Tips for the Best Food on Your Travels. Eat Like a Local!
I write food guides about places I've actually visited and dishes I've tried myself.
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I believe my food guides will help you discover the very best of the local food scene. Don't be afraid to try new dishes. You'll love the local specialties!
Bon appétit on your travels!
Latest to Taste
Tavče Gravče: North Macedonia's National Baked Bean Dish
Tavče gravče are large white beans baked with onion, paprika and dried mint in a shallow clay dish - the same dish they're served in. North Macedonia's national dish is traditionally cooked on Fridays, with meat added outside of fasting periods. The best version is said to use Tetovo beans, which are slowly disappearing from Macedonian fields. I had to eat my way to liking it.
Pastrmajlija: Macedonian Flatbread with Meat
Pastrmajlija is a Macedonian flatbread of leavened dough with raised edges, baked with cubes of meat cured in salt and red pepper. It comes from the east of the country, from Štip and Veles, where it used to be a winter dish after the pig slaughter; today every bakery makes it. It got its name from dried mutton, but the meat on it has long been fresh pork.
Ajvar: Roasted Red Pepper Spread
In autumn, almost every family in North Macedonia and across the whole former Yugoslavia cooks ajvar: the roasted peppers are peeled, ground and stirred in oil for hours until they thicken. The name comes from the Turkish word for caviar, Serbs and Macedonians argue over who invented it, and in a Macedonian restaurant it's the first thing to reach the table, to go with bread, cheese and grilled meat.
Burek: The Breakfast You Find All Over the Balkans
Burek belongs to the whole former Ottoman world, from Turkey across the Balkans to Tunisia, and in every country it has a different name and different rules about what can go inside. In North Macedonia it's breakfast: a huge round tray of layered pastry with meat or cheese, cut into quarters, with a cup of yogurt on the side. Why Albania hands it to you and Skopje puts it on a plate, and what Sarajevo and Niš keep arguing about.
Kebapi: Balkan Grilled Ground Meat Rolls
Kebapi are short rolls of twice-ground meat grilled straight on the coals, a dish North Macedonia shares with the whole Balkans, from Bosnia to Albania. They're ordered by the ten, served with raw onion, lepinja flatbread and ajvar or pindžur. Why they're not a skewered kebab, how they differ from Serbian ćevapi, and why they sometimes end up on tavče gravče.
Šarska Pleskavica: Macedonian Pleskavica Stuffed with Cheese
Šarska pleskavica is a large grilled patty of ground beef and pork with a slice of kaškaval sealed inside before grilling. It's named after the Šar Mountains in the northwest of North Macedonia, even though šarsko cheese never actually goes into it. At Skopje's grill houses it's a staple alongside kebapi, served on a plate with fries or tucked into lepinja.
Selsko Meso: Macedonian Meat with Mushrooms from a Clay Dish
Selsko meso is a Macedonian dish baked in clay: cubes of meat, most often pork, browned with onion and mushrooms and then slowly stewed in the oven until the juices thicken into a sauce. The name simply means "village meat" and, unlike the names of the neighboring tava dishes, it isn't Turkish at all. It's cooked all over the country, and they make it in Serbia and Bosnia as well - where even there it's called Macedonian.
Turli Tava: The Macedonian Baked Mix of Meat and Vegetables
Meat bakes for two hours in a clay dish together with whatever has just ripened in the Macedonian summer - eggplant, peppers, okra, potatoes and often rice as well - and turli tava then arrives at the table in that same dish. The name comes from Ottoman Turkish and literally means "mixed pan"; relatives turn up all over the southern Balkans, from Turkish türlü to Bulgarian gjuveč - but only the Macedonians cook it under this name, with meat, in a clay dish. In North Macedonia it belongs to summer, to home kitchens and to gostilnicas alike.
Makedonska Salata: A Cold Salad of Roasted Peppers and Tomatoes
Makedonska salata is a cold salad of roasted, peeled peppers, raw tomato, onion, and parsley, dressed with oil - and it's the missing cheese that sets it apart from shopska. Peppers get roasted all over the Balkans, but only North Macedonia has a name of its own for this salad. In a kafana it comes with rakija as meze; alongside grilled meat it turns up as a cold side.
Teleški Džiger: Veal Liver off the Macedonian Grill
Teleški džiger is veal liver, grilled in thick slices over charcoal and piled with parsley and garlic - a fixture on every kebapčilnica menu in North Macedonia, right next to kebapi. It's a dish shared across the whole former Ottoman world, with every country grilling it its own way; the Macedonian version is the simplest of them all.