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About me

I was born to Beata and Włodzimierz Makłowicz on 12 August 1963 in Kraków. I spent my childhood and youth in this beautiful city, where I still live, although with the longer breaks that I spend in Dalmatia, which I consider my second home.

 

I attended Primary School no. 16 on Dietla Street and then Primary School no. 35 on Złoty Róg Street. For a couple of weeks, I also went to a primary school in Zarabie District in Myślenice, as my parents, encouraged by the beautiful weather, decided to take their summer holidays before the end of the school year. While there, I took my first and last opportunity to go on a school trip to Kraków.
I graduated from August Witkowski Secondary School no. 5 on Studencka Street (which was called Świerczewskiego Street at the time),
and enrolled at the faculties of law and history of the Jagiellonian University, where I studied for a long time, but in a rather unsystematic and selective manner, as I did not complete any of these majors. My strong motivation to study for such a long time was dictated not only by a natural hunger for knowledge, typical of young people, but also by an aversion to military service, which was compulsory at the time, unless you were a student. With the ultimate decline and fall of the People’s Republic of Poland, along with the disbanding of the People’s Army, the issue of continuing my studies became less pressing. Eventually, I decided to quit university and went to London, where I worked for a year on construction sites, indulging in over-consumption during my free time – within the limits of an unskilled worker’s wages, that is to say.
When I returned to Kraków, I started a family by marrying Agnieszka and having two sons, Mikołaj and Ferdynand. I work hard to support my family, and between 1993 and 2000 I was employed by the editorial team of “Gazeta w Krakowie”, the local edition of the “Gazeta Wyborcza” daily, but was dismissed for not attending morning meetings, which supposedly had a negative effect on the team. While working for the newspaper, I was responsible for writing food reviews and occasionally also brief news about bee swarm attacks, cats pulled from trees by firemen and bodies fished out of the Vistula River.
I co-authored “Podróże kulinarne Roberta Makłowicza” and “Makłowicz w podróży”, culinary TV shows broadcast by Polish TV stations, which enjoyed great popularity for more than a decade. I received the Wiktor award once for my activity in the television industry and the Culinary Oscar six times. However, for the last three years, I have been uploading my new culinary, travel and history shows exclusively on my YouTube channel.
I have also authored books on food and culture as well as published articles in such newspapers and magazines as “Wprost”, “Newsweek”, “National Geografic”, “Tygodnik Powszechny” and “Przekrój”.
Occasionally, I have made cameo appearances in films made by my colleagues as an actor (“Lejdis”) and a voice actor (“Mami Fatale”, “Asterix and Obelix: Dragon Empire”) as well as performed in radio plays (“Niech to usłyszą”).
I have always been passionate about history, especially that of Central Europe under the Habsburg rule, with a particular focus on the last two rulers of this dynasty, Emperors Franz Joseph and Charles.
My other interests include the general consumption – of literature (favourite authors: Joseph Roth and Andrzej Bobkowski), music (from punk rock to Mahler and Bartók, with a particular focus on the songs of the Csángo people), fruit distillates (from Williams pears, apricots, sweet and sour cherries, plums, apples, raspberries, quince and mixed), wines (especially from the grüner veltliner, vernatsch and pinot noir varieties) and cuisine (with a strange predilection for maize porridge with sheep cheese and Mangalica pork greaves).
Well, that’s it for now…
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