Restaurants

Seafood lovers rejoice: fresh catch predominates throughout Southern Dalmatia. White fish, including sea bream and sea bass, is very common, often served with blitva (potatoes and swiss chard). The region's top venue for shellfish is the village of Mali Ston on the Pelješac Peninsula, where locally grown ostrige (oysters) and dagnje (mussels) attract diners from far and wide; you can try them in restaurants all across the region, but nothing beats eating them beside the channel where they are grown. Mljet is noted for its jastog (lobster), a culinary luxury highly appreciated by the sailing crowd.

And make sure to find a restaurant that serves food prepared ispod peke ("under the bell"): a terra-cotta casserole dish, usually containing either lamb or octopus, is buried in embers over which the peka (metal dome) is placed to ensure a long, slow cooking process—it usually needs to be ordered a day in advance but it's worth the wait. Another must-try for meat lovers is pašticada, a sweet, rich, slow-cooked beef dish typically served with gnocchi. Sweet tooths will be satisfied by the region's specialty rožata (a creamy custard pudding), and the abundance of dried fruit such as figs, apricots, candied almonds, and arancini (candied orange or lemon peels), which are often accompanied by a glass of prošek (sweet wine) or another excellent local wine; Plavac Mali, Pošip, and Malvasija are names you’ll get to know if you're an oenophile. Most meals are washed down with a small glass of rakija, often made with carob, roses, honey, or herbs.