What to Eat in Iași
Iași (also spelled Iasi) is the capital of the Romanian part of the Moldavia region and the former capital of the Principality of Moldavia. Moldavian cooking is considered the most delicate in the country - it leans on poultry, cheese and stuffed pastries - and Iași is the best place to discover it.
Iași and the First Romanian Cookbook
Iași holds a special place in the history of Romanian food: the first cookbook written in Romanian came out here in 1841, a collection called "200 Proven Recipes" by the writers Costache Negruzzi and Mihail Kogălniceanu, later a prime minister of Romania. It was a cookbook for noble households - most of the recipes were Moldavian takes on Parisian and Viennese originals. Just outside the city lies the famous Cotnari wine region, where vineyards are documented as far back as the 13th century and the Moldavian prince Stephen the Great made the wines famous.
What to Eat in Iași
- Tochitură moldovenească. Pork stewed with bacon and served with mămăligă, grated cheese and a fried egg. It takes its name from Moldavia, the region Iași is the capital of, and you won't find a local restaurant menu without it.
- Zeamă. Chicken soup with homemade noodles and fresh parsley, soured with borș, a fermented liquid. The most typical soup in Moldavian homes, and locals swear by it.
- Pârjoale moldovenești. Juicy ground meat patties rolled in breadcrumbs, then baked or fried. The name says Moldavian, and that is exactly where they come from.
- Poale-n brâu. Yeasted buns filled with sweet curd cheese; the name translates as "skirts tucked into the belt", from the way the dough is folded over the filling. A Moldavian specialty that every bakery in Iași sells.
- Plăcintă. A filled pie with cheese, potato or apple. It's baked all over Romania, but the Moldavian version made with yeasted dough is regarded as the original - in Iași you buy it at the markets and in bakeries.
- Alivanca. A baked cake of cornmeal, sweet curd cheese and cream. A Moldavian dessert you'll hardly find outside the region.
- Wine from the Cotnari region. The Cotnari winery, based in the village of the same name in Iași County, is one of the five largest in the country, and it made its name with a sweet white wine from the grasă de Cotnari grape. I brought its sparkling tămâioasă românească home with me.
- … and if you want more, there are dozens of other Romanian dishes on the list: What to Eat in Romania.
Where to Eat in Iași
- Beraria Veche. A restaurant with a wide range of traditional Romanian dishes, generous portions and a pleasant summer garden. This is where I first tried grilled mici, and I kept coming back. The staff speak English.
- Restaurant Rustic. A hotel restaurant on the edge of town that cooks traditional Moldavian food in a modern way and plates it elegantly. I recommend the smoked ribs with country potatoes and papanași for dessert. Worth the drive or the taxi fare, no question.
- Ciorbărie. A place in the center that does nothing but Romanian ciorbă soups. The perfect spot for a first taste of Moldavian soups.
- Alexandru cel Bun Market. A market hall for locals, with vegetables, herbs, cheeses and pickled vegetables. I'd never seen whole heads of cabbage pickled for sarmale before. Take cash, the stalls don't do cards.
- Petru. A bakery chain with branches all over the city, where I most often treated myself to covrigi pretzels - savory ones with poppy seeds, and others filled with plum butter or sour cherry jam.
- Covrigi Calzi Miki. A famous bakery the size of a newsstand - through the glass you watch the covrigi come straight out of the oven. Buy them while they're still warm, that's when they're best.
Apart from the market, I paid by card everywhere with no trouble at all.
Iași is no tourist town, and that is exactly why it is such an easy place to eat your way into Romanian food - the prices are aimed at locals, and so is the food.
Enjoy eating your way around Iași!
Restaurant Rustic: Romanian Classics with a Modern Twist on the Edge of Iași
Restaurant Rustic on the edge of Iași cooks traditional Romanian dishes the old way and serves them with a lightness its peasant name never promises. The hotel restaurant is worth the detour out to the edge of town. A piece about cauldron ribs, the first Romanian cookbook from 1841, and why it is better to give the taxi driver the name of the Bellaria hotel than the one on the sign.
Papanași: A Romanian Dessert of Curd Cheese, Sour Cream and Jam
Papanași are fried doughnuts made of curd cheese dough, a ring with a little ball on top drowned in sour cream and jam - the only Romanian dessert in the ranking of the hundred best in the world. I'll explain why they aren't doughnuts, what they share with the curd dumplings from a Czech school canteen and what they tasted like at Restaurant Rustic in Iași.
Ciorbă: Romanian Sour Soups
Ciorbă is the umbrella name for the sour soups of Romanian cooking, thick and so filling that with a slice of bread they stand in for a whole lunch. Romanian sorts them out from unsoured supă by one thing alone: sourness, which comes from lemon, sauerkraut brine or the fermented bran water called borș. I tasted four of them: the rădăuțeană from 1982, the rooster ciorbă de cocoș, the tripe one and the meatball one under a layer of lovage.
Mici: Romanian Grilled Ground Meat Rolls
Mici, in Romanian also mititei, are rolls of seasoned ground meat with no casing, grilled over charcoal and served with mustard and bread. They are the most widespread dish in Romanian cuisine: on May 1 Romanians get through an estimated thirty million of them. No one has ever found any evidence for the legend of the innkeeper who ran out of casings, while a recipe from 1920 expressly forbade pork.
Alexandru cel Bun Market, Iași: A Market Hall for Locals
Alexandru cel Bun Market is the largest market in Iași - a hectare of stalls in a residential district where locals come to shop and tourists don't. It was there that I first saw whole heads of cabbage fermented for sarmale, barrels of pickled cucumbers, horseradish sold by the kilo and freshly shelled walnuts. The market's name goes back to a charter from 1408, the oldest mention of Iași there is.
Covrigi: Romanian Pretzels
Covrigi are Romanian pretzels: rings of leavened dough scattered with poppy seeds, sesame or salt, sold from bakery windows all over the country and eaten while they are still warm, ideally with kefir. Romania borrowed the name from a Bulgarian loaf, and the most famous thin rings come from Buzău. In Iași you buy them from the windows of the Petru chain and from Calzi Miki, a bakery the size of a newsstand.
Beraria Veche: A Beer House with Pans Full of Meat in Iași
Beraria Veche carries the name of a famous Iași brewery that no longer stands - and yet the restaurant itself only opened in 2012. The beer house on Sărărie street cooks Romanian classics from ciorbă to mici, and its heartiest item is a pan of meat that feeds two. And the translation of the name, the Old Brewery, is wrong and right at the same time.