Zadar restaurant guide

Increasingly a local favourite when it comes to traditional Adriatic fare with a contemporary twist, Pet Bunara has a reputation for digging out old recipes, sourcing local ingredients and giving them a new lease of life. Typical starters include orzotto (like a risotto but made with barley), house ravioli with scampi and figs, and a black squid stew with chick peas. Signiature mains include steak with figs, or fish fillets with orange and chickpea puree. They also do some of the best pizzas in the city. The desserts, which again make full use of Dalmatian ingredients such as carob, quince and fig, are excellent.

Reasonable candidate for best restaurant in town. By the ferry port adjacent to the Q bar, the Kornat is classy enough to have a cloakroom, refined enough to have a superb selection of Croatian wines but relaxed enough to avoid giving a stuffy, formal dining experience. The bottles are on display around a bright, modern interior, its 20 tables ably manned by equally bright, fluent-English staff. Although prices are much as elsewhere in the town centre, the ingredients are not: truffles are used in sauces to garnish the stand-out monkfish, dry porcini mushrooms to help flavour the steak. Specialities include black risotto, angler fish and the chocolate cake. The set lunches (choose between a meat or fish main course) are a steal at 60kn.

A restyled minimalist interior, with a glass-encased, stainless-steel kitchen and wood-fired pizza oven, provides modernity and increased capacity for Dva Ribara – and there’s a new, wider ranging menu. This establishment is firmly downtown, adjacent to the bar quarter of Stomorica. The menu includes pretty much everything in the traditional Dalmatian cook-book and maintains consistently high standards, although it’s the good-value pizzas that bring in most in the way of local trade.

This loveliest restaurant terrace in Zadar overlooks the sunset on Maestral Bay, a 15-minute walk from town. Inside is a wonderfully cosy café-restaurant, the decor more modern than the traditional, neat waitstaff would suggest. Lungo Mare is equally appreciated for its fresh seafood and meat dishes, such as the house fish plate or pork fillet, stuffed with scampi, cheese or pršut and mushrooms. Prices represent excellent value, while the wine list runs into three figures and includes a few French and Italian names among the classic Croatian ones. Don’t leave without trying the house cheesecake.

This well established fish restaurant stands just outside the city walls in a recently-renovated stone building at the Foša harbour. While the interior is all clean lines, natural woods and pale colours, the outdoor terrace offers an altogether traditional (and rather delightful) panorama of moored boats and distant islands. All the standard white fish and shellfish are served, either with traditional local green blitva and potatoes, or as part of a seafood risotto or pasta dish. There’s also a range of carpaccio dishes, including raw monkfish on a bed of rocket. Other dishes include stewed lobster with polenta, cuttlefish brodet and grilled pork with lentils. Prices are a notch above average, unless you opt for one of the three-course set menus, which deliver soup, fillet of fish and a dessert for a very reasonable 120-150kn.

A stone’s throw from main street Kalelarga, Croatian Master Chef judge Mate Janković serves up fresh local ingredients in small delicious dishes; the wine selection is impressive and can be ordered by the glass. Decorated tastefully in a modern style that respects the building’s age, it also has a small terrace shaped like a wooden boat in two halves. After nightfall, Atrij becomes an intimate jazz bar with the odd soul performance.

A local favourite that overlooks the marina Konoba Rafaelo is a good, old Dalmatian affair - fish, seafood, grilled meats... all delivered in generous portions and washed down with local wines. Book ahead in high season - the decent food and fair prices mean it's often full.

One of the first restaurants to be privatised in former Yugoslavia back in 1963, Niko is not too pretty from the outside, but houses one of the most popular kitchens in Zadar, almost an institution. Set near Marina Borik on Puntamika’s southernmost headland, Niko contains both a small hotel and a proud restaurant with an extensive choice of wine. Fresh fish arrives daily and is then prepared with carefully selected olive oil over a wood-fire grill. Regulars tend to favour the green tagliatelle with scampi and the tiramisu. A spacious terrace looks out towards the Puntamika yachting marina.

Solid, unpretentious and good-value pizzeria, with a simple terrace, hidden off main thoroughfares near the Hotel Bastion. Said to be the oldest pizzeria in Zadar, it is also one of the few places in the old town to get a real pizza (as opposed to the awful fast-food sliced version).

A relatively recent addition to the Old-Town dining scene, Bruschetta offers brisk, informal but good-quality dining in a crisply-furnished, glass-fronted space. It’s hugely popular with local lunchers, eating their way through the pizza and pasta section of the menu, although there is a good deal of traditional Dalmatian seafood on offer too. The off-season marende (set lunches) are a real treat at 55-60kn.