POSK is an enormous Polish cultural centre on King Street in Hammersmith with 187 rooms, a theatre, library, private club and two (public) places to eat. I tried both: Łowiczanka upstairs for lunch and the much more casual Café Maja downstairs for breakfast. There’s a third secret club I couldn’t access.

What I ate:

• Potato pancakes with smoked salmon and cream cheese, £11
• Beef tartare with classic garnish, £14
• Eight pierogi, half potato and cheese, half mushroom and sauerkraut, £14.90

Łowiczanka calls itself fine dining, although aside from the carpet, service charge and posher plates, the food isn’t hugely different from downstairs. The potato pancakes were crisp, the cream cheese mild, and the smoked salmon timid. The tartare was much better: generous, soft beef with egg yolk, mustard, gherkins, red onion and marinated mushrooms Polish-style giving it deep umami and acidity. I love this style.

At 3.30pm I was initially the only person there. From the kitchen came the constant thwack-thwack of meat being beaten flat, while children could be heard elsewhere in the building. By the time I left, about sixteen Poles had arrived for a large table and the place then felt like the community restaurant it is.

Café Maja is cheaper, hidden, barer, without service charge, and more relaxed. The pierogi were handmade, soft, sticky and generous. I also had the breakfast: mostly a perfectly adequate full English, but with an excellent cross-hatched Polish pork sausage that was by far the best thing on the plate.

Neither place is polished, and both feel a little tired. But the prices are reasonable, the food is good, and the slightly baffling building is half the reason to go.

Paid in full. I’ve written more here.