Crumbling empires, crystal water, and exceptional seafood meet on Europe’s most overlooked coastline.
The air was silk, neither warm nor cool. We sat on the patio of hotel-restaurant Palata Venezia in the Old City of Ulcinj, cosseted by ancient stone and dizzy from the scent of their jasmine arbor. Overlooking the Adriatic, we drank homemade Vranac wine, inky and rich, with oil pressed from the hotel’s own olives.
Ghosts in the ancient stone
Labyrinthine, tattooed by time, the Old City was stamped with carvings, coats of arms, and religious symbols eroded by salt and wind. A fountain we passed from Ottoman times still worked. Over 10,000 people still live inside these walls, their residences hidden but for the fine woodwork of their doors.
As we strolled, a man within another arbor tipped his head, and someone whispered, “the mayor.” As empires rose and fell, these churches became mosques, mosques became churches.
Overlooking a strategic section of the Adriatic, the Old City’s history has been fraught. Built by the Illyrians in the 5th century BC, the city has been sacked by a carousel of empires, leaving the Nazis as its most recent ghosts. In 1969 and again in 1979, catastrophic earthquakes demanded massive rebuilding. For ten years following the ’79 quake, every worker in then-Yugoslavia was required to donate 1% of their salary to the effort.
Museums now hold the collateral bounty of those repairs; the excavations yielded an armamentarium of swords, knives, and corroded pistols. “You must carry one to be a man,” a docent told us. We couldn’t tell if he was joking.
Where vineyards became olives
On our drive to nearby Valdanos Beach, an ox stood stoically in a wagon, hitched to a car. We navigated the twisty, single-lane road with care, passing a shepherd leading pied goats whose milk was destined for yogurt and cheese.
Around us, mountains bristled with olive groves, gnarled trunks sectioned for family harvests. When Venice ruled this coast, these slopes were heavy with vineyards; when the Ottomans took it, they replaced the grapes with olives. Adriatic oil was once a currency as powerful as Middle Eastern crude is today.
The water of Valdanos Beach was spectacularly clear, spared from modern industry. Stone homes with red-tile roofs sat above it, improbably perched on the steep slopes. Back to Ulcinj, we stopped at an olive processing facility, redolent with the rich scent of heavy yellow oil. And as we fell asleep in the Mediteran Hotel, overlooking the vast sweep of the Adriatic, we heard the evening prayer from the minarets below.
A masterclass on the water
Early next afternoon, we drove along the Ada Bojana River within sight of the sea, passing a lone sign nailed to a tree: Advokat… a lawyer angling for fish. Tucked into the reeds were stilt homes, fronted by giant, counterweighted nets poised to dip into the current – looking less like fishing gear and more circus trapeze netting.
We took a table at Tikas, a river restaurant started by Artin Ircetiq, and sat on a deck over the water, river taxis tied beside us. Nearby, storks lifted from the shallows.
Tikas sources its kitchen from the local fishermen every morning. They presented a raw platter of dentex, sea bass, turbot, shrimp, and baby squid. What followed was a masterclass in preparation: fish served raw and icy ceviche-like, sautéed, baked in a crust of salt and lit aflame with local Rakia, simmered into soup, and stewed in bouzara – a rich reduction of red pepper, fish broth, capers, and breadcrumbs.
The fish was angelic; the shrimp arrived caramelised and sweet from the grill; the calamari, muscular and tender, deepened by the savory bouzara; local turbot, a flat, buttery rhombus, was kissed with char. After a few spoonfuls of intense fish soup, we understood why travelers journey down from Serbia to taste it. A house cat – or perhaps a local marauder with the palate of a connoisseur – lingered by our legs, trolling for scraps much like the Advokat.
Gondola ride to Zeus
Next day, we took the Kotor Cable Car up Mount Lovćen to Kuk Station, a Zeusian aerie. Before us spread the Bay of Kotor, an ancient river-canyon flooded by the sea. Blue sea, gray crags, green forests – the view overwhelmed. At Restaurant Forza Kuk, we ate platters of local cow and goat cheeses alongside Njeguški pršut, a dry ham wonderfully smoky.
The best was a large disk of crumbed Kalasinski goat cheese – baked, molten, drizzled with honey and walnut crumbs, and set atop a creamy ajvar, that potent Montenegrin puree of roasted red pepper, eggplant, and garlic. With it, we drank the local Nikšićko lager.
We drove north along the coast, chasing the late afternoon light until we reached the quiet shores of Risan, settling in for the night among the elegant stone blocks of the Movenpick Hotel, so solid it felt geological.
An entirely novel substance
On our last morning, we chartered a large sailboat that motored us into the bay. We passed Our Lady of the Rocks, an artificial sanctuary built rock by rock, one scuttled ship after another, over two centuries to house a sacred painting found, as legend tells, on a reef. A yearly ritual still demands locals row out and drop stones to fortify the island.
The bay’s water was so pure, it felt like a novel substance – so transparent we could see duck feet paddling above large, cruising fish. On the crags stood ruined watchtowers, left behind by millennia of shifting empires – Illyrians, Greeks, Romans, Venetians, Ottomans.
We returned for lunch at Fish Restaurant Djardin in Perast, as much a stone time-warp as a town. Sitting alongside the water, separated by only a straight-laid hawser resting on the stones, we dined on lobster bisque, shrimp in bouzara, sautéed baby calamari, truffled pappardelle, and a tomato salad with motar (sea-fennel) that tasted like tarragon’s wild cousin. It occurred to us that Montenegro’s cuisine was not so much chef-driven as cuisine grand-mère – homestyle, made with the freshest of ingredients.
All of it was paired with a mineral-forward Montenegrin Kratošija Rosé, crisp and cold, and for dessert, we found Gelateria Moritz Eis, yielding an elusive, unsung local chestnut flavor.
Nightfall in Kotor
The last evening was within the dramatically lit, walled city of Kotor, dating back to 5 AD, its entrance flanked by twin cannons. A mass of stone that surely must affect the earth’s rotation; inside is a maze of stone courtyards, meandering paths, and arched tunnels. We trod worn flagstones thronged with ghosts, past a tree heavy with yellow loquats, its lower branches picked clean by passersby. A church bell tolled ten times for 10pm.
Cats clearly were privileged citizens here;. one stood up on a basin, deftly turned a faucet handle with her paw, and drank. At Scala Santa, we ate grilled calamari and drank a fine local red, Unikat. Dessert was a small glass of pomegranate liqueur, Paradigma, syrupy like Port wine.
Montenegro’s beauty exudes from stone and water, jasmine and olives, and simple foods done supremely well. It is the present churning with the past.
David Greenberg was a prolific children’s book author and lecturer. Susan Greenberg, a former marketing professional, teacher, and principal. Together, their passion for local cuisines led them to writing restaurant reviews and culinary travel journalism.
