The Konoba Dionis restaurant on the island of Sv. Klement
In the marshland of the port of Hvar, motor boats are piled up that serve as taxis to arrive in 30 minutes to the semi-desert island of Sveti Klement (the taxi boat, about 66 kunas, around €10). We are approached by Wolf, the owner of the Hula-Hula Hvar, in his speedboat. He wants to teach us Konoba Dionis, a gastronomic hideaway among olive trees, vines and Mediterranean mist Directed by Pjerino Šimunovi, an ecochef who wears a mustache and flip-flops with white socks and who makes slow food and Kitchen Kilometer 0 without knowing that he is an ecochef who makes slow food and Kitchen Kilometer 0.
Before continuing, two definitions. slow food: gastronomic movement that seeks to raise the food culture of citizens and promote a different quality of life, based on respect for natural rhythm and time. Kitchen Kilometer 0 : cuisine offered by some restaurants under the premise of buying food directly from producers within a radius of less than 100 kilometers).
The Konoba Dionis: inner calm and slow food
The wooden tables at Konoba Dionis are set in the open air, on a patio shaded by a wicker canopy and blown by a pleasant Adriatic breeze. The kitchen occupies an old house. The grill is outdoors, in the place where Pjerino welcomes you, both chef and owner of the restaurant and the flip-flops. When you wait for the octopus salad, the San Pedro fish and the grilled lamb, the picture could not be more Mediterranean . On the horizon you can see the island of Vis and the sea covered with a sweet milky mist.
TRADITIONAL CUISINE
The island of Hvar also has a good bouquet of unique restaurants. Specifically, three. One of them is the Konoba Menego , in the Groda district of Hvar, on the street that goes up to the fortress, another great example of Mediterranean cuisine in the middle of the Mediterranean. This is the right place to taste Pasticada with gnocchi, an old recipe from Grandma for marinated beef . The other two konobas are located on the road that connects Hvar with Stari Grad, the old capital, 20 kilometers away, a quieter and more affordable town where the boats that embark passengers and vehicles arrive, unlike those that set sail for Hvar, that only admit passengers.
We know that it is difficult to get away from the coves of Hvar...
Along the way are the famous lavender fields of the island. The Oaza restaurant is located in a pleasant cove in Milna, 6 kilometers from Hvar, a perfect konoba to enjoy grilled fish facing the sea and to do so with the guarantee of a Tudor (the owner is Ivica Tudor) that everything what is put on the plate has been caught on the day. The Konoba Stori Komin it's another story. It is located at the height of Milna but isolated in the middle of the mountain. In fact, he is the only living thing in a ghost town. Malo Grablje is the Croatian transcript of Ainielle, the abandoned town that Julio Llamazares imagined in his novel The Yellow Rain. The houses still preserve the old furniture and the old farm implements. To dine here in the moonlight, you must notify the chef beforehand and negotiate the menu (phone: +385 915276408). If not, you can find the oven and grill available but no one in sight. Hvar, little Hvar, like Croatia, is a much bigger place than it seems.
THE GOOD DALMATIAN TABLE
The extraordinary Konoba Dionis on the island of Sv. Klement is open from May to October, and reservations are advised to avoid mishaps. Among its proposals, the octopus and caper salads, lamb brochettes and the different variants of white fish, such as dentex, sea bass, monkfish, sea bream and San Pedro fish . To get to the restaurant from the small jetty on the island, you have to walk a path through the Mediterranean forest.
Eat well on the Dalmatian Coast