Breakfast
Goodies of the Štanjel morning: Komel’s meats (Q Komel), Karst ham and Karst pancetta, local cheeses, pickled garlic, local olives; cow’s yogurt with Komel’s granola, Nonna’s figs and jam, Karst honey, butter, homemade bread, homemade juice; and (optionally) milk barley, eggs with caramelized onions or Karst pancetta, 40+ month-aged Q Komel prosciutto, smoked Karst salmon with avocado and brioche, pancakes with Teran jam and white chocolate.
At the castle
Štanjel’s castle chef Simo Komel is a master of satisfied satiety! It’s that feeling that makes you feel good at the beginning and still happy at the end. This is especially important in Štanjel.
At dinner
So, with comfort food that is very well supported by local originality, you are constantly happy at dinner that Štanjel is so revitalized, that the castle has been renovated so much, that the restaurant is so ambitious, that the family is so hardworking, that the courtyard is so sandy, that the wines are so Karst, that the place settings are so romantic, that all the dishes are the chef’s, but to “my” taste.
Welcome
The Komel family serves their traditional welcome, olive oil with Karst herbs, with homemade pickled cornelian cherry and olives floating in it. What’s new since the last visit is the bread, as in addition to the house white, there is now also a mix from the best coastal bakery, Pagna in Trieste.
Chef's greetings
Then chef Simo Komel greets in his own way. On “our crostata”, which he offers on karst stone from the Sežana quarry, raw prawns marinated in lime and orange juice accompany the beef fillet on top. For two crispy bites, there are also eel chips with smoked greater amberjack cream and trout caviar.
Chef's prosciutto
The prosciutto aged for 52 months in the Kobjeglava draft and the Karst bora wind is a specialty that makes Simo Komel travel every day on the (short) journey between Kobjeglava and Štanjel. Along with it, cow’s curd cheese, caramelized walnuts with honey and thyme, and fresh figs from “our grandmother” from Bukovica. To make the prosciutto even more homely, it is drizzled with Teran extract.
Greater amberjack tartare
Chef Simo marinated the greater amberjack tartare with ginger and paprika so that it would sweat and its juice could be added to the soy milk, which he frothed to top the raw gofa, refreshed with fennel.
Summer gazpacho
Peaches and summer vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers) from Gaja’s grandmother’s gardens, “one lives with us in Bukovica, the other on the Italian side of the Brda”. The cool essence of a hot summer, with basil oil, teran extract and borage leaves.
Chef's risotto
It’s not just the best (aged) rice, it’s not just the prawns that everyone loves, and it’s not just the creamy burrata that improves “any” pasta. This time, the rice, which is cooked with a base of prawns and capers, is more milky because of the burrata, and the tomatoes, which are not dried, but marinated (with oregano), make it more refreshing, but probably the main difference is in the colorful “decorations”, which are made from a bisque base of prawns tails, so they deepen the entire risotto right on the surface.
Homemade spaghetti
The homemade noodles are spaghetti-thick, so their al dente is important, leaving not only starchy fillings between your teeth, but also the taste of pancetta. As a house (QKomel) pride, pancetta is the spice that makes both the zucchini pesto and the mozzarella foam, so that the noodles are rough, but in a pleasantly tender way.
Plum sorbet
When Gaja, who is becoming increasingly familiar with wines, perfumes his guests in the castle garden with slivovitz “perfume”, it also adds a little to plum sorbet. Enough that, exhausted by the summer romance of Štanjel, we can’t wait for the sequel.
Sea bass and frtalja
Sea bass fillet on fennel salad, marinated in basil, lemon and orange juice, with fennel frtalja and fennel sauce.
Veal fillet
The main meat platter also uses the tried-and-tested formula, fillet-cream-sauce, where it is important that the meat (veal fillet with a pink center and a crispy crust) is juicy, the (pea) cream is smooth, and the (veal, natural) sauce is silky, because it’s not like that everywhere, but we all like it that way.
Mousse and raspberries
White chocolate, pistachios and raspberries. The mousse also contains goat’s yogurt from the Žerjal farm, pistachio crumbs are sprinkled on top of the pistachio cream, fresh raspberries and raspberries sorbet.
Petit fours
Hazelnut cookie, topped with hazelnut cream and hazelnuts, chocolate truffle with cocoa and jelly candy made from Teran liqueur.
Gorjanka
Aperitif: sparkling wine Peneči Teran, Jazbec and Rose sparkling wine, Domaine Slapšak.
The entire menu was then accompanied (excellently!) by only one wine, but special: Gorjanka 2021, Pietra.
