Tips on how to Plan a Meals-focused Journey to Slovenia

I had been in Slovenia only a few hours when, strolling alongside a forest path exterior the northwestern city of Kranjska Gora, my accomplice, Dave, and I noticed two ladies huddled round a spruce tree, harvesting the comfortable inexperienced suggestions of the branches. I puzzled what they might do with them. By the point it occurred to me to ask, we had continued on our hike, and once we rotated, the ladies had been gone.

I might need forgotten in regards to the spruce suggestions had it not been for our dinner that night time. It was early night once we arrived at Milka, a smooth, trendy guesthouse on the sting of Lake Jasna. Constructed within the Nineteen Sixties, Milka is one in every of Slovenia’s many gostiščes, household eating places that speckle the nation, providing in a single day lodging to dinner company. 

Seated on the deck, because the night mild channeled by way of the Julian Alps to the west, I drank a cocktail infused with dandelion root and black-currant wooden and snacked on a buttery wafer topped with a compote of foraged barberries. Once I requested Dino Katalenič, who was the final supervisor on the time, to clarify a wild-asparagus canapé garnished with forget-me-not blossoms, he informed me that each Tuesday, Milka’s youthful cooks exit into the forests and fields to assemble contemporary elements. Dino — he had launched himself as “Dino, brief for ‘Dinosaur’” — was slim and debonair. A tattoo of a tiny airplane and its contrail spiraled his proper wrist: a memento of his 16 years of journey earlier than he returned dwelling to assist open Milka. When the sommelier introduced us a bottle of Keltis Žan Belo, a skin-contact white wine from jap Slovenia, the pairing was floral, sudden, and completely exact. 

In 2022, Milka earned its first Michelin star; the following yr, it earned a second. Like lots of the nation’s best-known eating places, it embodies a profound sense of kinship with the encompassing panorama. Over the 9 days that Dave and I traversed Slovenia looking for its modern meals tradition — on a self-guided mission designed by the travel-planning agency Scott Dunn — we discovered ourselves in a suggestions loop of earth and desk. The nettles I noticed on Slemenova Špica, a rocky promontory we scrambled up one morning, for instance, would reappear days later at Landerik, a classy institution within the capital, Ljubljana, their leaves topping a beef tartare. 

“For a small nation to differentiate itself, it has to inform a narrative,” Dino mentioned. The narrative starting to emerge is of a meals tradition outlined by foraging and small-scale farming — practices so fundamental to the typical native that to see them spawn a tourism trade is probably a shock. That is meals that takes work: “It’s ingrained in our tradition that you must undergo just a little bit,” he mentioned. 

When spruce suggestions appeared in our second course, in a young nest of kohlrabi and caramelized cream, they tasted like a spring Christmas. I informed Dino in regards to the ladies we had seen, and he defined that Slovenians make a liqueur with the guidelines — smrekov liker — and instructed we attempt Milka’s model. Hours later, having forgotten his supply, we heard a knock on the door of our room. It was the sommelier, bearing a tray with two tiny glasses. 

The historical past of Slovenian delicacies is the historical past of a nation buffeted by nearly each European affect — Celts, Romans, Alpine Slavs, Bavarians, the Napoleonic Empire, Italy, the Soviet bloc (Slovenia was a part of the previous Yugoslavia) — whereas, by way of all of it, cultivating its personal language and traditions. However the world didn’t take discover of Slovenian delicacies till not too long ago.

In 2002, the self-taught chef Ana Ros took over the restaurant Hiša Franko from the household of her then-partner. Making a menu from the merchandise of the farms, rivers, and forests of the Soča Valley the place she lives, Ros turned native meals into a world attraction. In 2016, she was featured on the Netflix collection Chef’s Desk; 4 years later, when Michelin printed its first Slovenian information, Hiša Franko was awarded two stars, and in 2023, it earned a 3rd. 

Our reservations on the restaurant weren’t till the top of our journey, and but we had been already sensing Ros’s affect. One afternoon in Ljubljana, we dropped by her pop-up bistro in a quiet alley within the metropolis middle, the place her daughter, Eva Klara, served us a platter of Hiša Franko’s well-known roast beef. Earlier, at Open Kitchen, a meals market throughout the river, we had handed a tent promoting pastries from Pekarna Ana, Ros’s bakery. Each sunny Friday from March by way of October, some 50 of one of the best eating places in Slovenia collect in Pogačarjev Sq. for the market, the place they provide their most distinctive dishes. Since Open Kitchen started 11 years in the past, it has turn out to be an incubator of types. Many of the eating places in Slovenia with Michelin stars have had a tent there, together with Ros’s. 

“Ana Ros was over there,” the market’s director Lior Kochavy mentioned, pointing, “and one Friday I get a telephone name, ‘Sorry, we will’t make it. There’s an American TV crew right here. One thing Desk.’ ” He laughed. The truth that Slovenian cooks have needed to stop the market due to their very own success thrills him.

We had organized upfront to satisfy Kochavy on the Open Kitchen, however as quickly as I discovered him, he vanished amid throngs of patrons. “I’ll convey you one thing,” he referred to as. He reappeared and disappeared a number of extra instances within the subsequent 20 minutes, delivering a basket of roast potatoes and pork with crispy rinds from Tremendous Hrust, then veal liver, asparagus, and porcini from Gostilna Mihovec, and at last three totally different desserts, amongst them chocolate-dipped ice cream balls from Bon Bon Atelje. 

Kochavy just isn’t a chef, however when he moved to Ljubljana from Tel Aviv 15 years in the past, he got here to know Slovenia “by way of the abdomen.” Sooner or later, he stopped at a household restaurant north of Ljubljana and ordered grilled mushrooms. They had been so good he returned, however the dish wasn’t obtainable anymore. “They checked out me like I used to be loopy. ‘What’s the matter with you, man? Mushroom is now not in season.’ At any time when I spoke of this with locals, it was like, ‘That is how we prepare dinner right here. That is regular.’ However this isn’t regular for many of the world.” 

Associated: Our Readers’ Favourite European Resorts

One other distinguished Open Kitchen alumnus is Luka Košir, who labored in eating places in Ljubljana earlier than returning to the land he grew up on, a 30-minute drive west, and reworking his household’s conventional Slovenian restaurant right into a Michelin-starred institution, Grič. The morning after assembly Kochavy, that’s the place we headed, on a slim highway that wound upward by way of forests and meadows, every one a constellation of wildflowers. It had been exhausting to get up — for Dave particularly, whose birthday I had naïvely introduced to our Ljubljana information, Jure Gašperšič, the night time earlier than. Gašperšič had taken us to TaBar, his favourite hangout, a hip tapas restaurant. Had a thunderstorm not struck the second we tried to go away, we might need escaped the extra wine — and the hangover. 

At Grič, Chef Košir and his sommelier, Nejc Farčnik, took pity on us once we arrived, providing espresso in lieu of glowing wine. The eating room was pretty, with white vases sprouting wisps of grass on wood tables hand-hewn by Košir and his father. The various different capabilities of the humble-mannered Košir quickly turn out to be evident. Once we completed our espresso, he led us up the mountain to his duck farm. In an previous barn, he had organized a variety of cured meat and mushrooms — foraged by his household and pickled by his mom — beside a transportable oven he had engineered himself, by which he was baking a potato-and-cheese tart referred to as frika. 

At one level, Kosir left the barn to assemble the garnish. We adopted into a close-by area, watching as he whisked his fingers by way of the grass and picked yarrow fronds, pea greens, and thyme blossoms. I realized from him that planting too many flowers in a backyard entices butterflies, which lay eggs that hatch into caterpillars, which eat greens; that potatoes want wind to develop, so Košir buys his from a buddy who grows them at the next altitude; that, as winters heat with local weather change, geese placed on much less fats, so whereas he used to slaughter his in November, he now waits till the climate will get colder. 

Once we had completed our nine-course lunch — beeswax “butter,” fava beans, trout, duck (after all), fermented blueberry cream, all of it wealthy, homey, but refined — Košir got here to say goodbye. He was coated in spackle, having spent the afternoon on renovations. Quickly company will likely be ready see into the kitchen and cellar, to witness how their meals is preserved and ready. “The way forward for gastronomy is in transparency,” he mentioned. 

For a small nation, Slovenia has a shocking breadth of ecological range. There’s the Alpine area of the northwest, the place Dave and I had begun our journey and, south of there, the fertile Vipava Valley, identified for its wine and fruit. Farther south is the seaside and the northern a part of the Istrian Peninsula, whose panorama is paying homage to Tuscany. The day earlier than we arrived in Ljubljana, we had visited the town of Maribor within the northeast, dwelling of the oldest grape-bearing vine in Europe, the place we rented bikes and pedaled close to the Austrian border, over hills smelling of hay and roses. 

All through our journey, we needed to get as shut as potential to the origins of our meals, so one afternoon, in a pastoral valley close to Lake Bled, Dave and I met Danijela and Blaž Ambrožič at Kravlov Med, their honey farm. Beekeeping is a revered custom in Slovenia, and the enterprise is backed by the federal government. Danijela opened a window right into a hive, the place we watched because the queen deposited eggs into comb and employee bees fed and groomed her. “One bee is all the pieces — builder, collector, guardian,” Danijela mentioned. 

There are 12,000 registered beekeepers within the nation, essentially the most per capita on the earth. Not removed from the Ambrožič farm is the place Anton Janša, the daddy of recent apiculture, saved his hives within the 1770s, finally turning into well-known for his books on the topic. “We are saying, ‘No bees, no life,’ ” Danijela mentioned. Even locals who don’t maintain bees themselves appear to know their elementary function within the ecosystem. Some years in the past, a younger boy had been out gathering mushrooms in a close-by forest when he discovered a comb clinging to the outer bark of a tree. Being so uncovered, he knew, the bees wouldn’t make it by way of the winter, so the boy informed the Ambrožičs, who captured the swarm, reduce the hive off the tree, and introduced it dwelling. 

Not like beekeeping, truffle searching is comparatively new to Slovenia. Histories are inclined to credit score the Sumerians with the beginnings of the apply. In Slovenia, it’s nearer to 100 years previous, but a strong financial system has sprung up round it, and one would possibly simply assume the truffle has lengthy been an important factor of the delicacies.

Sooner or later we drove two hours south to the Istrian Peninsula, the place we spent an evening at Residence Gold Istra, a modest gostišče perched on a ridgeline with sweeping views of the Dragonja Valley. A couple of years in the past, a younger household bought the property and now affords truffle-hunting excursions adopted by seven-course meals of their tasting room. 

Our information was a buddy of the household: Jakob Benčič, who was taught find out how to hunt truffles by his father. Benčič can also be a second-generation police officer, and regardless of having spent the earlier night time responding to noise complaints, he appeared contemporary, his beard intently clipped. He had introduced with him an adorably keen border collie named Jano, the son of one of the best truffle-hunting canine the Benčičs have ever owned. 

Jano has a great nostril however is “hyper,” Benčič mentioned, and has but to reside as much as his mom’s repute. We chased the canine down the hill from the residence right into a low-canopied forest, and inside a couple of minutes, he was pawing on the floor close to the bottom of an oak. Benčič scraped the soil with a trowel, gently in order to not puncture the truffle. When it emerged, it appeared like a cross between a potato and a rock, heavy when Benčič dropped it into my palm. 

Truffle graced the menu of virtually each restaurant we ate at in Slovenia, even once we least anticipated it. The following afternoon, within the shimmery seaside metropolis of Piran, Dave and I glanced at a map we’d been carrying for the reason that begin of our journey, on which the Milka employees had pinned their favourite eating places. There was just one in Piran — Rostelin — and we anticipated it to supply seafood, however once we arrived on the café on the sleepy sq., we discovered largely pasta and meat. 

“Ten instances a day folks are available asking for calamari, however you may’t get squid from the ocean right here,” our lanky chef, Darjan Murovec, mentioned, waving towards the Adriatic. He’d grown up in an house throughout the sq. and, after a sojourn in Germany, had returned a number of years earlier to open the restaurant. He needed to serve meals that was Istrian, and nothing was extra Istrian than pasta, he mentioned. We ordered the gnocchi and a neighborhood selection referred to as fuži, topped with truffle shavings. 

It felt good to circle again to the Julian Alps, the place we had begun, although by then we had reached the south of the vary, the place the turquoise Soča River spills from limestone crags into the fertile Soča Valley. We’d woken that morning to a deluge of rain, but it surely was our final day in Slovenia, so we determined to take a circuitous highway into the mountains and had been rewarded with sunbeams cracking by way of clouds, sweeping throughout the sharp ridges. We hiked a number of miles, previous nettles and wild thyme, and, on the opposite aspect of a ridge, noticed the storybook city of Drežnica. Seeing the city from above, I felt surprisingly satiated, having mapped the meals I ate onto its panorama. Then we descended again into the valley, the day all of a sudden sunny, and made our approach by way of the village of Kobarid to Hiša Franko.

In a 2017 interview, Ana Ros famous the trouble it takes for a creating nation like Slovenia to realize culinary recognition. “All people travels for meals to Copenhagen, London, or Paris, however who is aware of the place Kobarid is?” she mentioned. 

From the skin, Hiša Franko is unassuming, tucked towards the mountains, the grounds a riot of flowers and herbs. Our host, Dejan Vukašinoić, led us to our cozy room on the highest flooring, apologizing that Ros wouldn’t be there to greet us, as she was cooking in Tanzania. We learn books on our sunny deck till it was time for the aperitif, and a waiter led us to a small desk beside a creek lined with dandelions, the place I sipped a comfortable, delicate martini made with olive oil. Lastly, it was time: we entered an ethereal eating room, the place the peerlessly choreographed employees introduced us every with a pincushion of moss to wipe our fingers on, then delivered the primary dish: white asparagus on a button of smoky cream cheese, topped with a walnut that had been soaked in water and was as tender as if it had simply been plucked from a tree.

I had chosen the “funky” drink pairing, which promised an journey in fermentation. As I attempted Feo Amfora, a beer that had been fermented in wood barrels after which refermented with grape should, I appeared round. The restaurant was stuffed with {couples} from different international locations. Its repute had put it on the world map, and but the bottom its menu coated was, as ever, native: a corn beignet, fluffy like a doughnut, pocketed with trout roe and chive. A nest of asparagus and white strawberry on a salty yeast cream — the one salad for which I’ve ever been given a spoon. A potato baked right into a hay crust, to be cracked open like an egg. A tiny nest of tagliolini, crunchy with cacao nibs and truffle shavings. A wild-mushroom and forest-moss broth meant to evoke a wet stroll within the woods. This was meals with contradictions: New and previous, unusual and acquainted. It wasn’t my dwelling, but it surely tasted like dwelling. 

The place to Keep and Eat

Gold Istra Residence 

Causes for staying at this eight-room gostišče on the Istrian Peninsula embody the view of the Dragonja Valley, with its olive bushes, and the truffle-hunting excursions.

Gricˇ

Within the city of Šentjošt nad Horjulom, a half-hour’s drive from the capital, this farm-to-table expertise has two tasting-menu choices, which chef Luka Košir modifications typically. In a single day lodging are coming quickly.

Hiša Denk

Near the town of Maribor, close to the Austrian border, this once-traditional household institution has been recast as a contemporary, Michelin-starred ode to advantageous eating; it additionally has six visitor rooms.

Hiša Franko

The solely restaurant within the nation to earn three Michelin stars supplies a sensory overload of taste and colour that’s refined, but welcoming. Reserve an evening in one of many 10 cozy rooms to make use of as a base for touring the Soča Valley.

Landerik

Whereas all the pieces is nice, the star of the present at this Ljubljana restaurant is the šmorn, a dessert product of caramelized chunks of bread topped with vanilla yogurt and apricot jam.

Milka

Maybe essentially the most picturesque guesthouse in all of Slovenia, set on the fringe of the emerald Lake Jasna. Eat breakfast on the deck because the solar rises over the Julian Alps.

Open Kitchen 

The choices at this Friday meals pageant in Ljubljana are countless and dependably scrumptious. Highlights embody the pork with crispy rinds at the Tremendous Hrust stall and the pastries from Pekarna Ana, Ana Ros’s bakery. 

Rostelin

Presumably one of the best (and all the time house-made) pasta in Slovenia is served at this restaurant, on a quiet sq. within the coastal metropolis of Piran.

TaBar

A hip tapas spot within the middle of Ljubljana that provides dishes like crisp fried elderflower and king oyster mushrooms with dehydrated blueberry cream.

Zlata Ladjica Lodge

In Ljubljana’s Previous City, company at this 15-room trendy lodge in a Seventeenth-century constructing can watch rowers glide by on the river beneath. It’s additionally a straightforward stroll to the metropolis’s finest eating places.

Tips on how to E book

Scott Dunn

A workforce of specialists at this high-end company can create customized journeys all through Slovenia, working with a community of native contacts to rearrange truffle foraging, cooking courses, beekeeping classes, wine tastings — and safe even essentially the most elusive dinner reservations.