Latino Brasserie@ Ferdy's, Warsaw

Latino Brasserie is: • a few pages from 'Ferdydurke' • a handful of quotes from Witold Gombrowicz • half a Basque worker • a pinch of Krzysztof Kowalczyk • a glass of absinthe • a few seeds of Polish artists • one whole Frenchman and one whole Italian marinated half a year and stewed over moderate heat for three months.

@ferdy's The restaurant's name is inspired by "Ferdydurke", a novel which had been banned in Poland by authoritarian regimes, due to its existential suggestiveness and extravagant narrative. The book was written in 1937 by Witold Gombrowicz, one of the most acclaimed twentieth -century authors. "Ferdydurke" is an absurd-tinged story of an adult who is suddenly transferred into a boyish, school world. "Ferdydurke" is a series of grotesque and surreal sequences with a somnambulistic hint. Witold Gombrowicz was brought up in a well-educated gentry family. He studied law in Warsaw and philosophy in Paris. In 1939 he left Poland and went to Argentina by ship (it's during this journey that the idea of writing "Transatlantyk" - a novel in which the author tries to settle accounts with Poland and Polishness - was born). He lived in Buenos Aires for 24 years; he worked and wrote most of his oeuvres there. Gombrowicz gained international recognition after receiving the "Kultura prize" award in 1961 and a grant from the Ford Foundation in 1963, thanks to which he could leave Argentina and return to Europe. He settled in Vence in Southern France and lived there till his death. @ferdy's Latino Brasserie is a tribute to this great intellectualist and artist, who in his works pointed out the stupidity of forms which constrain human behaviour. @ferdy's pays homage to the Pole whose fondness of France and Argentina is, we hope, reflected in the Latino Brasserie.