Pepper
The sea breeze, which is always fresh under the mountains, is seasoned at the table by Žiga Hvala, in accordance with a 50-year (since 1976) family tradition, with two turns of a more than a meter long pepper mill.
Greetings
First of all, on the terrace by the road or in the dining room with artistic paintings, you are greeted by careful tablecloths, white tablecloths and black service aprons, many bottles in ice and no waiting for a sparkling aperitif, accompanied by buckwheat blin, topped with local sour cream, paté from monkfish and trout roe. A small bite of delicious hospitality!
Olive oil
The empty greeting glass plate is then quickly filled with selected olive oil, Transparenza Marina, Mate, cuvee with a predominance of leccin. Who else doubts that in the center of Kobarid, surrounded by the mountains, we will eat only seafood and only good food?!
Raw
When you are offered such “crudo” inland, you have only two options: run away or tie your napkin tighter… Because raw food can only be thawed or even fresher than on the coast (where they prefer to freeze it rather than inland). Already in the third generation, in Topli val, crudo is the second!
Scampi
Raw Adriatic shrimp have their tails peeled off, because they went into the fish stock, so it is “not allowed” to tear them off, but to suck them, from the head, where there is still so much juice, to the tail fin, where there is no sweetness left. Their rawness is “softened” by just a few grains of red pepper and drops of new olive oil.
Oysters
On the ice are raw oysters, from France, and cockles, from Dalmatia. They like just a few drops of onion vinaigrette.
Sea bass
Sashimi sea bass is marinated with orange juice, ginger, wasabi, mustard seeds and lemon.
Common dentex
The tartar is made from common dentex, marinated with soy sauce, yuzu juice, passion fruit and sesame.
Oyster soup
There is never a shortage of oysters in Topli val. It’s always good to start with soup – made from oysters. Accompanying soft grissini with Tolmin cheese is not just for decoration.
Lobster
Noodles with lobster. The head and shell made a deep-sea bisque, the essence of a sweet-iodic aftertaste that “betrays” any good seafood restaurant.
Salad
Salad with radicchio and beans.
John Dorry
John Dorry, cooked only with carrots, zucchini and parsley. Gently boiled in its own and vegetable juice. One of the best sea fish prefers the best possible cooking method that preserves all its juiciness and sincerity. The specialty of Topli val is that it deeply respects its freshest and best seafood ingredients.
Cheeks
A seafood delicacy, which is a particularly big catch at John Dorry.
Štruklji
The “stubborn” correctness of Topli val, that even in the third generation of the good old seafood associations, it does not burden with new cooking tricks and ideas, but rather insists on the sincerity and authenticity of the ingredients, is also confirmed by sweet fame of Kobarid.
Accompanying wines
Aperitif: sparkling wine Filipa Pato 3B Blanc de Blancs, brut nature, Portugal
Noodles with lobster: Chardonnay 2020, Bourgogne Hautes Cotes de Nuit, France
John Dorry: Blanco 2021, Miguel Merino Rioja, Spain
Štruklji: Bio Domigiana 2018, sweet, Gordia, Slovenian Istria
