Slovenia beyond Hiša Franko: what now?

It's a tricky subject to tackle, as a Slovenian food writer, being witness to the success of the Ana Roš-led Hiša Franko, seeing how much enthusiasm Netflix’s Chef’s Table created around Slovenia, calculating all the millions the national Tourism Board poured into building up the country as the next gastronomic hotspot.

Has it worked? And has the international hype of Hiša Franko actually translated into a thriving domestic food scene? That’s debatable.

After waiting for years, Slovenia finally got its inaugural Michelin Guide in June 2020, at the height of the Covid pandemic. Five restaurants were awarded one star, Hiša Franko got two. At a time when borders were closed, the stars seemed like a lifeline for many high-end restaurants, which usually rely heavily on international customers.

Slovenia, with a population of two million, doesn’t have a tradition of fine dining – or even dining out. People still prefer home cooking, and when they eat out, they go for pizza or burgers. Generic restaurants serving easy pasta and pizzas far exceed high-level fine dining or traditional gostilnas (Slovenian trattorias) serving homey, honest food. The latter, they can cook at home, they say. The former is too pricey, they claim.

_{Jorg Zupan. Photo: Suzan Gabrijan}

In that inaugural Michelin Guide, only one restaurant in the capital Ljubljana got a star: Atelje, a trendy, modern sort of place serving Nordic-looking dishes and with a hip-hop soundtrack. At the helm – Jorg Zupan (36), at the time the youngest Slovenian chef with a starred restaurant. After the star, he enjoyed a short, steady flow of Slovenian guests, curious to try a starred restaurant.

Fast forward three years. The star is still there but its lustre has faded, with Zupan struggling to fill the restaurant – and lacking motivation to keep it as it was. Early this year Atelje closed its doors and reopened as Aftr, a casual bistro running late into the night serving dishes like crab cake, seabass ceviche and a poultry salad with a tongue-in-cheek name – ‘Sac de coq’.

“For six years Atelje was running more or less the same. I just couldn’t see it really improving. It was always the same – in the season and in December we were working well, but there were months in between we were just diving into red numbers. And we are still clawing our way out of the hole we dug ourselves in during the pandemic,” explains Zupan. “There are just not enough Slovenian consumers of fine dining and – with Hiša Franko being an exception – you just can’t rely on international guests alone.

“Even that one star, I don't know if it really rocked my world so much to keep it going when I saw I didn't have the resources and space and skilled staff to gain the second one. What's the point? I prefer this, where I can be more relaxed, I sleep in peace and enjoy what I do. At Atelje as a fine-dining place not many [customers] were coming more than once a year. At Aftr, those same people are here three times a week.”

The same idea drove Ana Roš to open a pop-up bistro in Ljubljana back in January (it has turned more into a year-long residency). “It’s not fine dining, but it’s still me,” goes the introduction to the menu at Ana in Slon, set just across from Zupan’s place. There are hints of Hiša Franko, with the immaculate service and flamboyant uniforms made of organic fabric, and Leonardo Fonseca, Roš’s long-time head chef, now leading the Ljubljana venture. But the dishes are easy-going delicious bites like bruschetta with anchovies and oyster mayo, or fried whitebait with caper aioli.

I step in one afternoon, lunchtime, in early July and I have to ask the staff if they are open because it is completely empty. “People aren’t willing to spend money on a restaurant that gives even a hint of fine dining. Not even the tourists. A lot of them walk in and check the menu and I think when they see the prices… We were sure that because of the season, the bistro would be full for lunch as well, and that’s just not the case. We’ve noticed that a lot of tourists don’t travel for food to Ljubljana. They are just out to eat randomly something very cheap,” ponders Colombian-born Fonseca.

“We talk so much about quality, but in the end, every Slovenian still looks at the price list and it’s all that matters for them. Ana in Slon has this stigma of a pricey restaurant, but go have a pizza or burger in Ljubljana and you won’t pay much less. McDonald’s is packed while good places with a story struggle. On top of that, Ljubljana lacks quality tourism, tourists travelling for food and willing to spend money for it,” says Roš, who now divides her time between her bistro and Hiša Franko, a two-hour drive away in Kobarid.

Another one of those “good places that struggle” is Grič, a Michelin-starred restaurant in the woody hills 25km outside Ljubljana run by Luka Košir. The place used to be one of those family-run casual places where locals would go for a beer and schnapps. Košir (38) turned that upside down and created a beautiful high-end restaurant based on foraged ingredients, ingredients from his garden, geese from his farm and goat’s cheese from the neighbouring dairy.

It’s as self-sustainable as it can be and a worthy successor of Hiša Franko’s philosophy. But Košir struggles to fill the restaurant, especially off-season. “Relying on Slovenian guests, it’s just not sustainable. Which is ironic given how sustainable we are with everything else. When it comes to money it gets sticky,” he laughs. “We aren’t working optimally. Every month we watch every penny. On one hand that’s fine because it encourages a sort of sustainability, to forage, to grow our own garden … anything to get through the week with as less cost as possible. But running a high-end restaurant in that way is pretty excruciating.”

Košir, never one to mince words, is also critical of the direction the Slovenian dining scene has taken in recent years. “Folk have derailed with these restaurants because they have completely submitted themselves to the so-called ‘demand’ which in reality is a big fat construct that restaurateurs now adapt to by constructing dishes based on what looks good on Instagram and not really basing it on any identity,” he ponders.

One who wholeheartedly agrees with Košir is Lior Kochavy, an Israeli who for the past 10 years, every Friday, has been running a super successful open-air food market in the centre of Ljubljana called Odprta Kuhna (open kitchen) bringing some of Slovenia’s best restaurants to one location. There are Michelin-starred ones, Gault Millau best-rated, Asian, Balkan, you name it. I ask him which are the most popular stands. He replies in a heartbeat: “Traditional Slovenian ones.”

And herein lies the irony: “Chefs come to Odprta Kuhna and go to Pri Mari and to Mihovec (two traditional gostilnas), but then they go back to their restaurant and work for a Michelin star. Once Michelin came, chefs started working for stars and not for Slovenian cuisine, less representing the local – and that’s where the Michelin [Guide] fucked us.

“Chefs try to take advantage of the hype of fine dining but don't know how to work with that; ride the wave of it. Why not do farm-to-table, nose-to-tail, Slovenian way, that would be much better. 0km. Food of your grandma. Just don't call yourself fine dining.”

The ones who got the message and are doing just that seem to be on the winning path. Hiša Polonka in Kobarid, the offspring of Hiša Franko created by Valter Kramar, Roš’ former partner, is packed every day, lunch and dinner, attracting a vast clientele of locals, cyclists, hikers, and yes, foodies. The international chefs and journalists who have eaten there still dream of Valter’s frika (a local peasant dish made of potatoes and cheese scrapings) and his crazy natural wine selection. And the price list is comparable to Roš’ Ljubljana bistro.

Then there’s Gostilna Cajnarje, located in a remote southern part of Slovenia, opened last year by a young couple, Jure Črnič and Katarina Hiti, who used to run two of the hippest, trendiest bars in Ljubljana, Bikofe and Magda. When the latter closed they moved to Črnič’s grandma’s village, bought her house and reopened it last year as a restaurant serving only traditional Slovenian dishes like meatballs, veal shank or fried bull testicles and natural wines. Neither have proper kitchen experience so they have chef friends on speed dial when they are at a loss for what to do with a particular piece of meat. Cajnarje is booked weeks in advance with many guests driving from Ljubljana.

“In Ljubljana, you struggle constantly and in the end, you don’t even know who you fight for. You want to do something for yourself but it’s hopeless. For me, changing the lifestyle was the only way forward. It's physically demanding, but mentally I am a lot more at peace,” says Bine Volčič, Slovenia’s most famous TV chef, a MasterChef judge who opened his Monstera bistro in Ljubljana in 2016 and closed it this year to move to the countryside.

In July, he and his wife Katarina opened Monstera Estate in the far northeast corner of Slovenia, a sort of retreat surrounded by nature, where you wake up to the sound of chickens in the backyard and dine at a communal table with Volčič grilling vegetables from the local organic farm and roasting the neighbour’s lamb in a wood oven.

When we talk about the impact of Hiša Franko on the Slovenian dining scene perhaps it’s amiss to search for fine-dining restaurants inspired by its success. It’s better to seek out places run by people who have understood her message: more connection to traditions, to small suppliers, to nature, to products that reflect Slovenia, and yes, to local casual places with honest and authentic food. In the end that’s exactly what foreign visitors seek as well. Authenticity. And Slovenia has it – it’s just perhaps time more Slovenians embrace it.