Heretofore, I’ve written a couple of posts about the Croatian island of Pag, its cheese, and its sheep. In one of those posts, I mentioned the Boškinac hotel-vineyard-restaurant, “the best place to stay on the island,” where “the hotel serves a fantastic breakfast – dare I say, perhaps the best I’ve ever had,” and “the chef followed what seems to be a classic path among ambitious Croatian professionals, taking internships at Michelin-starred establishments in Western Europe off-season, and coming back home in the summer to put his new experience into practice and refine his personal style.”
My first visit to Boškinac was during the summer of 2017. Since then, the chef Matija Bregeš has continued his culinary journey, and in 2020 he received his first Michelin star. As I toured Croatia again last summer, in preparation for Bon App & Tito, I knew I had to return to enjoy his latest creations on the hotel’s idyllic terrace by the vineyards and olive trees.
“My goal is to give every guest a taste of Pag—its land, sea, and history—through unexpected combinations and the beauty of simplicity,” says Bregeš, and to that effect, he offers two tasting menus (“Essence of the Island” and “Seasonal Harmony”) equally inspired by local products.
Today, we’ll explore “Essence of the Island”: eight courses bookended by generous selections of amuse-bouches and mignardises. To the table!
The amuse-bouches arrive in several waves, starting with a gin sphere from the island of Pag, and a terrine of local potatoes topped with crème fraîche and caviar. The gin sphere is like a cocktail in a bubble: a blend of gin and something lemony is trapped inside an alginate shell and sprinkled with herbs. Is the gin in question the winery’s travarica, a distillate of wine macerated with six different botanicals, including fennel, heather, and peppermint? It’s possible, but I didn’t ask. Regardless, this excellent concoction is a great idea to kick off the meal. The potato bite (fried, it seems) with herb cream and caviar is more classic, but who doesn’t like this combo?
The next wave consists of a green tartlet with panna cota and barley, and a profiterole stuffed with an almond and olive oil emulsion, topped with pickled apple, sardine, and parsley emulsion. The tartlet blends several green vegetables into a sweet and acidic mixture. The profiterole, however, is a bit overpowered by the pickled apple and the sardine.
Finally, the beautiful latticed mutton cracker, presumably made from a dough laced with animal fat, sandwiches a thin patty of meaty, salty mutton, and a green vegetable disc. Green peas and mutton powder decorate the top.
Through all these amuse-bouches, we already have a taste of several essential flavors of the island: the herbs, the olive oil, the almonds, the lamb, the salt, the seafood…
The first actual course of the menu, the langoustine and sea urchin, may seem simple at first. A fleshy langoustine tail (from the Velebit Channel that separates Pag from the mainland) rests on a line of green purée, topped with cubes of uni mousse, drops of lemon curd, and beads of dashi. On a separate plate, we’re presented with langoustine heads filled with dehydrated sheep’s milk whey, which we’re supposed to sprinkle on top of the tail meat. And this all works really well: the uni magnifies the taste of the langoustine, the lemon adds a touch of freshness, and the dehydrated whey has a subtle taste of slightly caramelized milk, while adding texture at the same time. Delicious!
The saur consists of marinated whitefish with bottarga, green apple, and caper jam, hidden under a cloud of very light vinegar foam. The fish in itself doesn’t have a very pronounced flavor, and I taste mostly the apple. There’s also something crunchy under the foam. I won’t be mentioning the wine pairing very often, but this particular course pairs perfectly with the 2019 Alsace Gewurztraminer from Famille Hugel. Another very good dish.
Drita’s Garden is a dish revolving around celery from the local organic garden, complemented by seasonal vegetables in different forms – dehydrated, fresh, and pickled. At the bottom of the plate, an excellent consommé is prepared out of fresh celery root, celery leaves, dehydrated celery root, and a fourth celery ingredient whose name I didn’t catch. Like an island in the middle of the consommé, a slice of celery root hosts a miniature garden of vegetables in various textures. Very well executed.
A plate of bread and “butter” arrives in the middle of the meal, maybe as an interlude between the appetizer-like courses and the dishes more akin to mains. We are offered three kinds of “butters” with a roll of sourdough bread: one actual butter flavored with pine needles (formed into a speckled beige sheet directly on the plate), a “butter” made from lamb fat (shaped into a leaf), and a sort of dark-amber colored one (at the base of the leaf) that reminds me of brown butter with salt. While all are tasty, the presentation is a bit gimmicky.
The mussels make for another very pretty dish. Mussels, yellow and green baby zucchini, fish cracklings, kohlrabi, and trout roe all float in a delicious buttermilk sauce with fig leaf, poured tableside. I enjoy the very rich sauce that’s like the Croatian equivalent of a beurre blanc, and the wide variety of textures, from the crunch of the kohlrabi to the pop of the trout roe.
The dried octopus and fava beans are a specialty of the island, served with sea snails, shavings of cured egg yolk, and skuta gnudi. The gnudi are similar to gnocchi but made mostly with cheese (the ricotta-like skuta). The octopus isn’t very prominent, but together with the sea snails, it brings a very pleasant briny taste to the whole. There’s a lot of texture contrast, though I find that the fava beans and gnudi produce a bit of a cottony mouthfeel.
Inspired by traditional crni rižot, the baby cuttlefish and potato “risotto” replaces the rice with potatoes cooked in a way that suggests a risotto al dente, slightly crunchy. The skewer on top is a grilled baby squid brushed with cuttlefish sauce – briny, extremely tender, delicious. A marbleized gel covers the top of the potato risotto. (The menu refers to this as a “cuttlefish brought film” but I couldn’t tell you what this means.) Underneath, the ink sauce itself is thick and plentiful. Another great dish.
The meat course features (obviously!) Pag lamb, in the form of a small Wellington. Puff pastry encases a section of lamb loin with salty anchovies and leek cream. The pastry is carved and dressed tableside (with a bread sauce) by chef Bregeš himself. This nice dish suffers from two small problems: a sauce on the salty side, and – as always with Wellington –pastry layers squashed by the weight of the meat. (I’ve proposed my own solution to this problem here, and now I find myself wondering if one could bake the puff pastry around a heat-resistant cylinder first, then insert the cooked meat at the end and serve the Wellington vertically… but I digress.)
The pre-dessert revolves around four ingredients: red beet (subtle enough that it’s not too bitter), strawberry, Boškinac sparkling wine, and green apple. On a bed of strawberry and beet granita rests a log of sparkling wine mousse filled with green apple purée, topped with strawberry, beet, and green apple gels, and tiny mint leaves. The refreshing dish perfectly serves its purpose as a palate cleanser.
The olives and apricot dessert consists of olive oil biscuit, apricot mousse, Kalamata olive cream, and white chocolate. The apricot-Kalamata olive pairing is another surprise hit.
We barely have any room left for the wonderful chocolate mignardises that close the meal: white chocolate with carrot and orange; white chocolate and prošek (from the winery); dark chocolate and lamb cracklings; dark chocolate and coffee.
All in all, Matija Bregeš serves a pretty flawless dinner with several indelible dishes – no small feat for an eight-course menu. I hold fond memories of the gin sphere, the lamb cracker, the langoustine, the mussels, the cuttlefish and potato “risotto,” and the apricot-olive dessert. From the amuse-bouches to the chocolates, the chef delivers a rare combination of perfect execution, interesting pairings, and dishes with a regional identity that still manage to surprise. The sommelier’s wine pairing also features some excellent wines. At 178 euros, (plus a super reasonable 64 euros for Boškinac wines or 88 euros for the sommelier pairing), this is an experience not to be missed. I hope to return someday for a third meal. And in the meantime, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear soon that the restaurant has earned a second Michelin star!
And in case anyone was wondering? Yes, Boškinac still serves the best breakfast I’ve ever had in a hotel.
