Our first meal on our recent whirlwind trip around Croatia and Slovenia set the stage for incredible meals to come. Despite our jet lag, we made our way to a modern little hip restaurant in the capital city of Zagreb just outside the city’s market Dolac.
Gostinoica Ficlek is a really cute little spot that feels hip and trendy, but the menu is all comprised of classic Zagrebian dishes made just like your grandmother would have made them. If your grandmother spent her days in Croatia’s capital.
We went to town ordering all the classics from local salami to Sir I Vrhnje (sour cream and cottage cheese) to some amazing Sarma (tender cabbage stuffed with meat) to a mind-blowing bean salad slathered in nutty pumpkin seed oil.
As if that wasn’t all enough, we also ordered a dish that tasted similar to American Thanksgiving, but made us wonder why not a single American seems to master turkey the way this restaurant did.
Purica sa Mlincima featured the most flavorful turkey I have ever had. It must have been confit’d (cooked in its own fat) as it tasted rustic, meaty, and wonderfully salty.
The turkey is served with one of many unique pastas – this one is called mlinci and is traditionally served with the roasted turkey. The waiter described them as torn sheets of pasta. They must have been cooked with the same magical turkey fat and salt because they were as addicting and paired beautifully with the meat. The texture is more firm than you might expect sort of similar to Eastern European dumplings or noodle kugel (minus the sweetness).
This meal was a complete showstopper. It showcased so many of this region’s greatest hits that I was unsure where we would go from here considering we still had 10 days of exploring and eating. Well, don’t worry, because we kept finding incredible dishes and so there will be more to come from our journey. Price: 13 EUR
| GOSTIONICA FICLEK |
| Pod Zidom 5 (between Ulica Tome Bakača and Dolac), Lower Town Zagreb, Croatia +385 99 495 8909 |
| facebook.com/GostionicaFiclek |
