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Presented in partnership with the Slovenia Tourism Board
Slovenia’s food scene is making gains on the world stage, with its farm-to-table concepts leading the way
Lush, wildflower-spotted valleys, goats grazing on hilltops and river water so clear it’ll make you squint, Slovenia is a winner for those seeking knockout levels of natural beauty. And with such jaw-dropping landscapes every way you look, it’s no surprise chefs and suppliers are doing everything in their power to hero the fruit of the land, showing off local produce and culinary traditions through brilliantly original concepts and zero-kilometre menus.
This proclivity for 'green cuisine' is starting to edge into the mainstream, with some 68 restaurants across the country awarded international LEAF (Leaders in Environmentally Accountable Foodservice) or Green Key status. All of these venues have been anointed with the national tourism board’s Slovenian Green Cuisine label, which certifies their commitment to sustainable gastronomy, whether through working with local suppliers, using seasonal produce or ingredients with minimal packaging. This month, 50 Best showcases two restaurants making waves in elite cuisine, all while being easy on the environment.
Grič
Šentjošt
@gric_restaurant
Set in the bottle-green hills of Šentjošt in central Slovenia, family-owned restaurant Grič is as farm-to-table as they come. Started by head chef Luka Košir’s parents as a rustic diner for local workers, Grič now has a headier status as one of the country’s finest, most future-facing restaurants, celebrating a Green Key win in 2024 for excellence in environmental responsibility.
Since Košir took over in 2009, the restaurant has done a 180, moving beyond simple snacks and local lager to the high-end and experimental. In his first years at the helm, Košir tinkered with more international influences, testing everything from Japanese and Basque techniques to methods championed by Noma’s former head of fermentation David Zilber.
Luka Košir uses a zero-kilometre approach to much of his cuisine
These days, Košir clings closer to his roots, with local production as his guiding principle. “We grow around 80 per cent of the vegetables ourselves and are always building dishes around what we have from the garden,” he says. He’s also laser focused on flavour, using traditional and novel methods of salting, pickling, smoking and fermenting ingredients to deliver the stunning flavour combinations seen on each plate. In 2013, he partnered with his father-in-law and Swedish breeder Peter Blombergsson to open Slovenia’s first organic duck farm, where prioritising the animal’s wellbeing is at the very heart of the pair’s breeding programme.
With local sourcing central to Grič’s ethos, Košir has marshalled a community of suppliers who share his beliefs. Local cheesemaker Orešnik is just a Vespa ride away on the neighbouring hill where husband-and-wife team Irena and Dejan produce organic goat and sheep’s cheese, while Arctic char and trout are farmed by Košir’s friend, Roman Koligar, in a gorge just below the village. Koligar follows traditional Japanese methods of breeding and humanely euthanising fish, and his trout remains a staple on Grič’s menu.
Dishes at Grič are garnished with flowers from the kitchen garden
When it comes to surplus, Košir says the team use leftovers as much as possible for animal fodder or compost in the garden, which is fed with rainwater from the restaurant’s collectors. Dishes are prepared with meticulous precision to avoid unnecessary waste, and garnishes are always picked from nearby forests or from the nearest, quality-assured growers in the region.
Šentjošt nad Horjulom 24d, Horjul 1354, Slovenia
Mahorčič
Kozina
@ksenijakm
Further south between the regions of Brkini and Karst, Mahorčič is also flying the flag for sustainable gastronomy, where owner-chef Ksenija Krajšek Mahorčič takes inspiration from early memories spent in this area of truly outstanding beauty. “This place is essentially where I'm from. I grew up here, and its natural beauty takes me back to my childhood,” she says. 
Ksenija Krajšek Mahorčič draws culinary inspiration from nature
Mahorčič and her sommelier husband Martin are the fourth generation to run the family restaurant, which first opened more than a century ago. But becoming a full-time chef wasn’t originally on the cards, and a career in cuisine only occurred to her after she met Martin and they took over the reins at the restaurant. What followed were 20 years of hard graft, during which time Mahorčič honed her culinary skills, eventually developing a dazzling menu rooted in seasonality, local ingredients and creative flavour pairings that reflect the region, such as smoked bear prosciutto and porcini mushroom ice cream.
Mahorčič's vegetable garden
When it comes to sourcing, Mahorčič is clear about her commitment to quality and working with partners that share her values. Describing her relationship with the restaurant’s salmon suppliers, she says, “The Zobec family has been farming salmon for 40 years. They won us over with their clean environment, their hard work and respect for nature. They can proudly say they’ve never used chemicals or antibiotics.”
These principles extend to Mahorčič’s production of fruit and vegetables too, which are grown in the restaurant’s kitchen garden and orchard, and the menu, full of traditional Slovenian dishes like home-made pastas and stews, is made all the more interesting thanks to seasonal flourishes including pumpkin oil, truffle and wild garlic. “It’s about respect for the ingredients,” says Mahorčič. “By finding something you have from nature, and balancing it with different ingredients, you can make a dish become the heart of a restaurant.”
Rodik 51, 6240 Kozina, Slovenia
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