The offer for vegans and vegetarians is not ideal on Balkans but it is improving rapidly every year. The author of this guide is a vegetarian and wanabee vegan so the following are some expert tips:

  • Bio&Bio is the most famous high-end food store offering everything you need for surviving
  • Tvornica Zdrave Hrane (Factory of Healthy Food) – is budget alternative for Bio&Bio

Plac/Tržnica (marketplace) – this is probably the first word you should learn if you want to survive without the meat. Fortunately, there is still a huge availability of local fruits and vegetables available on these markets and almost every town has one. The Queen among all is Tržnica Dolac in Zagreb but every city and even small towns have a marketplace which are held at least once a week.

Most of the bigger cities have at least 1 vegan/vegetarian restaurant available so Google is your best friend. Thanks to a huge demand for vegan and vegetarian dishes in restaurants caused by increased presence of tourists with raised awareness you will find something to bite anywhere. However, many of those who recently added no-meat dishes are amateurs and are offering QUASI vegetarian/vegan dishes. What I mean by that is these dishes are not balanced properly – they don’t have all the necessary nutrients especially protein because even a lot of professional chefs are not aware that you can find protein in legumes, seeds, nuts etc.

Always be alert

Some security tips for Vegans and Vegetarians are the following:

  • Beware of svinjska mast or pig fat which is traditionally used in many recipes (although lately it is being replaced with vegetable oils for economic reasons) – for example when you buy burek with cheese (or sirnica – don’t ever say burek with cheese in Bosnia – ask for sirnica and thank me later) check if it was baked with svinjska mast
  • Grilled veggies are often the main alternative which you will be offered in restaurants without proper vegan/vegetarian offer but it often means it will be grilled on the same bbq where they grill meat so just be aware of that if that might concern you
  • The same goes for stews like bean stew which is very popular and can be found in many restaurants but it is often cooked with added sausages and bacon so if you are sensitive about that check before you place your order

If you get a feeling that waiters are not taking your orders seriously and you suspect you will end up with pig fat or dish grilled on meat bbq or with steq from which they manually removed the meat parts the trick is to say that you are allergic to meat and you can be assured that you will be served adequately since nobody wants customers with allergic reactions 😉

Facebook Comments