Page 191 - ATHENS RIVIERA JOURNAL 2022

ATHENS RIVIERA JOURNAL
gourmet getaway

I n the last five years, female chefs who have managed they regrouped – and today, Hiša Franko is recognized as one of "I VISITED HER fried bread – a memory of grandma’s baking – and accompanied

the best restaurants in the world.
to exceed the confines of their kitchens to claim their place
with the vivid sharpness of young wild garlic.
SPACE AND WAS
on the international gastronomy map find themselves in
I visited her space and was left speechless as I discovered a beautiful
the epicenter of discussions around good food and the
trends it generates. However, one of the most unique cases is – new world of gastronomy I could not have imagined inside an old LEFT SPEECHLESS tonight we improvise
All the above was nothing but the first dish in the indefatigable
two-story building, a small house in a beautiful prairie surrounded
the almost unknown until 2016 – Ana Roš, who conquered with by wild, towering mountains – Hiša Franko (which means “House improvisations of a self-taught chef who manages to hit inner
her restaurant in Kobarid, west Slovenia a spot among the 50 best of Franko”). Beautifully bathed in daylight, its open-air seating AS I DISCOVERED chords with some of her dishes. Here is one of the greatest: You
restaurants in the world! In 2017, she was proclaimed World’s Best has a modest elegance. There are pink flower prints on the white break a crust of August hay that envelops a potato cooked inside it,
Female Chef by World’s 50 Best Restaurants while, in 2020, the tablecloths and dinner napkins. The brick-red walls of the interior A BEAUTIFUL and an elegant aroma of chamomile tickles your nose along with a
World Tourism Organization pronounced her Ambassador for covers artwork by Slovenian painter Rudi Skocir. In her father-in- different, earthy, imposing smell that, completely supernaturally,
Gastronomy Tourism. It was not easy at all back in 1999, when law’s old eatery, which has grown into a fine dining restaurant, NEW WORLD OF makes you imagine that you are one of the titular potato eaters
this restaurant was taken over by Ana and her husband, Valter, an Ana creates a cuisine we have not seen before. It is mainly based on GASTRONOMY I COULD in Van Gogh’s painting. Add next to it a small bowl of cool from
accredited sommelier and maître fromager. Ana, who used to be local products and ideas from Slovenian culinary tradition which, the appetizing acidity of a ricotta that has been curdled twice, and
a ski champion, left behind a diplomatic career in Brussels to live most of the time, walks completely unusual paths – where the sea NOT HAVE IMAGINED then receive your ticket to hyperspace with a cream of smoked
with Valter. She eventually decided to take on the kitchen. She breeze emerges from the juicy flesh of steamed mussels with fennel chocolate that completes this atavistic psychedelia in an incredibly
made one mistake after the other, but remained steadfast. She and from their broth that has been made into a jelly, unexpectedly INSIDE A SMALL familiar way. I could come to Hiša Frank for this dish only, but
traveled, sampled the great restaurants of the world to advance her paired with the almond-rich chlorophyll of roasted asparagus, the chef is bored with repetition. “I do not keep my dishes on
skills in flavor, and she made it. The big boom happened when, and reaching its peak in the flavor of a bitter orange dense like HOUSE IN A BEAUTIFUL the menu all the time. I take them off,” she tells me. “Recipes
in May 2016, Netflix’s Chef Table released an episode about their saxophone notes; they are all crowned with an edible silver leaf – are saved in books and photographs. A specialty is created in a
restaurant’s story. One day, things were calm – and within an a decoration decision indicative of quality and artistry. And how PRAIRIE." specific moment and reflects your evolution at that time. I want
evening came a typhoon of ceaseless phone calls... Their website was could you imagine that one can make cuttlefish lard able to mimic there to be vivacity and renewal in the kitchen.” I already know
suddenly hit with an avalanche of ten thousand visitors a day, until the delicatezza of the renowned lardo di Colonatta, served with that the chocolate in the previous dish became a tahini sauce on
it collapsed. Once they had realized exactly what had happened, a velvet sauce from its ink and pine nuts... it comes on a perfectly the next menu.

Ana Roš with her team creates epicurean improvisations based on local
ingredients, at the elegantly minimal Hiša Franko ((opposite page, far right).

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