The plates that define Split: what they are, and where to eat the canonical version.
The plates that define Split. what they are, where they came from, and where to eat the canonical version.
Pasticada is Dalmatia's Sunday dish: top-round beef studded with garlic and prsut, marinated in red wine and vinegar, then slow-braised in prosek with prunes and served with house gnocchi.
Where: Konoba Varos, Konoba Fetivi, Apetit, Konoba Marjan
Price: €18-28
Brudet is the Dalmatian red-wine fish stew: small bony Adriatic fish (scorpionfish, gurnard, conger) simmered with tomato, garlic and red wine, served over polenta.
Where: Konoba Fetivi, Konoba Hvaranin, Konoba Korta
Price: €22-32
Soparnik is the savoury chard pie from the Poljica region just south of Split: paper-thin dough stretched over a chard, onion and parsley filling, baked over hot coals.
Where: Konoba Fetivi, Konoba Marjan
Price: €4-9
Crni rizot is the Dalmatian squid-ink risotto: short-grain rice cooked with squid and cuttlefish ink, garlic, white wine and olive oil, finished with parsley.
Where: Konoba Matejuska, K.uzina, Villa Spiza, Apetit
Price: €14-22
Peka is the Dalmatian iron-bell cooking technique: lamb, octopus or veal slow-roasted with potatoes, herbs and olive oil under a heavy iron lid covered with hot embers.
Where: Konoba Marjan, Konoba Korta, Konoba Fetivi
Price: €28-45 per person
Fritule are small Croatian doughnut balls flavoured with rakija, lemon zest and raisins, fried until golden and dusted with sugar. The Adriatic Christmas market staple.
Where: Bobis Marmontova, Pazar Market Snack Stalls
Price: €4-8
Pasticada is Dalmatia's Sunday dish: top-round beef studded with garlic and prsut, marinated in red wine and vinegar, then slow-braised in prosek with prunes and served with house gnocchi.
History: Pasticada's roots are Venetian, with Dalmatia's coastal cooking absorbing the agrodolce direction of braised beef during the Republic's rule of Split from 1420 to 1797. The oldest written recipe dates to the 15th century in Dubrovnik. The dish is still cooked across an arc from Trogir through Split and onto Hvar and Brac, with each konoba claiming a slightly different prosek-to-vinegar ratio. In Split it is the canonical Sunday-lunch order at Konoba Varos, Konoba Fetivi and Apetit.
Where to try it: Konoba Varos, Konoba Fetivi, Apetit, Konoba Marjan
Watch out for: Gluten
Brudet is the Dalmatian red-wine fish stew: small bony Adriatic fish (scorpionfish, gurnard, conger) simmered with tomato, garlic and red wine, served over polenta.
History: Brudet (or brujet) is a working-fishermen's stew along the Adriatic coast, made from whatever the day's catch yielded. Each port runs a different version: Komiza on Vis claims the earliest recipe; the Split version sits between Komiza and Sibenik, with a fuller red-wine character. Konoba Fetivi and Konoba Hvaranin in Split's Veli Varos cook it as a Friday dish.
Where to try it: Konoba Fetivi, Konoba Hvaranin, Konoba Korta
Watch out for: Fish, Shellfish
Soparnik is the savoury chard pie from the Poljica region just south of Split: paper-thin dough stretched over a chard, onion and parsley filling, baked over hot coals.
History: Soparnik comes from the medieval Republic of Poljica, a self-governing peasant community in the hills south of Split that survived from the 13th to the 19th century. The dish is now protected by Croatia as intangible cultural heritage and was inscribed into UNESCO's safeguarding list. The Split version is served as a marenda mid-morning snack at most Veli Varos konobas, often with new olive oil and a glass of Plavac mali.
Where to try it: Konoba Fetivi, Konoba Marjan
Watch out for: Gluten
Crni rizot is the Dalmatian squid-ink risotto: short-grain rice cooked with squid and cuttlefish ink, garlic, white wine and olive oil, finished with parsley.
History: Crni rizot likely arrived in Dalmatia with Venetian rule; the technique of cooking rice with cephalopod ink spread north along the Adriatic from Veneto. Today every Split konoba runs a version, with the standard set by Konoba Matejuska's wood-fired interpretation and the K.uzina kitchen's more contemporary tasting-plate form.
Where to try it: Konoba Matejuska, K.uzina, Villa Spiza, Apetit
Watch out for: Shellfish
Peka is the Dalmatian iron-bell cooking technique: lamb, octopus or veal slow-roasted with potatoes, herbs and olive oil under a heavy iron lid covered with hot embers.
History: Peka is the inland Zagora cooking technique that arrived on the coast with the hill migration into Split through the centuries. The iron lid is called a peka or cripnja, and the cook covers it with hot wood embers, raked back into the oven floor for the 3-hour cook. In Split it is most often a Sunday-lunch order, with the peak in winter for lamb and autumn for octopus.
Where to try it: Konoba Marjan, Konoba Korta, Konoba Fetivi
Fritule are small Croatian doughnut balls flavoured with rakija, lemon zest and raisins, fried until golden and dusted with sugar. The Adriatic Christmas market staple.
History: Fritule appear at Dalmatian festivals and Christmas markets along the coast; the Split version follows the wider Dalmatian-Istrian template with rakija for the lift, lemon zest for the perfume and raisins. The Dani Dioklecijana festival in late August brings cinnamon-scented stall-bought fritule to Diocletian's Palace.
Where to try it: Bobis Marmontova, Pazar Market Snack Stalls
Watch out for: Gluten, Egg
Split's signature dishes include Pasticada, Brudet, Soparnik, Crni Rizot (Black Risotto), Peka (Under the Bell). See our signature dishes chapter for where to eat each.