TV fame didn’t change Lakewood’s German-Polish staple or its ‘hangover soup’

Little has changed at Bruno’s European Restaurant over 15 years, save for the location.

The schnitzel is still pounded by hand with a heavy, metal tenderizer hammer that the chef forged while working as a machinist. The tender pierogi are still hand-rolled, hand-stuffed and hand-pinched. The beef rouladen are still braised for two hours every day. At the end of every summer, owners Krystyna and Bruno Tomaszewska and their staff pack buckets upon buckets with Puyallup Valley cucumbers, fresh horseradish, dill, garlic, salt and water — no vinegar — to make pickles that should last the Polish-German restaurant through next year.

“We would like to retire, but for some reason we can’t,” said Krystyna, 76, in October. “We say one more year — we always say one more year!”

Next month, Krystyna and her husband Bruno, 68, will celebrate a decade at their longest-standing address, 10902 Bridgeport Way in Lakewood. They moved to the 1960s-era brick building — once a pizza restaurant and before that a steakhouse — after outgrowing their original, shoebox-sized kitchen a half mile south and then their second brick-and-mortar in Parkland.

Bruno’s is an easy restaurant to overlook, but there are so few places like Bruno’s standing today. Everything costs more than it once did, but Bruno’s remains a bargain for the generous portions of truly homemade fare, cooked and served by a tight staff of just 10 people, several of whom have stuck with the Tomaszewskas for many years.

The pork loins, post-pounding, are breaded to order with homemade bread crumbs and pan-fried, one by one, until golden-brown. The couple arrives early most mornings to prepare the day’s sauces, including the earthy mushroom jäger, politely spicy creamy pepper, and gravy for pork meatloaf and kartoffelnudeln, bulbous potato dumplings with a little dimple in the center. They start the slow-cook of rouladen, which involves thin-sliced sirloin rolled with bacon, onion and crunchy pickles, and cabbage rolls layered with rice and pork.

“It’s a lot of work. It’s really a lot of work,” said Krystyna. Despite their age and the tumult of the past few years, they remain passionate about the project.

Bruno just wanted to cook

The Tomaszewskas, who met in Poland, have been cooking their brand of Eastern European comfort food for much longer than Bruno’s as we know it.

As the youngest in his family, Bruno was drawn to the kitchen from an early age, learning recipes and traditional techniques from his Polish mother and grandmother. He later left for Greece, where he would cook for roommates and friends, even catering a wedding, he recalled. After immigrating to America — first to Chicago and then New Jersey — Bruno “wanted to cook, but he needed money,” explained Krystyna, who confessed that she was “not very interested in cooking” herself. They opened a restaurant anyway, although Bruno actually began his days around 4 a.m. as a school bus driver, they said.

Krystyna’s Fine Food was a surprising success. Then their son, who has since passed, relocated to the Seattle area. (His family still runs Europa in Black Diamond, the menu inspired by Bruno’s.) The Tomaszewskas visited for Thanksgiving and decided the temperate climate suited them. They had the experience of opening a restaurant, but again, not much money. So they started small.

Their memory is fuzzy on exact dates, but some time in the 2000s, they set up a tent at the Tacoma Farmers Market, as well as annual Oktoberfest events, to sling soups — German-style goulash, borscht, Bruno’s now-Food Network-famous “hangover soup” — and cabbage rolls. They used those modest proceeds to purchase commercial kitchen equipment, which they stored in their garage in anticipation of a future storefront. After several years they found one, but it was even smaller than they expected. “From the kitchen, I could reach out to you at the table!” said the chef.

On their first day of service, they ran out of food.

“It’s 5 o’clock — dinnertime — we had nothing, we had nada,” recalled Krystyna. As Bruno got to chopping and stewing, Krystyna would stand out front, encouraging customers, “Come back tomorrow.”

“It was so much fun,” said Krystyna. “We didn’t have alcohol or a credit card machine.” (Today Bruno’s carries an array of German and Polish brews, on draft and in bottles.)

Just a year later, they inherited a late German chef’s restaurant in Parkland with a full kitchen and 46 seats.

At this point of our interview at the restaurant in October, Krystyna and Bruno leaned back in the bulky mahogany chairs, the ivory cushions worn from years of contented meals.

Reflecting on ‘Diners Drive-Ins & Dives’

It was 2012, and they had barely adjusted to their new full-service space. The phone rang. It was a producer from the Food Network.

“‘I would like to talk to the owner. We found out you are one of the best family-run restaurants in the country,’” Krystyna recalled. “I didn’t understand everything she was asking. They ask, ‘Are you the chef?’ I say, ‘No, my husband is the chef, and I say, ‘Bruno’ — and he says a bad word.”

“Everything is the best in America,” Bruno huffed.

Krystyna told the producer he was busy and asked if she could call back. A couple days later, in Krystyna’s recollection, the phone rang again.

They were familiar with Guy Fieri and his show, “Diners Drive-Ins and Dives,” but Bruno was and remains self-admittedly shy. Krystyna eventually told the producer: “No, we can’t.”

Such rejection was unusual, they laughed as they reflected on the unexpected fame that followed.

“She says, ‘You know, it’s the first time in Triple-D history that someone says no,’” said Krystyna. (The show debuted in 2007 and is still running today, 53 seasons later.)

The cooks caught wind of the opportunity and insisted the Tomaszewskas reconsider. Fieri’s team spent three days filming at Bruno’s, and the episode, “Eurocentric,” aired in 2013. In it, Bruno, sporting a tuxedo of sorts with his signature bowtie, shared his recipe for that hangover soup — a kitchen-sink of comfort with pork, bacon, sausage and the secret, no more, of pickles.

Reruns continue to attract new fans and, more often than not, old ones who maybe just needed a nudge to revisit this unpretentious family kitchen. You never know when “one more year” will end.

• 10902 Bridgeport Way SW, Lakewood, 253-719-7181, facebook.com/brunoseuropean
• Tuesday-Saturday 11 a.m.-8 p.m.
• Details: hearty German-Polish cooking in familial setting, plus imported beer and warm hospitality
• Reservations: by phone, but walk-ins always welcome

This story was originally published October 14, 2025 at 5:30 AM.