ARTE

A head chef working in small movements

The plate leaves the pass in small movements: a final placement, a check of the line, then the room. Jirka Zajíček is head chef at ARTE in Svätý Jur, Slovakia, where the kitchen works inside Pálffy Manor. His present station gathers several kinds of discipline into one service: the command of a head chef, the restraint of a sushi specialist, and the steadiness of a cook who has spent years moving through kitchens before taking this pass. He has led ARTE since 2023, after earlier roles as co-owner and sushi specialist at Sushi Ya in 2010, cook at Rialto from 2011 to 2012, shop manager at Restaurant Borgo Agnese from 2012 to 2013, head chef at Forman Beef and Beer from 2014 to 2015, deputy head chef at Atmosphere from 2015 to 2016, head chef at Mandarino in 2016, head chef at Kohout na víně from 2016 to 2018, and private chef in 2018. That path matters here because ARTE asks for more than plating. The dining room wants pace, silence, timing, and a clear hand. Zajíček’s sushi specialist background gives the work a particular register: exact cuts, controlled pressure, and a habit of removing anything that does not serve the bite.

Ten courses through the manor

ARTE’s program is built around a 10-course tasting menu, with a vegetarian version running alongside it. The structure begins in the lounge for the first courses, then moves into the main restaurant space, so the menu changes room as well as rhythm. The kitchen works with local ingredients in a modern European frame, using the language of contemporary fine dining without losing the groundedness of the Little Carpathians. The restaurant’s own description leans toward art and story, but the craft sits in the less theatrical decisions: when to hold a temperature, when to cut smaller, when to let a familiar flavor arrive without ornament. VIAJUR wines are part of the pairing program, tying the restaurant to the manor’s wine life rather than treating the cellar as a separate chapter. The area’s viticultural memory reaches back to 1580, and ARTE uses that setting as material, not backdrop. The plate may be composed for the eye, but the method depends on sequence, restraint, and the clean finish of each course before the next one arrives.

The room beside the open kitchen

The room carries the weight of the house quietly. Historic chambers, an open kitchen, a tasting-menu pace, and formal service could easily become theatre for its own sake; at ARTE, the better moments are bench-side in feeling, close to the pass and governed by timing. The setting is intimate, with a quiet noise level and the kind of service that keeps interruption low. Pálffy Manor gives the meal stone, history, and proportion, while the kitchen brings the sharper tempo of modern service. Guests move from lounge to restaurant, but the attention stays on the hands: the pass, the counter, the final check before a course crosses into the room. The fairy-tale language around the house is less useful than the working fact that Zajíček’s team has to make a historic setting feel immediate, course after course.

One Knife, one current station

In 2025, Zajíček received a One Knife award at The Best Chef Awards in Milan, recognition attached to his work at ARTE and to the team around this kitchen. Awards can flatten a place if they become the point. A head chef with a sushi specialist’s discipline leads a 10-course menu, VIAJUR is in the glass, and Pálffy Manor holds the room while the next plate leaves the pass.