Szajba, which vaguely translates as “something between madness and fury,” attracts a young, well-coifed crowd with its airy ‘60s living-room-style ambience and vast selection of cocktails, showily mixed by an eager bar staff. The walls are peppered with old American magazine advertisements and a plethora of vintage tabletop transistor radios.

Some of Wroclaw’s best offerings are to be found only in dingier, more offbeat corners of the city. Opened five years ago by a local painter, the sepia-toned Graciarnia Pub and Cafe is covered floor to ceiling in mid-century ephemera. Billowing opera costumes, donated by thespian friends of the owner, hang in the bathrooms, and patrons can enjoy their vodka and apple juice cocktail  a Polish favorite  while sitting in antique wooden wardrobes or at sewing machine tables.

Tucked away on a darkened row of sex shops underneath a stretch of train tracks near the city center, you’ll find Armine, a small, family-run Georgian restaurant with painted-on brick walls and mountain range murals that shake every few minutes as trains pass over the building. But Armine’s signature dishes, like red beans and fried nuts or beef sautéed with green beans and bell peppers, are so delicious you’ll understand why Wroclaw’s popular and charismatic mayor, Rafal Dutkiewicz, is rumored to make frequent visits.

Finding cheap, authentic Polish food in central Wroclaw is not as easy as one might like. But if you don’t mind listening to cheesy Polish pop radio and ordering your food in a fake thatched hut, Chatka at Jatkach in Old Town serves up well-prepared regional dishes, like ribs with fresh cut potatoes and sour cabbage, at very reasonable prices.

Swing around the corner to the tiny cobbled Stare Jatki, site of a 13th-century slaughterhouse, and browse old butcher stalls that have been converted into galleries and high-end souvenir shops. Don’t miss the local dwarf  a butcher, of course  or the cluster of miniature animal statues at the end of the street that graze next to a plaque inscribed, “In honor of the slaughtered animals  from the consumers.”

In recent years, Wroclaw’s formerly neglected Old Jewish Quarter, with Wlodkowica street as its anchor, has become one of the city’s hippest neighborhoods, thanks largely to the work of Bente Kahan, a Jewish-Norwegian singer who serves as founding artistic director of the Jewish Cultural and Education center of the White Stork, the city’s only remaining synagogue.