Monte

Chef Danijel Đekić at Monte in Old Town, Rovinj, Croatia

Red, Green and Blue set the pass before service, three routes through the same Istrian memory. Danijel Đekić works them as chef and owner at Monte, in the Rovinj house where he was born, beside St. Euphemia church. The line back is close rather than decorative: the place began in 1985 as his parents' traditional Istrian tavern, where he first worked as a waiter, then as a cook. Service came before the knife work. It gave him cadence, timing, and the daily discipline of reading a room before it asks.

His later work widened the frame, including time as an executive chef in The Netherlands and as co-owner and operator of a deli and catering restaurant in Utrecht and Rovinj. At Monte, those roles gather into one station. He leads the kitchen, owns the house, and keeps the cooking fixed to Istria and the Adriatic while changing its form. He has been named Chef of the Year, and Gault&Millau scores the house at 17.5 points, but the register at the bench is terroir before flourish.

Three colours, one Istrian method

Monte cooks through tasting menus rather than à la carte, with Red, Green and Blue dedicated to Rovinj. The structure matters because it gives the kitchen a frame without making the plate static. Red moves through seafood and richer registers, with dishes such as lobster, Ossetra caviar, egg yolk and potato foam, lobster bisque, fennel and trout roe. Green turns toward seasonal vegetables, Dobravac tomato, goat cheese strudel, mushrooms, pistachio and jasmine ice cream. Blue draws sea and land together through Venus clams, tuna tartare, Omega 3, suckling pig, lentils, yellow cabbage, pork rind, apple and rose.

The method is contemporary, but the reference point stays local. The kitchen works with seasonal produce from local markets, fish auctions, butchers and farms, then treats origin, technique and appearance as equal parts of the job. Đekić's known signatures, Red, Green and Blue, are not simply menu titles. They are a way of sorting memory, coast, truffle country and childhood flavour into a present-tense discipline.

The room below St. Euphemia

The room keeps its scale close. Monte sits in Rovinj's old town, in a restored historic building beneath St. Euphemia, with cool interior spaces, soft light and an outdoor terrace looking toward narrow streets and rooftops. The atmosphere is formal in service but relaxed in temperature; the restaurant does not need volume to carry the work.

On the floor, the curated wine program stays aligned with the menus, leaning toward Croatian labels and pairings for the RGB sequence, with Đekić's wife Tjitske on the cellar side. The room, the pass and the cellar move as one small house rather than separate performances. Croatia's first Michelin-starred restaurant still reads, at bench-side, as a family tavern changed by time, technique and Red, Green and Blue.