseen by Matt Oliver, a longtime local chef new to the cuisine when he came onboard. (The Boys gave him a stack of cookbooks, a trip to Poland, and a month to get up to speed.) The cooking is more contemporary than you or Babcia may expect. We are in a long designer-cabbage moment, with brand-name-drops of Caraflex and Sugarcone on menus and in bougier produce aisles around town, but one thing Poles don\u2019t need to be told about is brassicas. Here, they abound \u2014 piquant sauerkraut in mushroom pierogi and sweetly grassy Brussels sprouts melted with onions and cream served over long rickrack-edged noodles for a take on the comfort food known as \u0142azanki, a sort of collapsed lasagna.<\/p>\n

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\n Deviled eggs, co-owners Andrzej Kinczyk and Krzysztof Poluchowicz, an order of pierogi, and a look at dinner service in the dining room. Hugo Yu.\n <\/p>\n

\n Deviled eggs, co-owners Andrzej Kinczyk and Krzysztof Poluchowicz, an order of pierogi, and a look at dinner service in the dining room. Hugo Yu.\n <\/p>\n

Every meal here really should include pierogi, of which the restaurant churns out thousands a week, so many that a dedicated dumpling team handles the job. The savory options are offered in three fillings \u2014 braised beef and pork, potato and cheese, and sauerkraut and mushroom, which is my favorite of the bunch and worth getting with little lardons of Polish bacon \u2014 and only boiled, the better not to overwhelm their delicate dough. (At the Market Hall stand, they recently relented to fast-food tastes and began selling a pan-fried option. \u201cWe\u2019re not proud of it,\u201d Kinczyk said.)<\/p>\n

The restaurant serves a small daytime menu, but the better move is to go for dinner. The pork schnitzel, though not bubbled in the Viennese style, is nevertheless as good as the DJ promised, hubcap-size and crowned with a thick pat of melting butter and a twisting clef of anchovy. Duck confit, served on a Christmasy pile of braised red cabbage and sauced with black currants, was as good as the confit I\u2019ve had at many much fancier establishments. No Polish restaurant could get away with not making borscht \u2014 the hot Ukrainian version in the winter, the cool Lithuanian in the summer \u2014 or kielbasa, which has a garlicky snap, but I preferred starting with a simple platter of bread and butter, whose unassuming name belied a dense, seedy black loaf (very welcome in an era of declining pumpernickel!) with a sidecar of bacon-dotted butter.<\/p>\n

\u201cCozy, cozy, cozy,\u201d declaimed a guest of mine who lived in the neighborhood in the bygone days of 2009, when the pickings were far slimmer and she survived, she recalled without much salad-days nostalgia, \u201coff of deli food \u2014 beans, hummus.\u201d On a recent night in the lengthening daylight, a changing scene seemed far removed from that past era: stroller families feeding pierogi to kids, cute gay couples in gym shorts sipping pickle martinis. You might lament the gentrification, but with or without Pierogi Boys, Whole Foods will arrive on Myrtle Avenue this year. And the local Polish families, initially resistant, have started to warm to Pierogi Boys\u2019 revisionist sensibility. \u201cEven our harshest critics are starting to enjoy it,\u201d the Boys told me.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n Dessert.
\n Photo: Hugo Yu\n <\/p>\n

\n Scratchpad\n <\/p>\n

Pierogi Boys<\/p>\n

57-34 Catalpa Ave., at Onderdonk Ave., Ridgewood; pierogiboys.com<\/p>\n

Go Meat Free
Unlike many Polish places, Pierogi Boys aims to be vegetarian friendly. Instead of a Reuben with kielbasa, try \u201cpastrami-spiced mushrooms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beets Everywhere
The restaurant\u2019s beetphilia extends to dessert, which includes a vanilla-and-beet ice cream. I was skeptical, but it was the hit of my table.<\/p>\n

FYI
Pierogi is the plural form \u2014 six pierogi come in an order. The singular in Polish is pier\u00f3g, but, as Poluchowicz said, \u201cyou can\u2019t just eat one.\u201d<\/p>\n

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