Gastronomic Cousins Oregon and Slovenia (Who Knew?)

As I traveled through Slovenia’s vineyard-laced hills I felt its kinship with my home, Oregon, a similarity I did not expect.

At Restaurant Grič, in Šentjošt nad Horjulom, they grow wasabi on their own farm. Tillamook County, Oregon, has a wasabi farm too: Oregon Coast Wasabi. In Slovenia, I hunted truffles with Matjaž Beznik and his brown Labrador, Erik; outside McMinnville, Oregon, my wife and I followed Ava, the First Nature Tours truffle huntress, and her dog Joey through Oregon’s Douglas firs, stalking the same gems. Restaurant Grič transformed these truffles into culinary splendor and so did Allora Winery in Sherwood, Oregon.

On the Adriatic, I toured Fonda Fish Farm and later dined on their sea bass; in Netarts Bay, Oregon, my wife and I visited JAndy Oyster Company on the Oregon Coast and stood on Todd Perman’s oyster beds before slurping those same briny morsels in Tillamook at his tide-to-table restaurant.

In Piran, I tasted olives grown at Gramona’s orchards under a Mediterranean sun. In Dayton, Oregon, Durant Olive Mill at Durant at Red Ridge Farms offers tastings of fresh olive oil from olives grown under the Willamette Valley sun.

Slovenia surprised me not because it felt foreign, but because it felt familiar, a place, like Oregon, where small producers matter and a meal is inseparable from the soil and sea that made it.

Ljubljana, Slovenia’s Capital

At Ljubljana’s cobbled Central Open Air Market, I engaged with a mound of cabbages, round on one end, conical on the other, cabbages for Coneheads. Others were suspiciously similar to Audrey II, the carnivorous plant in Little Shop of Horrors. Sauerkraut almost overflowed a large tub. There were different chicories, some with white and purple stripes like psychedelic sea fans. At least one of them, I learned, was not for salads but risottos. Wild asparagus, hardly thicker than string, was tied in bunches. “You can pick them everywhere,” I was told. I found one winding its way up a fence, ate it raw, loved its intensity.

From my base, the sleek Occidental Hotel, the market was a short walk, along the languorous Ljubljanica River lined with restaurants and souvenir shops (where I purchased a jar of local chestnut honey redolent of brooding forest). I passed an excavation revealing a Roman wall.

For my introduction to traditional, rustic Slovenian cuisine, I claimed a table at Slovenska Hiša-Figovec, downtown. I had a plank of different local hams, successive shades of pink on a color wheel. Their primary garnish was grated horseradish, sweeter, milder than the American kind. The menu was cabbage-rich.

Truffling and a Truffle Lunch

Slovenian cuisine, like its people—Croatia, Hungary, Italy and Austria border the country—is polyglot.

At Michelin-recommended Aftr, I ate shockingly delicious house-made mortadella from wild boar, oinkier than any other I’ve ever eaten, and crisp octopus over Israeli couscous with dandelion greens in a Hollandaise flavored by burnt cabbage. I had my first Slovenian wine, a winsome white Malvazija, not to be confused with Italian Malvasia.

I hunted truffles 60 miles south with Matjaz Beznik (founder of Mati-Truffle) and Erik (his brown Labrador) who bounded, rolled, nuzzled, woofed and sniffed them out. It segued into a truffle lunch at nearby Grič, in the town of Šentjošt nad Horjulom, a family-owned Michelin one-star. Their salt-lined basement consisted of drying rooms for not only beef (from dairy-cows that have lived out their lives) but venison, ducks, bonito, bluefin, prosciuttos and more. They make their own soy sauce, kombuchas and miso. They make their own cured sausages including trout salami. They have seven different gardens, one just for wasabi.

Lunch included what looked at first like cherries, but, in fact, were spheres of truffled duck foie-gras pâté with mint stems, alongside onion marmalade. I drank a numinous Pinela white, new to me, light-bodied with notes of jasmine and almond. Were it available in the states, this would be my go-to table wine. Next, black trumpet cream topped by semi-dried beets compounded with beet juice, preserved sour cherry, violets, truffle, dandelion greens and crisped quinoa, so every bite had a delectable crunch. Then dry-aged dairy-cow filet mignon with seared radicchio, in beef jus with fig vinegar, thatched with summer truffles. Dessert: truffle ice cream, tarragon cream, fig-leaf oil and fresh black Périgord truffle. I was dumbstruck.

A Vinous Hike

I hiked Slovenia’s Vipava Valley, a Shire-like quilt of nature. There were scattered masonry homes, all with red ceramic roofs held down with stones against the wind, and a few older wooden homes ideal for fairytale witches. There were churches, shrines, lambs gamboling, vineyards, wildflowers, meadows, lavender fields, birdsong and bee boxes. I stopped mid-hike at a vineyard hut for wine from Vino Marc, along with house-made charcuterie and bold local cheeses. With their wines, they served an ambrosial Slovenian thirst-quencher, sweetened water flavored with freshly-picked elderflower petals.

Michelin Mojo

Ksenija Mahorcic, head chef of family-owned Gostilna Mahorcic (a Michelin Bib Gourmand) makes many of her restaurant’s ceramics. She taught a ceramics class which confirmed that my talent lies elsewhere. Her meal was a fusillade of exquisitely plated, breathtaking dishes, notably a starter of pristine raw salmon rolled with dried nettle with horseradish sauce, herb oil and apple gelée pearls; beef tartar in pumpkin seed oil moss with porcini butter (molded in the shape of a porcini mushroom); veal in celeriac puree, a parfait of passionfruit cream, crunchy roasted hazelnuts, tarragon ice cream, yogurt foam, elderflower pollen. Many of the dishes were garnished with delicate, edible tiaras baked in silicone molds.

A Fish Farm and an Olive Farm

In Piran, on the Adriatic Sea, famous for its sea salt, I visited family-owned Fonda Fish Farm, which raises sea bream, sea bass and mussels.

“We want our fish to be happy,” said Irena Fonda, microbiologist co-owner. Her company focuses on raising fish without environmental harm. I toured by boat, then ate a meal prepared by chef Tomaz Bevcic of Michelin recommended Rizibizi Restaurant, a self-effacing wunderkind. I started with a carpaccio of sea bass in lemongrass foam. Next, homemade bucatini cooked in sea bass broth, dolloped with raw local shrimp, anointed with lime juice, lime zest, and a little local cheese. Finally, almond semifreddo, with crushed, crunchy almond and almond cream.

At Gramona, Simply Natural, a small family-owned (of course) olive producer, I particularly liked oil from olives crushed with either whole lemons or oranges to imbue their flavor. I tasted in a garden under an arbor overlooking the scenic Secovlje Salt Pans where sea water evaporates into salt. This is a place to stoke smoldering embers of romance. I purchased many of their wares to carry the flame home.

Grape forward. Chef forward. Cabbage forward. Horseradish forward. Chicory forward. Truffle forward. Family forward. Slovenia bangs the drum, just as loudly and with as much momentum as Oregon.

4 Oregon Producers and Foragers to Know

Oregon Coast Wasabi thewasabistore.com

First Nature Tours firstnaturetours.com

JAndy Oyster Company jandyoyster.com

Durant Olive Mill durantoregon.com