On June 8th, I had my first tastes of Croatian cuisine, thanks to Signatures Restaurant at Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa! They hosted Chef Hrvoje Kroflin, one of Croatia’s top chefs, who prepared a 5-course degustation menu which exemplified the diverse tastes and traditions of Croatia. (For those of you unfamiliar, Degustation menus involve sampling small portions of all of a chef’s signature dishes in one sitting – think many small courses instead of the typical three large ones).
Follow along below for a snippet of the experience:
When sitting down, my table was greeted with an official Cordon Bleu envelope. Inside the envelope was a copy of the night’s menu, signed by the Chef.
The first dish was an octopus salad with olive dust and cream. The octopus MELTED in my mouth – I haven’t had any that tender since my last trip to Europe. I was pretty fascinated with the olive dust – it had a velvety texture, but dissolved almost immediately upon eating – and somehow still released a delicious olive taste. This was a refreshing plate to start the meal!
Next on the menu was this goat cheese dumpling. It was unlike what you would expect from a dumping (a stuffed pocket of dough) – it was more like a crepe and oh so good! The taste and texture felt familiar to me – it reminded me of a Polish dish I really like (krokiety).
I love beef ragout, so I had a good feeling about this dish, even though I’m not a fan of polenta. The beef was perfect and the polenta was surprisingly (very) enjoyable! This one was so creamy and tasty and paired wonderfully with the parsley sauce. Although the elements of the plate were heavy, the dish felt light.
If I were to go into a restaurant and I saw this dish on the menu, this is exactly what I would have ordered. Duck and cabbage jam are MY jam. The duck fell off the bone and I loved the spiced sauce it came with. I want to have the red cabbage jam with everything – I would have bought a couple of jars of it, if they sold them.
Walnut and poppy cake is very Eastern European… and one of my favourite desserts. I found this was light & not too sweet – the perfect way to end the meal, and beautifully presented. Not intentional, but you can see a face in the creme.
The glass has slivovitz, plum brandy. It’s pretty strong.
I got a photo with Chef Hrvoje Kroflin!
Overall, it was a wonderful meal and experience. I’m looking forward to returning to Signatures soon!