Maja & Jure
Table for Four is the smallest Slovenian restaurant, which accordingly offers its own special and therefore exclusive culinary experience.
Experience
It’s no longer enough to just cook well for an experience. To “spend” several hours at the table (for two) and to be able to handle so many courses, it’s not enough to just eat well and drink a lot. The reception is in the kitchen, the welcome bites are a quiz and a school of tastes, the long menu is briefly divided into two parts, in between there’s a night trip to the garden and warming up by the campfire, the second part starts again with amuse-bouche and ends again in the kitchen. You won’t be bored.
Table
At least six can comfortably sit at a table for four, but most often it is an experience for two. The wall, which was painted by guests in the early years, is now in warm tones, the marble that was the basis of Jure’s first culinary calendars has now been replaced by fine wood without tablecloths, but with the elegance of cleanliness. The decoration is just one flower, the cutlery is on ceramic coasters that wish you a good meal, all the wooden dishes were made by local master Jernej Slapšak, and all the ceramics by Janko Roj from Malečnik (Roj Pottery).
Cornet
It starts with a quiz. Maja & Jure want to draw guests into their game of flavors, so they challenge and encourage them right from the start. What is it? Tasting, if you want it to turn into an experience, is not passive observation, but active participation. The first three aperitif bites are therefore without a description of the ingredients. The filling in the miniature cone, which is maximally crispy, is vegetable-refreshing,
Cake
The crispy tart is filled with milk cream, and the taste, which is both refreshingly sour and deeply salty, raises questions about its origin. It has a slice of the depths of the sea, cut with a fresh leaf of gentle bitterness.
Fritter
The third riddle is fried, crispy on the outside, foamy on the inside, after vegetables and seafood, it’s now, apparently, meat’s turn,
Aperitif: Champagne Monopol brut 2018, Millesime, Heidsieck.
Beetroot
Below is a beetroot tartare, which has been baked until it’s burnt, losing its sweetness, on top is a bouquet of pickled beetroot leaves, and in between are horseradish, lemon, chives, elderflower, chervil, grated cheese, mayonnaise, oil, vinegar, and leaves.
Accompanying wine: Sivi pinot 2024, Herga
Scallop
The scallop is only warmed, as this make easier to pair with roasted chestnuts, pecans, and pickled capers in a sauce of seawater, dark miso paste, kombu algae and caper leaf oil.
Accompanying wine: Cicinis 2021, Atems, sauvignon.
Umbrina
Fried umbrina fillet, oyster mushrooms, quail egg, trout caviar, vegetable demi-glace. A very complex fish dish that does not hide behind tenderness, but rather emphasizes expressiveness.
Accompanying wine: Laški rizling Noble 2021, Vinag (2 months of maceration and 18 months in barriques).
Fire
In the serrated bowl is a black, rough and serrated thick shell of completely burnt celeriac. What is charcoal on the outside is the nectar of concentrated celeriac flavor inside, enhanced by an emulsion of citrus yuzu.
Accompanying wine: Art de Vivre Blanc, Gerard Bertrand, Francija, demisec
Part Two
Amuse-bouche: fried cauliflower, truffle mayonnaise, black walnut and chervil.
Accompanying wine: Rebula Selekcija 2017, Svetlik
Truffle
Since the aroma was already in the previous bite, in the new (second) greeting it is only a form, like a truffle, that makes you guess the (cheesy) content again.
Duck
Duck, pickled carrots, marinated and caramelized pear, duck demi-glace, and homemade bread with yeast for spreading. “We don’t serve main course, but only leftovers, which are always the best,” the chef explained of the decision to make a “ragu” from “bad” cuts of duck.
Accompanying wine: Chianti Rufina Riserva Montesodi 2021 Frescobaldi, Italija
Bone
Bone made from duck confit (dark meat slowly roasted in its own fat) and duck liver, fried in panko crumbs in duck fat and refreshed with pickled shallots.
Cucumber
Appetizer: cucumber granita, cucumber compressed (vacuum-packed) in elderberry juice and white wine, with borage leaves (which taste like cucumber).
Accompanying : Rangpur lime, Charles Tangueray, gin with lime
Apple
Green apple cream with spruce tips, ice cream with light miso paste, dark chocolate sponge, oak crisp (made from caramelized milk infused with oak bark), spruce tip syrup.
Accompanying wine: Le Fronde Moscato D’Asti 2020 Fontanafredda, Italija, sweet, sparkling.
After
There is a cappuccino in a glass, in which a salty espresso mousse is hidden under the milk cream. The ice cream bar is made of dark chocolate ganache, covered with white and milk chocolate and spiced; since we started with cognac (a tomato cone), we also finish with it. The third one is a candle, which has wax made from a mixture of white chocolate and cocoa butter, and underneath it is laurel mousse.
