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
The savory chard pie from Poljica, the rural hills south of Split: two paper-thin discs of unleavened dough stretched 35 to 40 cm wide, filled with chard, onion, parsley and olive oil, baked under hot embers.
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
Gregada is the white-fish-and-potato stew of the Dalmatian islands, layered raw in a wide pot with thinly sliced potatoes, garlic, parsley and white wine, then shaken (never stirred) until the fish flakes.
Where: Konoba Hvaranin, Konoba Fetivi, Villa Spiza, Konoba Matejuska
Price: €20-32
Slow-poached octopus chopped into bite-sized chunks, dressed with red onion, capers, olives, olive oil and red wine vinegar, served chilled with potato. The summer cold meze of every Dalmatian harbourfront table.
Where: Konoba Matejuska, Bokeria Kitchen & Wine, Konoba Fetivi, Villa Spiza
Price: €14-22
Whole pork legs salt-cured, wood-smoked and dried in the karst bura wind for 12 to 18 months, then sliced paper-thin and served at room temperature with olive oil, hard cheese and bread.
Where: Sperun Eat and Drink, Bokeria Wine Cellar, MoNIKa's Wine Bar, Konoba Varos
Price: €12-22
Aged sheep-milk cheese from the bura-windswept island of Pag, distinguished by the sage, rosemary and lavender that flavour its milk. Salty, nutty, firm, often compared to Manchego, sliced thin onto pršut boards.
Where: Bokeria Wine Cellar, MoNIKa's Wine Bar, Uje Oil Bar, Sperun Eat and Drink
Price: €8-16
A medieval Dalmatian custard pudding, slow-baked in a bain-marie and unmoulded onto its caramel base. Flavoured with rose-petal liqueur (rozalin) which gives the dessert both its name and its delicate floral perfume.
Where: Apetit, Bokeria Kitchen & Wine, Bistro Toc, Restaurant Krug
Price: €7-12
Dalmatia's flagship red grape, grown on steep south-facing terraces of the Pelješac peninsula and the islands of Hvar, Brač and Vis. Tannic, dark-fruited and high-alcohol; the offspring of Croatian Zinfandel.
Where: MoNIKa's Wine Bar, Bokeria Wine Cellar, Zinfandel Food & Wine, Uje Oil Bar
Price: €6-12 a glass
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
The savory chard pie from Poljica, the rural hills south of Split: two paper-thin discs of unleavened dough stretched 35 to 40 cm wide, filled with chard, onion, parsley and olive oil, baked under hot embers.
History: Soparnik dates to the medieval Republic of Poljica, a self-governing peasant community in the hills between Split and Omis that proclaimed its independence in the 13th century and survived until the Napoleonic invasion. The dish was originally cold-season fasting food, made when older chard was in the garden and when the church calendar forbade meat. The preparation method, paper-thin dough sealed by hand and baked under embers on the komin (open stone hearth), is protected by Croatia as intangible cultural heritage and was inscribed onto the UNESCO Representative List in 2016. Poljicki soparnik also carries an EU Protected Geographical Indication.
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
Gregada is the white-fish-and-potato stew of the Dalmatian islands, layered raw in a wide pot with thinly sliced potatoes, garlic, parsley and white wine, then shaken (never stirred) until the fish flakes.
History: Gregada is said to be the oldest Dalmatian way of cooking fish, traced by historians to Greek settlers around 380 BCE, though potatoes only arrived in the 17th century. The Hvar version is the canonical one; Split konobas adopted it from the islanders. Konoba Hvaranin, named for the Hvar diaspora, runs the most reliable in-city version.
Where to try it: Konoba Hvaranin, Konoba Fetivi, Villa Spiza, Konoba Matejuska
Watch out for: Fish
Slow-poached octopus chopped into bite-sized chunks, dressed with red onion, capers, olives, olive oil and red wine vinegar, served chilled with potato. The summer cold meze of every Dalmatian harbourfront table.
History: Octopus salad has been a Dalmatian summer fixture since the working fishing boats turned octopus catches into long-keeping starters. The slow simmer (40 to 60 minutes for tenderness, with a wine cork in the pot per folk wisdom) is the technique that distinguishes it from rubbery versions. Konoba Matejuska on the working harbour serves the canonical version with potato; Bokeria Kitchen runs a contemporary version with capers and Vis olives, and Konoba Fetivi keeps the marinated-overnight tradition through summer.
Where to try it: Konoba Matejuska, Bokeria Kitchen & Wine, Konoba Fetivi, Villa Spiza
Watch out for: Shellfish
Whole pork legs salt-cured, wood-smoked and dried in the karst bura wind for 12 to 18 months, then sliced paper-thin and served at room temperature with olive oil, hard cheese and bread.
History: Dalmatian pršut has been produced in the karst hinterland villages of Drniš, Sinj and Imotski for centuries, distinguished from the Istrian version by its wood-smoke step. Drniš pršut holds protected status. Split konobas serve it as the opening plate of every meal; Sperun Eat and Drink and Bokeria Wine Cellar both run notable boards.
Where to try it: Sperun Eat and Drink, Bokeria Wine Cellar, MoNIKa's Wine Bar, Konoba Varos
Aged sheep-milk cheese from the bura-windswept island of Pag, distinguished by the sage, rosemary and lavender that flavour its milk. Salty, nutty, firm, often compared to Manchego, sliced thin onto pršut boards.
History: Paški sir has been made on Pag Island for centuries from the milk of the indigenous Paška Ovca breed, whose diet of wind-salted karst herbs gives the cheese its distinctive character. The cheese received protected designation of origin (PDO) and has won repeated international awards. Split's pršut boards always carry a wedge.
Where to try it: Bokeria Wine Cellar, MoNIKa's Wine Bar, Uje Oil Bar, Sperun Eat and Drink
Watch out for: Dairy
A medieval Dalmatian custard pudding, slow-baked in a bain-marie and unmoulded onto its caramel base. Flavoured with rose-petal liqueur (rozalin) which gives the dessert both its name and its delicate floral perfume.
History: Rožata's first written records date to the late 15th century in Venetian-ruled Dubrovnik, where it was known as the friar's pudding. The rose-petal liqueur that gives the dish its name is the distinguishing detail. Today rožata appears on most Dalmatian dessert menus from Dubrovnik up to Split, including Apetit and Bokeria Kitchen.
Where to try it: Apetit, Bokeria Kitchen & Wine, Bistro Toc, Restaurant Krug
Watch out for: Egg, Dairy
Dalmatia's flagship red grape, grown on steep south-facing terraces of the Pelješac peninsula and the islands of Hvar, Brač and Vis. Tannic, dark-fruited and high-alcohol; the offspring of Croatian Zinfandel.
History: Plavac mali has been cultivated in Dalmatia since antiquity. DNA testing at UC Davis in 1998 by Carole Meredith showed that Plavac mali is a natural cross between Crljenak Kaštelanski (the Croatian Zinfandel) and Dobričić, a near-extinct variety from the island of Šolta; Crljenak Kaštelanski is itself the same variety as California Zinfandel and a near-twin of Italian Primitivo. Dingač on the Pelješac peninsula was named Croatia's and the former Yugoslavia's first protected wine appellation in 1961, with Postup following in 1967. Split wine bars run extensive Plavac lists; Bokeria Wine Cellar and Zinfandel Food and Wine are the canonical city pours.
Where to try it: MoNIKa's Wine Bar, Bokeria Wine Cellar, Zinfandel Food & Wine, Uje Oil Bar
Watch out for: Sulphites
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.