Konoba Bare

This is yet another cozy family-run Istrian tavern, nothing unusual, but in Konoba Bare everything just falls into place perfectly. First you’ll probably be greeted by Vesna, who manages the place and likes to talk to her guests. Makes you feel at home right away. The menu is, of course, typical Istrian cuisine, but not in the predictably rural kind of way, which has become a cliche nowadays.

The cooking is very precise and delicate and in Bare they’re not afraid to mix and match various traditional ingredients. They dare to offer things like sea bass fillet in sauteed wild asparagus. If you want the classics, they have excellent “fuži” pasta with grated truffles, juicy steaks prepared on wood fired barbecue and all sorts of yummy dishes grilled under “peka” (dentex under peka was a revelation). Desserts are also unforgettably good, even though they are the basics (pancakes, fritule…).