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[title]Right alongside Dubrovnik Cathedral with its glittering treasury, Bura Bistro & Bar is the latest top spot in the historic Old Town for sensational seasonal food, innovative wines and quality cocktails. Named after local Adriatic wind – hence the NE compass logo used for branding – Bura is overseen and co-owned by professional sommelier Marin, who has travelled the globe inspired by good food.
Here, what’s on your plate and what’s in your glass are given equal emphasis. A few steps from the city’s main market on Gundulićeva poljana, Bura Bistro & Bar strongly believes in seasonality. Its concise menu changes throughout the year, underscored by the long-standing relationship Marin and his team have developed with local farmers and producers. The daily catch is just that, fresh fish and seafood arriving every morning from the Adriatic lapping close by.
Now that it’s summer, especially, tapas-style dishes come into their own, and at Bura Bistro & Bar, they lean towards a South-American approach to their gourmet street food. The current stand-out option is ceviche, which many have heard of but few know of its composition. Thought of as raw fish in citrus juices from Peru, here, thanks to Marin’s authentic expertise, the chef applies a particular technique to bring out all the flavours. The shrimp and swordfish are provided with an orange emulsion with green chili, topped with fermented fennel and shallots. This means a refreshing, zingy and healthy start to your meal, best taken on the extensive terrace beneath the welcome shade of a huge, communal umbrella.
Carnivores, fish-lovers and vegetarians should all find something to their liking on the select menu of main-course options, the desserts Mediterranean in style, with usually two options for little ones. For the grown-ups, braised lamb with gnocchi, wok-prepared mussels with fresh fennel, and beetroot-and-celery risotto might all be suitable options.
The wine list is unsurprisingly well-chosen, given Marin’s profession. Sold by the glass in four different varieties including rosé and sparkling, wine can also be bought by the bottle at equally reasonable prices, with a handful of choices of each colour of uniformly domestic provenance. Bura Bistro & Bar is a great promoter of organic wines – they’ve also been known to hold wine tastings of three or five variations, with free bites – and, more unusually, orange wines. Nothing to do with the aforementioned citrus fruit, these are types of white wine produced by leaving the grape skins and seeds in contact with the juice, so that it results in a deep orange-tinted finish. The fermenting grapes can be left alone with the skins and seeds for several weeks, even months, to complete this natural process, with little to no additives. This gives them a slightly sour taste, distinctive from regular white wine.
It's a practice that dates back centuries, particularly around Slovenia and north-eastern Italy, before being adopted around the Adriatic region. Popular until the era of mass tourism in the 1960s, orange wines, also known as skin-contact white wines, have come back into fashion ever since renowned British wine importer David A Harvey of Edinburgh’s reputed Raeburn Fine Wines coined their colourful epithet in 2004.
Cocktails are another speciality at Bura Bistro & Bar, again the selection changing seasonally, this summer’s being long, refreshing and ideally suited to sipping slowly as you watch Dubrovnik go by. Note the use of fresh fennel in the Elder Fennel Fizz. Adding to the whole experience are live jazz sessions every evening.
With breakfast served from 10am, lunchtimes busy and evenings given over to music and quality sipping, it’s going to be a bumper summer at Bura Bistro & Bar – ideally located for sightseers streaming out of Dubrovnik Cathedral. Its style in keeping with the aesthetics of Roman Baroque architecture, the Cathedral was built on the site of several previous ones, including 7th, 10th, and 11th-century buildings, and their 12th-century successor in the Romanesque style. The money to build the basilica was partially contributed by Richard the Lionheart, as a votive for having survived a shipwreck near the island of Lokrum in 1192 on his return from the Third Crusade.
This article was produced in partnership with Bura Bistro & Bar.