Creating a Cuisine That Did Not Exist Before
- May 26
- 7 min read
Updated: May 27
Criss Studio was not created by following an existing culinary tradition.
There was no established Polish-Jamaican cuisine to study, no classic cookbook to open, no inherited menu language to continue. As far as we know, there has never been another restaurant in the world dedicated to this specific meeting of Polish and Jamaican food culture — except for the earlier restaurants and projects we created ourselves in Portugal and Poland.
So we had to build the language from the beginning.
That is the foundation of Criss Studio.
Not fusion as a trend. Not two cuisines placed next to each other. Not Polish food with a little Jamaican spice, or Jamaican food with a Polish garnish.
Something more difficult, more personal and much more interesting: a new vocabulary built from two culinary histories that had never truly been asked to speak together before.
The goal is always the same: to create something that feels honest to both worlds, while belonging fully to neither. That space in between is where Criss Studio lives.
A New Vocabulary
When two established cuisines meet, the easiest result is often surface-level fusion. One recognizable dish borrows an ingredient from another place. A familiar format gets a foreign accent. A plate becomes “inspired by” something without truly understanding it.
We were never interested in that.
Polish-Jamaican cuisine did not exist as a ready-made category, so we could not simply repeat it. We had to ask deeper questions.
What does Polish sourness have in common with Jamaican heat? How can fermentation speak to smoke? Where do comfort, preservation, spice, celebration and survival overlap? How can rye, coconut, allspice, Scotch Bonnet, marjoram, potato, plantain, pickles, broths, dumplings and fire belong to one language without losing their origin?
This is the work behind Criss Studio: not just creating dishes, but creating grammar.
A way to decide which flavours can meet.A way to understand when contrast becomes harmony.A way to respect two traditions without freezing them in the past.
Every dish becomes part of that vocabulary.
Some are direct and emotional. Others are subtle. Some begin with a Polish classic and move toward Jamaica. Others begin with a Jamaican memory and are rebuilt through European technique. But the goal is always the same: to create something that feels honest to both worlds, while belonging fully to neither.
That space in between is where Criss Studio lives.
Reinvention without respect is empty. Respect without reinvention can become nostalgia.
Respect Before Reinvention
To create something new, we first had to become even more serious about the old.
At Criss Studio, we are deeply obsessed with the history of our national cuisines — not only the famous dishes, but the reasons behind them. We are interested in how food travelled, how it survived, how it changed through migration, poverty, trade, colonisation, celebration, family rituals and everyday life.
A dish is never just a dish.
Żurek is not just sour soup. It carries Polish history, fermentation, domestic memory, Easter tables, regional variation and, in our case, Mateusz’s own surname.
Bully beef is not just canned corned beef. In Jamaica, it belongs to everyday cooking, quick meals, family kitchens, childhood memories and a specific kind of comfort.
Pierogi are not just dumplings. They are labour, family, repetition, filling, folding, memory and one of the clearest symbols of Polish food culture.
Rice in Jamaica is not simply rice. Its story carries routes of migration, colonial history, Asian influence, African influence and the way ingredients become part of a national identity over time.
We do not use these references because they are decorative.
We use them because they matter.
Before we change a classic, we try to understand why it became a classic. Before we take something apart, we study what holds it together. Before we put Polish and Jamaican elements into the same dish, we ask whether the connection has emotional, historical or flavour logic.
Reinvention without respect is empty.
Respect without reinvention can become nostalgia.
Criss Studio is interested in the tension between the two.
Fusion is often too small a word for what we do. Our work is closer to translation.
Not Fusion, But Translation
The word “fusion” is often too small for what we do.
Fusion can sound like a shortcut: two cuisines mixed together until they become visually exciting but emotionally shallow. Our work is closer to translation.
Translation is careful. It requires understanding both languages. It requires knowing what can be carried across, what must be adapted, and what should never be lost.
That is how we think about Polish-Jamaican cuisine.
We are not trying to make Polish food less Polish or Jamaican food less Jamaican.
We are trying to understand how both can speak through us at the same time.
Sometimes the translation is flavour-based: sour rye meeting coconut milk, Scotch Bonnet and allspice.
Sometimes it is structural: a Jamaican lunch-box memory rebuilt as a tasting-menu bite.
Sometimes it is historical: a dish shaped by the story of how ingredients travelled and became part of national food cultures.
Sometimes it is emotional: the feeling of comfort, heat, smoke, fermentation, spice, sweetness, sharpness or home.
This is why the menu at Criss Studio can feel familiar and unfamiliar at once. Guests may recognize something, but not in the form they expected. A classic may appear without looking classic. A memory may be hidden inside a precise, contemporary shape.
For us, that is where the magic happens.
One dish teaches us something about the next one. One connection opens another. One memory becomes a method.
Building a Cuisine Dish by Dish
Because Polish-Jamaican cuisine did not exist as a defined tradition, every dish at Criss Studio helps define it.
Our Signature Jamaican Żurek is one of the clearest examples. It begins with one of Poland’s most iconic soups and with Mateusz’s last name. The soul remains Polish: fermented rye, garlic, marjoram, sourness, depth. But the broth opens toward Jamaica through coconut milk, Scotch Bonnet, allspice, smoke and warmth.
It is still Żurek.
But it is spoken in our accent.
The Bully Beef Sandwich begins on the Jamaican side: canned corned beef, comfort food, childhood, family kitchens, quick meals — and Jahmarley’s personal lunchbox memory as a Jamaican growing up in the U.S. and Canada. In our menu, it becomes a small, precise bite with black pepper mayonnaise, pickled shallot, poppy seed, fried onion and chives.
It is not ironic.It is not “elevated” to escape its origin.
It is treated seriously because it carries memory.
Our Spring Garden Pierogi begins with one of the most recognizable forms in Polish cuisine, then moves into a wider story of seasonality, gardens, vegetables, herbs, hot sauce, fruity Scotch Bonnet and the changing nature of spring. Again, the point is not to decorate a dumpling with an unexpected idea. The point is to let a Polish form become a vessel for a broader story.
That's how the language grows.
One dish teaches us something about the next one.One connection opens another.One memory becomes a method.
Taste Comes First
Even with all this history, research and storytelling, the most important thing remains simple: the food has to taste good.
At Criss Studio, meaning never replaces flavour.
A dish can have the most beautiful concept in the world, but if it is not delicious, it fails. The story should deepen the experience, not rescue it. At the table, you should be able to enjoy the dish before knowing anything about it. The first reaction should be instinctive, not intellectual.
A dish should create pleasure before the story arrives.
That is why our philosophy always returns to taste.
Taste over technique.
Meaning over decoration.
Culture over clichés.
Technique is important, but only when it serves flavour.Beauty is important, but only when it carries purpose.
Cultural reference is important, but only when it is handled with care.
We are not interested in creating food that only sounds good when explained.
We want dishes that first create pleasure, then reveal why they exist.
What can Polish-Jamaican cuisine be, if it is allowed to exist fully?
A Restaurant With Its Own Language
Criss Studio is still young, but the work behind it has been developing for years.
Before Hamburg, we explored this Polish-Jamaican direction through our own projects in Portugal and Poland. Those places helped us understand that this was not a one-time idea or a playful theme. It was a language we kept returning to because it belonged to us.
Hamburg became the place where that language could become more complete.
Here, Criss Studio exists as a restaurant, a tasting menu, an art space and a growing archive of our ideas. The room changes with our Art Residency Program. The menu changes with the seasons. The dishes change as our understanding becomes sharper.
But the central question remains the same:
What can Polish-Jamaican cuisine be, if it is allowed to exist fully?
Not as a novelty.
Not as a marketing label.
Not as a compromise between two traditions.
But as its own serious, emotional, flavour-driven culinary world.
That is what we are building.
The Beginning of a Culinary Language
Criss Studio is not only about combining Poland and Jamaica.
It is about creating a vocabulary for a cuisine that did not exist before.
A cuisine built from memory, history, respect, research, instinct and taste. A cuisine that studies tradition closely enough to move beyond it. A cuisine that understands classics not as museum pieces, but as living structures that can carry new meaning.
We do not claim to represent all of Poland or all of Jamaica.
We represent our own meeting point between them.
That meeting point is personal, specific and still evolving. It belongs to Mateusz A. Żurek and Jahmarley Grant, to our histories, our travels, our memories and the dishes we continue to create together.
Criss Studio is where that language becomes visible.
And every menu is another chapter in learning how to speak it.
Criss Studio
Polish-Jamaican Tasting Menu
Hamburg, Germany
Reservations are available Thursday to Saturday evenings.
