I’m in the Hel Peninsula, in the historical region of Pomerania, which skirts the Baltic Sea on the northern shores of Poland and Germany. Here, in the Tricity region — encompassing the cities of Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia — a Hanseatic seafaring heritage intermingles with Polish, German and Kashubian culinary traditions, the latter relating to a northern Polish Slavic ethnic group with its own language. Centuries-old recipes are being rediscovered and revealed on plates across the region, creating a scene that’s become so intriguing that Gdańsk was named the European Capital of Gastronomic Culture for 2025-26.