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Have you ever just sat there, thinking and asking yourself an unusual question? A question that might relax you or give you some kind of nostalgia. Question like, what haven’t I eaten in a long time? Well, my dears, it happened to me today.
Even though I’ve been thinking a lot and thinking about the answer, I’ve come to it. Whether it was a stuffed pepper, a Zagreb steak or some fish dish, it didn’t matter when I remembered. Dolce garbo! I don’t know if there was this dish in your childhood, but the fact stands. If you had it when you were a kid, you should have been persuaded to eat it, maybe even for days. I know it was the same for me. I’m going to be happy to eat it today and even take it out again. It’s an extremely rewarding dish, which doesn’t need much attention, but gives a lot in return. All you need is a little lamb liver, capers, parsley, garlic and red wine. This dish provides so much flavor that it’s a shame, if you haven’t had it before, you don’t try it. And to emphasize this dish goes one step further if you add a bob. Dolce garbo is one dish that will take most dalmatians back in time and perhaps draw a few tears. This dish brings me back to my childhood in perhaps an unusual way. And that’s why I always say no to the first plate of this dish, so I talk myself into saying, “Come on, it’s just meat!”
And that’s why every time I get astonished and positively terrified of how perfect that dish really is. Every dish should be given a chance, and the lamb liver is in the right way especially. It may take you back to your childhood, maybe not, but I promise that from that moment you first tried it, you have a new memory!

What exactly is tourism? Is it as the definition says Or is it something bigger? What does tourism give us and what does it take away? Why do we travel, why do we enjoy it?

The answer to all questions lies in these same journeys. The answer to all questions is that experience. Someone who isn’t traveling can’t know what it is when you see something the whole world is talking about, and you can proudly say I saw it, I was there. The problem arises when we take things for granted. Our beautiful Trogir is a pure example of this problem. All these beautiful works of art, the whole unexplored world from side of Trogir people . It is stupid to say that some tourists know more about Trogir than we do. That to me is the biggest problem. All these hotels, wonderful restaurants, wonderful culture and a long history. That is why we, the Pašikari, are trying to pass on at least a small part of that history to you. Each of our dishes, each of our festivities, each of our rooms,…

The most important characteristic of a man is his attitude towards his culture. That relationship goes beyond any cost. Because tradition is priceless.

It used to make more sense. Food, going out, hanging out, coffee, life in general that has to do with connectedness. Today, all those little charms of life have been replaced by social networks. We’ve never been more connected, and yet so far apart.

Today I would like to look back at the first thing, and that is food. Check out all those food pictures on any social media. They look wonderful, and I believe they taste the same. I have nothing against taking pictures of food and posting on social media, in fact it is normal and it is the present. What I resent is that each of these images has that untold story. As every Trogir škartocet has that story, every cod bianco, every breaded steak with mashed potatoes. Each dish has its own story. Each person for the same dish has a different story. Not everyone has the same love for the same food, it’s something like music. If we all listened to the same, there would never be so many masterpieces, nor works. Not every dish has to be perfect, but love, story and emotion, that’s what matters. Eating when it doesn’t have a story is like it’s missing something. Just as the sky is not the same without the sun. Tastes vary in that dish and it always has emotions, but the story gives it something else. The story gives food meaning. The story of an ordinary lunch that ended on the table out of love for his spouses, children, parents. The story of the first date. Dish that binds you to sadness, and a dish that binds you to happiness. The food and the story have to go hand in hand because they are not the same alone. Food came from need, and the kitchen and everything we know today came from love. And so it should continue to go as long as there is a new dish that can be made. A dish that arose from emotions and from the same ones is recounted the best dish you can eat.

After all, tastes are not discussed. Eat and enjoy and always be open and joyful for a new story and a new dish.

There is a lot that people know about wines and even more that they do not know. The story of each wine begins the same. Every wine requires love, will and pleasure.

When it comes to the world of wine and ignorance about wines, do not worry, I do not offend you or your knowledge of wines. I, like everyone else, don’t know much about wines. Perfect wine knowledge is reserved only for winemakers and sommeliers. I, like most people, love wines and know a little about them that I picked up when working with them. What I have learned is that every wine has its soul and that every wine should be respected in its own way. It takes many years for perfection in the bottle to be achieved. I guess that’s why it’s been mentioned and so many times described in many mythologies and religions. What I can tell you about wine is my first experience of drinking that precious liquid. It wasn’t at a wedding or a birthday party. It was, I am not exaggerating, the moment of enlightenment. When I tasted that softness of taste and that tenderness. I compared it to the greatest act of human life, love. Of course, I must not tell you anything except that it was a blush. Since then, I have been drinking wines with pleasure, each time discovering new, better, stronger, weaker, one with more soul and one with more love. And so thank you to all the winemakers for this product.

I challenge you to try as much wine as possible throughout your life and drink in moderation. Life is still too short to drink bad drinks, and bad wine does not exist..

December is the month of the Advent, the holidays, gift-giving and other winter joys, interesting both for children and adults – from St. Nicholas and St. Lucia to Christmas Eve – Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. This is a season when we truly only have two options: to stay at home or to travel and spend the holidays visiting new places and getting to know other peoples and cultures. Trogir, with its interesting historical heritage, is the right choice for the holidays. Whether you’re accompanied by your partner, dear family members or business associates, you simply can’t go wrong if you choose to visit Trogir.

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Just like the phrase “It’s always the right time for love”, we can candidly say “It’s always the right time for Trogir”, because this small Dalmatian town, whose town centre is steeped in history, where every stone embedded in the walls and narrow alleys tells its own story from the time of the Greeks, Romans and Venetians, delights all the senses. Hotel Restaurant Pašike, situated in the Buble family home, represents an unforgettable element of this ambiance. The family’s tradition in Trogir spans over lengthy eight centuries and tells the story of a rich family history that adds to the hotel’s charm, due to which it has been named Heritage. To our guests, we hereby recommend 10 cultural heritage sights they must visit during their stay in Trogir. (more…)

Is there anything more exciting and romantic than two people who love each other escaping to a quiet, intimate place where they can spend an unforgettable weekend in complete discretion and privacy, dedicated to each other, recharging for the next work period? All the worries of this world can remain behind them and they can seize to exist for those two or three days – and so shall all business meetings, children’s homework, and other obligations, as well as a whole world of reality that occupies us and drains the last atoms of our energy, during each hour, each week, month, year.
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It is well-known that Dalmatia is the region with the richest historical and cultural heritage in Croatia, featuring four out of six sites under UNESCO protection, with some of its natural marvels reaching far beyond national and regional boundaries. At Hotel Pašike, we have an individual approach to each of our guest and we are prepared to complement your stay in Trogir with excursions to unique locations in the vicinity of Trogir, which can be reached either by land or sea, according to your interests and preferences and in cooperation with tourist agencies. For this purpose, we present you with a list of five places you simply cannot miss out on.
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Being present at the Wedding Fair is nothing new for our hotel and restaurant Pašike. http://hotelpasike.com/ We are happy to attend every year because it gives us pleasure and some kind of challenge.  We are pleased to meet our colleagues and their innovations. Also very satisfying to meet new young people before their wedding day every year, to talk to them and to help them choose the best catering for their special occasion.

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Combining food in the kitchen is very interesting and challenging, and it is a great experience to learn something new, to expand and combine knowledge, especially if received from esteemed chefs who have started their journey a long time ago, and who have filled not only many cookbooks but also whole encyclopedias which are being used by generations of chefs, and which surely will continue to be used by young chefs who are yet to come.

I had the opportunity to attend a Mediterranean cuisine workshop in Split, organized by the Association of Chefs from Mediterranean and European Regions. The lecturer at this event was Neven Bremec, and the guest speakers were Chef Stevo Karapandža and Chef Hrvoje Zirojević.

Many of you will surely remember Stevo Karapandža, an accomplished chef who had a five-minute-long TV show, accompanied by the unsurpassed host Oliver Mlakar, who would try his dish and say ecstatically: “Mmmmm Stevo, this is great.”

Moreover, it really was great because he is still being recognized by gourmets all over the world for these luxuriant tastes, especially those whom he used to pamper the guests’ palate at the Esplanade Hotel in Zagreb, at the Hilton in Paris, as well as at his Swiss restaurant. Even now, while this chef is in his well-deserved retirement, he still selflessly shares his knowledge, teaching his colleagues the secrets of the trade.

As I watched and listened to him, he brought me back to ancient times. He reminded me of my mother Franka, who taught me the job in exactly the same way as he did during this workshop. I immediately thought: “Yes, this is the same old school, the same way!”

Chef Stevo is an inexhaustible source of knowledge. His theoretical knowledge is driven by experience, i.e. that kind of experience one can never pick up easily, buy or acquire until one full working life has passed. In the culinary world, experience is what matters most, and these workshops are precisely built to help the great masters of the kitchen teach us their life skills and professional knowledge, shortening and accelerating the learning processes. It is a wonderful experience for me, and when I connect it with my previous knowledge and the people who brought it to me, it becomes invaluable.

As soon as the workshop started, I noticed Stevo’s ease of movement in the kitchen, his agile, and organized easy flutter full of liveliness. His method of preparation and cooking was immediately close to me.

My memories came back another time! 

This is how my late uncle Jozo “fluttered” in the kitchen in Pašike, whereby he began his cooking career at the age of 16 on a ship, after which his restless spirit took him to America, France…, where he cooked in various restaurants. When he had already learned a lot, he returned to his town Trogir and started working at our restaurant Pašike, where he wholeheartedly transferred his knowledge to my mother. I was still a child, but I absorbed every movement that is still alive and real in my eyes today.

Hard-working, patient, everyone engulfed in his own thoughts, fully focused on the preparation, on the flavors and smells that were released during cooking. There were no such aids as there are today, they had only the simplest and most primitive tools, and most important of all were their hands and their imagination, which helped them to make extraordinary dishes. As a child, I looked at them, they were my role models, my icons, and now all of a sudden, after many years, these icons are again here in front of me, in the character of Stevo Karapandža. Such an invaluable experience!

Unlike Chef Stevo, we prepare a different type of meal at the restaurant Pašike. We are more focused on home-made, traditional dishes that have rules by which they are prepared and which shall be adhered to during cooking. Nevertheless, I also realized during this workshop that the way I work is useful for me as well as for all those to whom I pass my knowledge because this is a valuable culinary heritage that is passed down from generation to generation.

Time, fashion, decoration and the way of serving may change, but the roots of which the dishes originate will never change and will always be a platform for further personal and professional development for me, as well as for all my fellow chefs.

Christmas Eve and Christmas are the peak of the Advent events, and in Dalmatia they are celebrated in a special, festive mood, with family and loved ones gathering around the Christmas tree and the table. Homes are decorated appropriately and meals prepared according to traditional recipes are served.

The menu on Christmas Eve, the day before Christmas, a Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, is characterized by fat-free meals and pastries. Traditional Dalmatian lunch on Christmas Eve in Dalmatia consists of fish, mostly cod, and potato doughnuts (fritule) are served for dessert. Of course, each house has its favourite, special recipe that is passed from one generation to other and never changes.

Pašike restaurant also likes preparing home-made, traditional food, and for this Advent we will present you our three autochthonous and traditional recipes to give you an inspiration for your lunch and/or dinner at Christmas Eve.

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Organizing various celebrations, anniversaries, jubilees, and national holidays, whether it is a private or business event, can be extremely stressful even when everything goes according to plan, but when something goes wrong, a celebration which should have become another beautiful memory in a moment turns into a nightmare and an event that you would like to forget as soon as possible. True, we can organize certain events such as small family gatherings of very close people, in our own space and using our own strengths, serving food that we know how to prepare and drinks we know our guests like. In fact, buying ingredients, cooking meals, baking cakes, serving a table, gathering a family and friends, all our beloved ones around the table, has its magic when we welcome our guest at little celebrations, especially during Christmas or Easter holidays.

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Winter time calls for traditional winter foods. Do not miss tasting pork specialties ranked at the very top of world’s gastronomy, such as čvarci (pork crisps), blood sausages, homemade sausages, aspic, brawn, sweet salenjaci (Croatian mini croissant) and various other meat dishes grilled or roasted on homemade fat.

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Dried cod is one of the rare delicacies that, thanks to many a resourceful sea man, found its way from the distant shorelines onto the Dalmatian table. It’s a dish that passed the test of time and became a traditional meal. Dried cod is served during the whole of Advent in Dalmatia, especially on Christmas Eve, but also on Good Friday before Easter. Actually, during all the fasting or meat free holydays.

Today, the best cod is considered to be the one coming from Norway. The Spaniards and the Portuguese were among the first to have dried and cooked it with the same amount of pleasure. There are many recipes for preparing cod, but our grandmothers did not experiment much, keeping to the proven cod recipes, especially popular among their children and grandchildren. It did not always come in abundance, and it wasn’t as available as it is today. Previously, cod intended for Christmas Eve had to be purchased months in advance, preserved in a cold place, soaked days before, and then finally, on the day of the holiday, the house would come to be filled with the delicious aroma. Weather it is cod brodetto, cod ”in bianco”, it is an indispensable dish on the holiday table, a plentiful meal complemented with potatoes and with widely appreciated quality homemade olive oil. Over the centuries we have also come to appreciate cod paté, cod Prtuguese, cod lasagne, and equally delicious cod with beans, as well as a variety of other more contemporary combinations featuring this precious produce with a rich and distinctive flavour and aroma.

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You want to lick your fingers! This is one of the most frequent comments we get from our guests when they taste some of the homemade, traditional “spoon” dishes from this region, made according to old family recipes with smoked meat (ribs, pancetta, pork hocks, kaštradina (smoked goat/sheep meat) etc.) with beans, lentils, chickpeas, sour cabbage, or borecole.

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We often hear the phrase “fragrances and flavours of Dalmatia”, and the large number of aromatic and medicinal herbs growing on Dalmatian slopes, during a record number of sunny days a year, truly do attest to the fact that it is not just a mere phrase or marketing fabrication. That and rare rainfall, as well as dry, rocky land, gives them the rich, strong and striking fragrance, flavour and healing powers.
We at the Pašike restaurant also live in harmony with nature and our surroundings, so it is something we have adapted our gastronomic offer to, complementing it with other spices traditionally already rooted in Dalmatian cuisine, but which originally do not belong to this region, such as pepper, nutmegs or cloves. The dishes made by our chef nonna Franka, carry all the fullness of flavour and fragrance of the indigenous Dalmatian herbs.
We have prepared a small guide for you to get acquainted with Dalmatian aromatic and medicinal herbs.

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It is commonly known that the food we eat greatly reflects on our good health and longevity. The Mediterranean diet, which includes the traditional Dalmatian cuisine, has proved to be the healthiest diet in Europe because – unlike a typical Western diet which contains a lot of saturated fats, sugars and refined grains – it is rich with fish, legumes, fruits and vegetables, and lots of monosaccharides such as olive oil. At the same time, it promotes a moderate to low intake of dairy and meat products. The benefits of the Mediterranean diet based on fish, fresh fruits and vegetables and a glass of wine a day are scientifically proven.
In Pašike restaurant, as one of the typical representatives of healthy, traditional, indigenous Dalmatian cuisine, we bring you a few healthy, Dalmatian ingredients that make up the base of Dalmatian cuisine.

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When we organize celebrations, whether it’s a family event or a business gathering, we are inevitably exposed to stress. We ask ourselves countless questions: will the guests be satisfied with food and drinks, will everything go according to plan, will there be enough of everything, will something unplanned happen, etc.?

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