Dining in Dubrovnik, Then and Now

For centuries, local and seasonal has been the best recipe for good food in Dubrovnik.

At first taste, the local cuisine in Dubrovnik may strike as simple and devoid of complicated techniques, heavy sauces and too many spices. At the crossroads of worlds and cultures, Dubrovnik has always been open to novelty, yet mindful about what it adopted to its everyday dining spreads.

In the past, everyday fare was influenced by the season and the availability of provisions. Forming the backbone were different grains, like wheat and barley, as well as pulses like lentils and chickpeas. Lentil soup, as well as chickpea stew, still remain a favorite winter go-to.

Leafy veggies were brought to the town from the neighboring villages. The 15^th-century chronicler Filip de Diversis, whose descriptions of Dubrovnik provide great insights into the life of the era, listed the veggies he spotted on a tour of the local markets: “There’s lettuce, turnips, chicory, green and fava beans,” he wrote, “then, cucumbers, Swiss chard and beans, parsley, dill and foraged plants”. Greens were often just boiled and drizzled with olive oil, and cabbages prepared like stews, the most famous being zelena menestra, that combines cabbage with cured meat for added flavor.

While common people typically used bits of cured meat and bones to add flavor to their stews, meat was fairly common at noblemen’s tables. Beef, goat, lamb, and mutton were all on the menu, but also game or birds, like quail and capon, which was an especially praised delight. In 1664, the Turkish travel writer Evlija Čelebija praised the distinct flavor of beef, which he attributed to the animals grazing on pastures that abounded with herbs, berries and edible greens. Fish, another local delight, was often kept in pools at aristocratic summer estates to ensure timely supply.

Even though some ancient travelers to Dubrovnik described the local food as “modest and simple, not overly creative”, its true splendor always shone through on the city’s festive days, like the Feast of St. Blaise. The celebration of the patron saint had housewives around the town preparing the tastiest and most complex dishes, like the aromatic, braised-beef dish called pašticada, served with hand-made gnocchi, or the šporki makaruli, literally, ‘dirty macaroni’. This dish of handmade pasta topped with a slow-simmered beef sauce showcases Dubrovnik’s openness to foreign influences, as along with the local classics like onions, parsley and tomato sauce, it calls for cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon.

Interestingly, many of the present-day delicacies came to be from the need to keep food in the times of no refrigeration. Fish was typically salted or dried, especially sardines and anchovies that are fished in schools. Cheese was preserved in oil, resulting in today’s favorite starter – cheese from oil. Dried figs, and the ubiquitous arancini and broštulani mjenduli (candied orange peels and candied almonds), were a way of keeping fruit long past its freshness.

Inspired by Dubrovnik’s culinary spirit, at Palace Natali we strive to establish new traditions, rather than simply recreating the old ones. Instead of remaking dishes from the past, we take fantastic local ingredients and try to give them yet another, new dimension.

Take sage for an example. In the past, sage tea was a cure for respiratory ails, but also, during the St. Blaise festivity, streets would be sprinkled with its leaves for they have a strong and pleasant scent. In our slow cooked ox tail ravioli with glazed zucchini and sun-dried tomato pesto, sage becomes chips that adds an aromatic crunch to the dish. Capers, traditionally pickled or added to sauces, are made into caper chips for the tuna tartare.

In the pumpkin risotto, arugula adds a dash of bitterness to the sweetness of the pumpkin. Parsley is the star of our parsley infused oil, but also ‘goes’ tempura for the tonno vitellato.