For one sudden, unnerving second, I have become Caligula. The victims are arranged in front of me, impressive in their armour plating – and I have to decide which of them will die tonight for my pleasure; who will survive a little longer. “These two might be the best,” Daniela Kramaric says, identifying a pair of particularly muscular-looking specimens. “But really, this choice is up to you. They are all good.”
The clack of their claws on the platter draws me back to the reality that these are not gladiators destined to battle to the death on a bloody amphitheatre floor, but the scampi who will provide the third act of my dinner. I feel a pang of guilt as I dispatch the two suggested gentlemen to the kitchen, and their dooms. It is a momentary emotion, replaced by a glass of malvasia and Daniela’s reassurance. “The scampi from Kvarner are perfect,” she stresses. “There is just the right level of saltiness in the water, just the right amount of photosynthesis. They don’t have the hard shells of North Sea scampi. They are delicious.”
She isn’t wrong. When the two condemned crustaceans reappear, they do so as pure curls of pale flesh, served entirely raw, with a dash of white pepper. They are among the most remarkable things I have ever tasted – redolent of the sea, but also of a freshness that seems to melt into the tongue. I relax – certain that I have fully appreciated their sacrifice.
They are, though, only one of the delights placed before me at Plavi Podrum, a restaurant on the harbour in the fishing village of Volosko. It looks like any Mediterranean eatery, tables on a veranda opposite boats bobbing in the shallows. But it reveals itself as a haven of gourmet magic – helmed by Daniela, its owner and expert sommelier. Over two hours, there are portions of marinated red mullet, wild asparagus soup, and linguine with Istrian black truffles.
Even the olive oil is a miracle. “This,” she says, plucking a thin green bottle like an apothecary in a Victorian pharmacy, “is from Vodnjan, near Pula. They only pick from olive trees that are more than 100 years old.”
In some ways, it is no shock to find food of such finesse here. Volosko is pitched roughly where the Gulf of Kvarner cleaves the Istrian peninsula from the rest of Croatia. It lies just over 40 miles (60km) south east of Trieste, Italy – a country whose gastronomic flair needs no explanation.
Indeed, between the world wars, Volosko was in Italy – a fair portion of Daniela’s clientele is still Italian diners driving into “the old country” for the evening. But increasingly, Croatia needs no overspill illumination from its near-neighbour on culinary matters. It shines of its own brilliance.
Last autumn, a restaurant in Rovinj, in Istria, gained the country’s first Michelin star. It won’t be the last.
Not that there is much obvious foodie refinement when I drive to Rijeka. The focal point of the Kvarner region will be a European Capital of Culture in 2020. But on this warm Friday, there is no time for artistic ideals. Only work. Containers are spilled on the dock, and the fish market has been hard at it since dawn.
It is still in labour as I try to push through the crowd of shoppers assessing slabs of skate, dorada and tuna. Too busy, in fact, and I escape into Fiume, an eatery which wears Rijeka’s former Italian name – where my early lunch is more like dinner for the servers, who have been catering to stallholders since first light.
It is marvellous all the same – a bowl of marinated octopus and shrimp on a bed of rice blackened by cuttlefish ink, so hearty that I fear I will not need to eat again all week.