Ljubljana’s King of the Castle: The surprising combinations of Igor Jagodic

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Ljubljana's King of the Castle: The surprising combinations of Igor Jagodic

A Michelin-starred restaurant in a fort, a cylindrical eating room with folkloric artwork, and unintended musical pairings. Ljubljana’s Strelec is a universe of combos.

Whether or not by design or by curious coincidence, my arrival at Ljubljana Citadel’s Archer’s Tower is heralded by the sound of a newer archer, that’s to say Tasmin Archer and her 1992 hit Sleeping Satellite tv for pc. Nevertheless it’s not the unique that lulls me into my chair. It is a ‘relax’ model.

All alongside the Watchtower

Michelin-starred Strelec is positioned on this extraordinary former watchtower replete with uncovered brickwork, a big chandelier centrepiece, and a form of stone tapestry depicting historic occasions.

Whereas this cylindrical chamber of culinary experimentation has its roots in custom and folklore, the soundtrack is a bit more modern, however with a twist. Meals writers hardly ever make point out of a restaurant’s music however it’s with out query a legitimate a part of the expertise. Tremendous eating is unequivocally sensory, so why not embody the aural components. I really feel compelled to take action right here in these magnificent environment as, although barely incongruous, it added enormously to my enjoyment.

I take my palate-enlivening Blanc de Blancs from Domaine Slapšak with me to traverse the room and examine the artwork. It has spent 48 months on lees however the nostril is extra herb and white flower than yeast. Thyme appears to pervade the wines right here alongside bruised apple and rosewater.

Artwork meets Meals

Popularised in Italy within the late Renaissance, the ornamental approach that adorns that partitions of Strelec known as Sgraffiti, which implies ‘scratching by way of’ to a different floor giving the type texture and color – components that pervade the cooking of head chef Igor Jagodic.

His preliminary welcome takes the type of a Tomato tartlet with pecorino cream. It is a mild but visibly placing greeting, accompanied pleasingly by an instrumental tackle Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven is a Place on Earth. I am feeling hopeful, and I usually surprise if the amuse bouches are statements of intent. ‘I can do full flavours and lightness, sir, concern not’, Jagodic appears to say. He acquired a part of his coaching at legendary Copenhagen kitchen, Noma, so he was introduced up on originality.

A trio of amuse-bouches arrive with one standout creation.

Rooster pâté dyed with beetroot juice on a buckwheat biscuit shows high class design and realisation abilities that mercifully drown out the soul model of ACDC’s Again in Black. Nevertheless, I might fortunately hearken to it once more in change for extra of this beautiful paté.

As Des’ree’s You Gotta Be takes on a swing groove, most unwisely, I really feel embedded in a universe of ‘familiarity however not as you understand it’.

Begin me up

Marinated salmon with pickled daikon is introduced as a rose and completed off with cucumber citrus juice which I might fortunately drink over ice within the fort grounds outdoors.

A crisp accompanying pastry thimble of Salmon tartare, citrus gel and salmon roe oozes flavour. A wine from the village of Jeruzalem in Steria (within the nation’s north east) has a slate-driven, mineral nostril with tropical notes and citrus. It is constituted of the Furmint grape, however right here it is known as Šipon. I’m advised that this identify harks again to Napoleonic instances when the French troopers would style the wine and say “C’est bon” (It is good). The locals named it after this endorsement and wrote it down the way it sounded to them. C’est bon turned Šipon.

Venison in Barolo (wine from the Nebbiolo grape made in northern Italy) and wrapped in shiso leaf with goose liver ice cream topped with crispy shiso cover and shallot shavings is a tour de pressure and I can hardly imagine that is solely a starter.

The wine pairing – Belo 140 (named after the variety of gold cash it value to rebuild this winery after phylloxera) is for the shiso slightly than the venison and I slightly admire that. Slovenian reds are uncommon on this explicit wine area – Bela Krajina – and this dish works as an early within the order ‘night time watchman’ brilliantly. It’s an archer’s tower in spite of everything.

These flavour combos are such Christmas for the senses that I virtually don’t hear the large band model of Aha’s Take On Me. I might have thought Searching Excessive and Low might have suited venison extra admirably however you’ll be able to’t have every part.

A View to Kill For

From my giant window I’ve, so as of proximity, a wave of bushes, a fairly mediaeval-looking metropolis, an industrial Balkan metropolis in blocks, then the hills of Rašica and at last Mount Saint Mary. Ranges of panorama serving as a wider setting for Jagodic’s structured ranges of flavour and texture.

Now comes a signature dish, unchanged for six out of their twelve years because the Citadel’s premier restaurant.

Fried cauliflower with black truffle, truffle mayonnaise, poached egg, puree of roasted cauliflower, with hazelnuts and breadcrumbs for crunch.

The pairing is a Zelen made by the good Primož Lavrenčič, whom I met again in 2021.

Egg and truffle are a kind of perpetually buddies combos however the cauliflower offers it a rusticity. There are few elements right here however plenty of methods being thrown collectively. The fantastically macerated Zelen throws a Mediterranean daylight on the comforting melée, coming because it does from the south dealing with and sun-drenched Vipava valley. A list of bursting fruit and minerality. I’m mendacity on a summer time haystack in a roofless barn. Stupidly good things. I haven’t seen a tune for fairly some time, such has been my immersion within the delicacies.

Pasta crammed with celery and chanterelle mushrooms and doused in aged cheese foam comes subsequent, paired with a late harvest Malvasia from the Karst area that was aged in concrete for two years and shows a nostril of herby butter.

This savoury minx blocks out the reggae model of Sorry Appears to be the Hardest Phrase. And though I perceive the philosophy of ‘easy elements/a number of methods’, I discovered the celery puree too boisterous. However, the mushrooms had been as much as the problem.

Uncommon wines for uncommon instances

Service is slick and academic. Slovenians need you to find out about them. They usually love their very own wine, very similar to the Swiss, and have the same problem with scale of manufacturing. They make world class wine however not that a lot of it.

Living proof is the wine within the subsequent pairing. An uncommon melée of Gewurtztraminer, Muscat and the native (together with Croatia) Kraljevina grape, this 2016 ‘Akord’ from Otmar Šturm matures for two-and-a-half years in small oak barrels after 9 days on the skins. It is extremely uncommon and there have been no extra releases since 2016, and the one earlier than that was 2005. An actual deal with, then, to be introduced with this on a tasting menu.

It is up in opposition to a dish that comes throughout as a reformatted French onion soup with out the broth.

Gnudi in butter and onion soup gel with mustard seeds, spring onion and a few dehydrated yeast that connects with the beer within the Jama cheese (named after the cave through which it’s matured for 13 months) sauce.

This dish is elevated rusticity personified and possibly the pairing of the night time. This uncommon wine that has echoes of Amontillado is the proper foil, a lot in order that the flavours meld into one another and I can not distinguish the aftertastes. Astonishing.

Bossanova Madonna heralds turbot, brown butter, lemon, Swiss chard, nettle and Adriatic prawns served with a Slovenian Chardonnay that nearly rivals these from the Côte d’Or however at a fraction of the value. The Obelunec 2020 has, as you’ll count on from a cool-climate cuvée, some inexperienced, vegetal notes and these are introduced out splendidly by the chard.

The participating maître d’, Jaka, generally serves this dish with a purple wine from the Fedora vineyard (and apparently the winemaker does certainly put on such a hat) constituted of the Pokalca grape and aged in concrete. I strive somewhat. It is chilled like a Gamay however the Pokalca has extra plush fruit and extra smoke, however crucially there’s something natural that has a pleasant chat with the Swiss chard and the nettle. Each wines work.

Slip of the Tongue (in cheek)

Veal with smoked bone marrow gravy is introduced, with aubergine, pine nuts and a sweetbread terrine common from cheeks and tongue, topped with dehydrated black olive, pepper and mustard seeds.

This terrine is a knockout – it’s audacious, thrilling and layered. The contemporary purple pepper is arresting and also you want one thing that cheeky to face as much as the pronounced nature of the bone marrow gravy. A 2020 single winery Modra Frankinja (Slovenia’s identify for the German Blaufrankisch varietal) has a vegetal, funky nostril. A contact of sulphur, swampy water, and one thing bitter which, cleverly, goes with the sweetbreads and the gravy. Solely 5,000 bottles are produced every year and right here, Blaufrankisch has discovered its sympathetic discussion board. The seashore jazz model of Right here I Go Once more, nonetheless, has not. David Coverdale shall be turning on his Pilates mat.

My Era

There’s plenty of generational handover within the Slovenian wine trade, and Igor’s 20 12 months outdated son hasn’t stopped smiling since beginning working in his dad’s staff a 12 months in the past, so maybe this may translate to Strelec and the broader restaurant scene.

It has already occurred at JB restaurant within the metropolis centre the place the celebrated Janez Bratovž lately handed over to his son, Tomasz.

An consciousness of the calls for of recent generations are shaping the menus right here. There’s an rising deal with greens in addition to a non-alcoholic pairing possibility for the tasting menus.

“Now we have a great barman and he is liable for all our non-alcoholic drinks,” Jagodic tells Euronews Tradition. “We began with some fermented drinks however now we’re extra on the aspect of blending drinks, so that is actually plenty of infusions, plenty of mixing of infusions, juices, non-alcoholic gin etcetera.”

“Apart from the non-alcoholic pairing, we’re working actually so much on vegetarian and vegan dishes,” provides Jagodic, who has the piercing eyes and lengthy jaw of a younger Vincent Worth. “5, ten years in the past, this was not so essential. In fact, you actually all the time had some dishes which you would serve for vegetarians and vegans however now, on this time, this inhabitants is, in share phrases, fairly massive already.”

Dessert Storm

Rhubarb, yoghurt and elderflower are available a merengue cup and are paired slightly classically with a really respectable Gewurtztraminer from certainly one of the best producers of that varietal on this nation, Danilo Steyer.

We could also be in acquainted territory with this pairing, however we’re not with the lounge model of Bryan Adams’ Run to You that gives the accompaniment.

A peach jam cookie has a little bit of stodge about it, however the aftertaste is totally at one with the revelatory pairing. A nobly rotten Klarnica is a passito wine the place the grapes are dried on hay. Viscous however not syrupy, that is one thing of a revelation and rosemary appears to infuse all. You get this with Slovenian wine. Filled with surprises like Frank Bough.

And talking of surprises, we’re again to bossanova now however the sufferer on this case is hair metallic 80s lipstick collective Poison. Each rose actually does have its thorn, and though that little thorn was the music, I’m grateful that it genuinely offered amusement whereas I used to be taken on a severe gastronomic journey by a father working together with his son.

“Till one 12 months in the past he did not know what he would do in his life,” explains Jagodic. “He went to another faculty as a result of he did not need to be like his father, spending on a regular basis within the kitchen. However one 12 months in the past, he determined that possibly it could be good to see what we’re doing. He is wanting, he is tasting, and now he is completely happy, he is so glad. He likes it.”

I roll my manner down the very steep hill into city, filled with meals, wine and admiration as night time falls over the beautiful fort. A mix of custom and elevation in Strelec is a becoming culinary flagship for a metropolis made up of the outdated and the brand new.