Chef
The best combination of chef experience and youth: Janez Bratovž enjoys the Logar Valley, while Tom Čopar lives there in the Solčava. The professional assistance of the great Slovenian chef and the staff of Ljubljana’s JB restaurant, as well as the ownership commitment to excellence of the century-old family hotel, have ensured a long-term invitation to a trip all the way to the end of one of the most beautiful Alpine glacial valleys in Europe.
Fine dining
The old larch tree has received new cushions, and the dining room has fine placemats, so that the Plesnik Hotel not only has two chefs, but also has a special evening – fine dining – in addition to its daytime hotel offering.
Beginning
Butter with porcini mushrooms, brioche, wild garlic cracker, grissini with local cheese (Strmčnik farm). The first thing on the table with the aperitif bubbles.
Greeting
Stone-fried spring onions from “our garden” with black garlic cream. Shallot and red onion jelly on an (over)large wooden spoon. Smoked trout in tempura with lemon cream. No pomp, but careful and sophisticated. A tribute to ingredients that are more important than cooking techniques. Proof that only experience convinces of the chef’s essence – less is more.
Beetroot
Roasted beetroot, beetroot cream, fried beetroot, buttermilk ice cream from the Strmčnik farm, beetroot powder, flowers from Plesnik’s garden. Again, techniques serve the ingredients, not the other way around! Hasselback is a way of baking ribbed potatoes, which here successfully increases the caramelized surface of the beetroot. Buttermilk ice cream is the one that combines all the textures, touches and flavors into a simple pleasure. It looks so simple…
Goat's cheese
Plesnik’s fine cheese is made from goat’s milk, just like in the old days, with a real texture that is not spreadable, but not yet cheesy, with a delicate spicy aroma. Just like its accompaniment: orange granita, buttery honey sauce and fresh vegetables (zucchini, onion, garden herbs) from the garden behind the house.
Brioche and butter
Brioche toasted in butter, topped with homemade sour cream from the Strmčnik farm, trout caviar inside, and topped with “burnt” milk, like a crisp, milk-based chips.
Young cabbage
Roasted young cabbage with aged goat cheese (like a sandwich, cut into soup cubes), goat cheese foam, black trumpet soup topped up at the table. It looks so simple that it couldn’t be better, but the flavors are so complex that it’s clear that this is not just soup and its broth.
Plum sorbet
Plum sorbet with ginger and Bjana Rose sparkling wine topped up at the table.
Lamb and potatoes
Lamb (from Matkov kot), potato fondant, mustard cream, demi glace with thyme, separately served burnt cucumber compressed with mint, topped with arugula gel. Very chef-like! The selected ingredients – a green Michelin star! – do not need any kitsch or creams and foams, but rather the best cooking technique for each.
Caramel and dashi
After letting his assistant introduce the main course (lamb), the chef introduced his pastry chef from the Philippines. She brought a large wafer that she described as a caramel cracker, and below and next to it listed: homemade sesame ice cream, dashi jelly made from dried seaweed, bonito flakes and shitake mushrooms, compressed apple, yuzu citrus juice gel and apple peel powder.
After
Chocolate truffle and financier, freshly baked almond biscuit.
Egg omelette
Plesnik’s breakfast invites you not only to the hotel spa, but also to the surrounding peaks, which is why it is plentiful, from homemade salam and homemade jams to Solčava cheeses, from the chef’s walk to the garden, where he plucks a whole bunch of herbs to then mix into an omelet.
