Janez Bratovž, aka JB, founded his eponymous, Michelin-recommended restaurant at a time when nouvelle cuisine was unknown in Yugoslavia. He learned his trade in Austria and introduced specialties like carpaccio and foams to a land of hearty but simple dishes.
He’s been described as the godfather of fine dining in this part of the world and while Ana Roš is the highest profile Slovenian chef, her flagship restaurant is in a rural area near the Italian border, and JB has led the way here in the capital for decades. JB develops sophisticated dishes based on the best local ingredients he can find, many of them indigenous: from trdinka (a red corn varietal) to blackstrap pigs (considered to have the best fat of any breed), from pumpkinseed oil (of around 800 varietals of pumpkin only this one, styriaca, yields delicious oil when cold pressed, and it’s native to Slovenia) to Soča River trout (the world’s largest and considered to have the tastiest flesh).
While he’s cooked for Pope Francis and Ferran Adrià, he is technically retired, though he’s still in the kitchen most days. His son, Tomaz, has taken over the kitchen while his daughter, Nina, is sommelier, and his wife, Ema, manages the restaurant—it’s truly a family affair. The food is soulful, sophisticated, and personal. Take, for example, one of JB’s famous dishes, which simply consists of a fresh egg cooked at the table by pouring pork cracklings over it.
This is JB’s Proustian moment—he grew up so poor that a big treat was a single fried egg that his grandmother would make him once a week. But the must-try is his signature dish: ravioli with foie gras, pistachio, and chestnut foam and veal jus. And in case you were wondering, the restaurant is in a building designed by none other than Slovenia’s most famous architect, Joze Plečnik, as the headquarters of Triglav Insurance Company.
