I’ve been delighted (and if I’m being totally honest, the tiniest bit surprised) by the quality of food in Belgrade. From coffee to pastry to casual bites to wine, nearly everything I’ve consumed has been both tasty and affordable. Last night I went on the Gastro Balkan Foodie Tour with some of my fellow travelers, and it proved Belgrade can go toe-to-toe with New York in fine dining—and blows NYC out of the water when it comes to price.
Our first stop was Ambar, a modern Balkan restaurant on the river that has a D.C. outpost as well. We kicked things off with a rakija mojito and feasted on Balkan-style tapas. I could eat a basketful of the gloriously puffy bread with three different dips, and the almond puree complemented the bacon-wrapped date. Apparently they offer $30 all-you-can-eat; I’ll be back to test my stomach’s puffy bread capacity.
Next was upscale and innovative Miamiam where we drank effervescent rose with three delicious courses: cucumber, avocado, and melon gazpacho in a glass; gravlax with a rye crouton, a slice of pear, and blueberry goat cheese; and (possibly the highlight of the evening for me) gorgeously wine-glazed pork belly topped with a plum, sweet potato puree, and garlic cream. I may have batted cleanup on my friend’s dish as well with that last one. Miamiam is just around the corner from my apartment here, so I will definitely go again in my two remaining weeks (how am I already down to two weeks?!) in Belgrade.
All of that was just a warm-up for the fine dining extravaganza that is Homa, where we had four beautiful and interesting courses: a sort of cheese puff that melts in your mouth with truffle mayo and shaved truffle; the most perfectly formed ricotta gnocchi I’ve ever eaten (they can get rather gummy; these had an ideal texture) with forest mushrooms AND MORE TRUFFLES; a squid ink pasta with fried Adriatic squid; and more pork belly—you can never have enough—with a pork fillet, grilled peach, and salad with truffle dressing. I don’t know what we did to deserve all that, but it was incredible, as were the white and red wine pairings.
Because you can’t have all that savory without a little sweet, we then made our way to Crna Ovca, an ice cream parlor with inventive flavors. I was tempted by a combo of sesame coffee with chocolate covered coffee beans and peanut butter with milk chocolate covered pretzels, but I’ll have to go back for that. With many, many courses sitting in my belly, I opted for the somewhat lighter combination of lemon basil and stracciatella with star anise.
And if we didn’t finish our meal with rakija, we wouldn’t be in Belgrade. So our final stop on the tour was Rakia Bar, where we sampled a few different kinds. They’re all ridiculously strong, but they range in flavor intensity from liquid candy to Robitussin to…drain cleaner, I’d imagine. But seriously, it was a fun end to an amazing night. Not only is the food excellent in Belgrade, the hospi
tality is phenomenal. From servers to chefs to our lovely guide, Uros, everyone was warm and welcoming—as evidenced by our (unnecessary and unexpected but so lovely and appreciated) parting gifts, wooden spoons with our names in Cyrillic burned into the handles. My name hardly makes sense in Serbian—with the way their letters are pronounced, it’s more like Yenneefer), but I’m happy to have something by which to remember a wonderful evening.
