Where to eat in Belgrade, the capital of ‘new Balkan’ cuisine

“We serve granny cuisine here,” says chef Stefan Živković, chuckling. His tall body is folded onto a tiny stool at his makeshift restaurant, Koordinata Street, in Belgrade’s historic Zemun farmers’ market. “You know how granny always wants to prepare something fresh and delicious to feed the family? This is what we do — the old-fashioned way.” Together with his wife, Sara, they plate seasonal dishes using ingredients from their garden.

Stefan’s and Sara’s mentality is straightforward: serve fresh food to hungry market-goers. If they’re short on their home-grown ingredients, they’ll source from Stefan’s mother’s farm. If by some chance they’re in need of something else, there’s the market. Nothing travels more than an hour-and-a-half, which is the journey Stefan and Sara make from their farmhouse in the gently rolling land near Novi Sad, north of Belgrade, to their restaurant every morning. And just about everything is prepared using old techniques. The two distil their own vinegar, churn their own butter and whip ice cream for desserts.

Stefan pours me a glass of Serbian Riesling and brings out some raw radishes glazed in olive oil and honey. They’re so crisp and sweet I find myself munching them down, peppery stalks and all. To follow, he offers sour fermented cabbage with smoked pork leg and a handmade milk cream, plus crunchy green beans topped with wild flowers. Next, it’s chicken livers, atop a homemade brioche with a plum and red wine jus. I delight in the fatty juices, sopping up every last drop. “We’re old souls,” says Sara. “We’re cooking quality food with simple ingredients.”

In recent years, this wholesome culinary approach has led Belgrade’s gastronomy. With newcomers shedding the city’s reputation for immodest portions of grilled meat and cheap alcohol, the city’s dynamic scene has planted it firmly onto the global food map. And much of this current culinary surge comes from legwork put in by chef Vanja Puskar.

Vanja is the godfather of what’s considered the ‘new Balkan cuisine’ movement. He describes it as a revival and reclamation of traditional ingredients and dishes from Serbia and the surrounding Balkan countries patchworked across the fringes of southeastern Europe. His newest restaurant, Dragoljub, is a homage to the city’s lifeblood: the kafana (pub), but with “a touch of sophistication”, he says when I meet him there. Vanja takes centuries-old kafana favourites — many completely removed from the region’s culinary consciousness — and resurrects them. On the menu are delicacies like veal testicles, which he serves with local wines and gut-punching šljivovica (plum brandy).

“This is the veal’s head,” says Vanja showing me some ragu. “We’ve cubed all parts — tongue, cheeks and brain — and stewed it with tripe.” Vanja reassures me that this is traditional Serbian cooking, the type of dish you’d find in a kafana a few hundred years ago. He’s prepared the ragu like a shepherd’s pie to “make it more approachable” and because “everybody likes the mash on the top”.

In case veal head proves too intimidating, Vanja also serves it as a pljeskavica, Serbia’s answer to the hamburger. He forms the patty out of fatty oxtail and melty đubek — a semi-hard provolone-like cheese — and serves it with raw onions and a dollop of kajmak (a lightly fermented Balkan dairy spread). I tuck in to the meal. The veal is surprisingly soft and tender, with a gelatinous texture and a mild, gamey flavour that pairs well with the buttery mash. As for the pljeskavica, it melts in my mouth. “Through food you communicate everything,’ says Vanja. “The values in your country, your relationship to the environment, our land, air, animals, everything.”

Vanja has been sharing this pride in the local gastronomy for over a decade at his restaurants, and it’s had such a reverberating impact across Belgrade that even the fine dining scene has taken notice. Previously, the city’s most expensive restaurants tended to hire international chefs that curated stereotypically sybaritic menus. Now, it’s younger, local chefs taking charge.

At Salon 1905, a crew of twentysomethings is creating haute renditions of familiar foods from their childhood. Chef Ivan Tasić’s philosophy is to create flavours that feel simultaneously deeply familiar and refreshingly new. He kicks off this approach on the restaurant’s tasting menu with a šopska, a salad found across the Balkans. Ivan’s version is less about the ingredients but rather reviving a memory of “the intense smell of onion, tomato, cucumber, water and cheese, which have been sitting on the table in the summer heat”. He creates a sauce from the salad juices and serves it alongside a tomato jam, cucumber compressed in lemon oil and a 40-month aged mountain goat’s cheese. It’s a tad fermented and funky while still retaining its essential freshness. I gulp it down in three bites.

As the meal progresses, I’m transported across Serbia. There are truffles from fabled Mount Kosmaj — the sculpture-topped peak that overlooks Belgrade from the south — and then it’s off to the vast plains of Banat for pan-fried quail with beetroot apple jam. A sausage roll with mint yoghurt is a nostalgic treat containing hare from the woodlands of the central Šumadija region, and wrapped in homemade brioche.

I continue my culinary exploration the following day as I amble towards Langouste, Serbia’s most hyped restaurant. I snake up and down alleyways where pastel Viennese mansions sit cheek-by-jowl with grey brutalist monuments. Grandiose cathedrals stand mere blocks from windowless bombed-out buildings that speak to the city’s not-so-distant past when it was scarred by the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s and early 2000s.

When I arrive at the moden, minimalist restaurant, I’m greeted by chef Marko Đerić, who’s brought Belgrade to unforeseen culinary heights. After cutting his teeth in three-Michelin-starred kitchens in Italy and Denmark, Marko returned to his hometown with a vision rooted in refining local produce into world-class gastronomy. This year, that vision culminated in Belgrade’s first ever Michelin star (an accolade also won by Fleur de Sel, in Vojvodina some 50 miles north).

The first dish is a trio: river trout with wild trout caviar and celeriac chips; a Japanese-style takoyaki (dumpling) with kajmak and bacon from prized Mangalitsa pigs; and steamed egg yolk with fermented radish. I’m floored by the balance of smoky, salty and spicy flavours. “My food is what I experienced my whole childhood,” Marko says. “Just a different interpretation.”

The wow-factor continues with the intense earthiness of a grilled mushroom risotto with smoky, semi-hard Balkan kashkaval cheese, Adriatic shrimp and coffee foam. Next is ‘the king of the rivers’, a dry-aged pikeperch that’s been poached in a fig leaf and cooked on the open flames of a yakitori grill. Marko says the dish is an ode to his grandfather and the flavours of the Danube. He follows this with barbecued lamb with smoked rosemary to evoke the flavours of the Serbian household.

The next morning, I meet Marko and his sous chef Ksenija Đokić at Kalenić farmers’ market. One of the oldest in the city, the market is a regular stop to scout for new ingredients. They fawn over young peas, wild garlic, dandelion greens and slender asparagus as inspiraton for tonight’s menu. We pop into a bakery for burek and yoghurt, then head to the butcher to sample pork rinds, hunks of pork floss and slices of spicy kulen pork sausage.

As we exit the market, Marko asks if I’d like a traditional Serbian coffee, and leads me to a nearby kafana to buy a round of šljivovica — an oft-standard boozy accompaniment to a morning dose of caffeine. “We really like hospitality,” reflects Marko. “We’re proud as people, and our country has gone through difficult periods. We feel that pressure when we’re trying to represent Serbia’s gastronomy. We want people to understand where we come from and where we want to go.”

Four more restaurants to try

1. Mala Zvezdara
Wood-burning grills perfume this enchanting kafana. Slow-cooked dishes like veal under sač (a lidded pan cooked over embers) and mućkalika, a stew of barbecued meat and vegetables, are musts. The grilled veal liver is a house speciality, as are homemade breads, kajmak and velvety cakes. Arrive early as food sells out quickly. Three courses including wine from 4,000 RSD (£30) per person.

2. Koordinata Beograd
In spring 2025, Zemun Market’s adored food stall Koordinata Street opened this fully fledged restaurant in Hotel Beograd. Owners Stefan and Sara Živković translate their farm-to-table philosophy into imaginative dishes like beef tongue with oyster mushrooms and egg yolk, while veggie plates such as young carrots with peas sing of simple pleasures. Tasting menu with wine pairing from 10,700 RSD (£80) per person.

3. Trpković Bakery
The queue for this family-run bakery snakes onto the pavement at all hours. Seating is hard to come by, so lean against the counter top and scarf down one of the beloved burek — a crunchy, flaky pastry stuffed with cheese or pork. Or opt for a sweet treat like the vanilla cookies with apricot jam or a huge poppy seed roll. From 342 RSD (£2.50) for a burek.

4. Cirino Drvce
It’s impossible to visit Serbia without devouring a mountainous, meaty sandwich. Open 24/7, this popular hole-in-the-wall serves some of the best charcoal-grilled meats in the city, such as juicy, smoky pljeskavica (burgers) and ćevapi (sausages), made with free-range bull meat, alongside salad and onions. Sandwiches from 500 RSD (£4).