Nova, Hull: Yorkshire's new Polish fine dining restaurant where not everything is as it seems
Logic dictates that there can be only one restaurant entitled to the dubious (but highly sought after) honour of being closest to my house.
Turns out that – as of a couple of weeks ago – it’s the new ‘Polish fine dining’ offering Nova. Just a couple of hundred yards down the road, in fact.
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Hide AdThe second nearest is about another 30 yards further on, and I’m sure they’ll be gutted to learn they’ve so narrowly lost their claim to the crown. Chin up, Lime Tandoori, you had a good run.


Nova has recently opened in the building originally occupied by a gas showroom, then a couple of iterations of a popular posh curry house.
It’s a good, sizeable space for a restaurant but has been empty since the start of the pandemic, so it’s good to see it back in use and I’m pleased it’s housing such an intriguing venture. Without wanting to sound foolish, I’ve never once considered what would be classified as fine dining in Poland. I don’t doubt they have it, it’s just that I’ve never encountered it.
I’d always naively assumed that – like most other East European cuisines – Polish food mainly constituted various stews and soups and dumplings and so on.
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Hide AdI’ve had Zurek (a creamy soup made with rye), pierogi (stuffed dumplings) and golabki (stuffed cabbage leaves), as well as various sausage and schnitzel type dishes. I’ve enjoyed every one of them, but thereafter my experience of Slavik cookery falters.


So, here’s a hyperlocal opportunity to discover exactly what delights food served ‘à la polonaise’ has to offer.
The first thing to say is that much of the menu will be familiar to anyone who’s used to eating food. So, although, the names of the dishes are in Polish, there’s no need to worry that you won’t know what you’re ordering.
There are brief English descriptions included; nothing is going to trip you up, trust me. Although, as we swiftly discovered, the descriptions don’t always deliver exactly what they promise.
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Hide AdThe two dishes we tried for starters, for instance, were definitely not what we’d envisaged. Pierozki z burakiem was listed as dumplings stuffed with goats cheese and beetroot.


In fact they turned out to be discs of sliced beetroot folded around some crumbly cheese. Not a dumpling in any real sense but still highly delicious. Covered in pea shoots and a drizzle of some sort of herb oil (maybe basil), they slid down wonderfully and were much more tasty than anticipated.
Similarly kaszanca – black pudding and apple mousse - proved to be something slightly different than billed. The mousse was more like a puddle of thick soup and placed on top were what looked like two scotch eggs.
Beneath the crispy crumb coating was a loose ball of what was definitely not black pudding. It was more like mince mixed with rice. More akin to haggis than black pudding but, again, absolutely delicious.
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Hide AdI’d suggest that if you prefer your menu to give exact descriptions of your prospective dish, you may find Nova a little too imprecise with their language. Those, like me, who like a little mystery with their meal, however, will revel in it.


There was much rejoicing when the mains arrived and they were exactly as advertised. Well, very nearly. Piers z kacki was slow cooked duck breast with pumpkin puree and figs. Lovely it was too – with a perfectly cooked, generous bit of duck - but it didn’t seem particularly Polish.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see it served in any half-decent gastropub. Same with kotlet jagniecy, three juicy lamb chops served on a bed of fried lentils with blueberries and more goats cheese.
A grand plateful of grub but nothing you wouldn’t see anywhere else in these isles. The blueberries turned out to be raspberries, incidentally, just to keep us on our toes.
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Hide AdDesserts continued the two main themes of the meal – not particularly Polish and misleading description. Sernik was an entirely adequate white chocolate cheesecake, but just a cheesecake all the same.
Whereas deser lodowy was billed as vanilla mousse with strawberry and prosecco ice cream and turned out to be two small ice lollies served with fruit and drizzles of chocolate.
The lollies were filled with the mousse, so I guess the ice cream element was provided entirely by the outer shell of the lolly. No complaints about either pud, but neither made us feel like we were dining in downtown Warsaw.
And I think this may be Nova’s greatest misstep. It’s a decent sized restaurant and they’re opening twelve hours a day, six days a week.
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Hide AdSomething is going to have to be unique or exceptional about their offering to consistently draw adequate numbers of punters to make things work financially.
The food is great, no complaints about that whatsoever (though the menu descriptions could do with some work) and the prices are more than fair. But I don’t know that the food is fine dining enough for non-Polish diners or Polish enough for Polish afficionados.
Apart from the unusual and unexpected starters, the rest of the food was pretty much what you’d get in any half-decent pub or restaurant.
I wanted to sit down and be Polish-ed into my seat and I imagine so will most visitors – why else go to a Polish fine dining restaurant?
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Hide AdBut Nova may be trying too hard to please everyone and, in the process, not quite truly pleasing anyone.
Maybe Polish food has long had greater influence on British cuisine than I realise and that’s why everything felt so familiar, but I doubt it.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a decent restaurant, and there’s talent in that kitchen and I hope tweaks can be made so the chefs are given greater freedom to properly represent Polish cuisine in a way that truly shows off its virtues.
Welcome 4/5
Food 4/5
Atmosphere 3/5
Prices 4/5
Nova, 580-582 Beverley Road, Hull, HU6 7LH
Open: Every day except Monday 11AM-11PM
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