Montenegro is small, but the table changes every hour's drive. On the coast the cooking rests on fish, grains and olives; around Lake Skadar on carp, bleak and Crmnica wine; in Njeguši on prosciutto and cheese dried where sea and mountain air meet; in the north on milk, cheese, kajmak and lamb. The same advice holds everywhere: eat what the locals eat.
What people eat in each part of Montenegro: the coast and the Bay of Kotor, Lake Skadar and Crmnica, Njeguši and the Katunska nahija, the mountain north, and where to try it.
Geography decided what Montenegro eats: fish comes from the sea and the lakes, while the mountains give lamb, kid, veal, cheese and kajmak. Old recipes have survived because hosts still cook with local, seasonal produce, so the best advice, wherever you are, is to try what they eat.
The coast and the Bay of Kotor
Coastal cooking is Mediterranean and moderate: grains, fish and olives, picked from September and pressed into olive oil. Fish is grilled na gradele, boiled lešo, stewed in brodet or fried, and served with chard, potatoes and polenta. The Bay of Kotor has its own dishes, from mussels and black risotto to Boka brodet made from small oily fish, and Paštrovići its homemade makaruli pasta. Our page on seafood specialities has more.
By the sea a host sets out cheese in oil, prosciutto, olives and homemade wine, and coastal people like to drink bevanda, half wine and half water.
Lake Skadar and Crmnica
Around the lake and in Rijeka Crnojevića the table is a lake table: carp, smoked or cooked in a pan with dried plums, apples and quinces, small bleak (ukljeva), fried or smoked, and eel baked with rice. Hosts pour their own wine with it, usually Crmnica vranac, and wait for your verdict.
Did you know?
In the north and centre of Montenegro an official guest is welcomed with bread and salt, then priganice with honey, and only then comes the meze that restaurants call the Montenegrin platter.
Njeguši and the Katunska nahija
The villages below Mount Lovćen make Njeguši prosciutto, along with Njeguši cheese, sausage and kaštradina, dried mutton. Locals put the secret down to the climate, where sea and mountain air meet, and to smoking over beech wood. In the taverns on the old Cetinje–Kotor road prosciutto is still sliced with cheese, mead and homemade rakija. Further inland, kaštradina is cooked with raštan, a dark leafy cabbage.
The mountain north
In the north the cooking follows the livestock and the summer katuns: kačamak and cicvara made from cornmeal, kajmak and skorup, Kolašin leaf cheese and Pljevlja cheese, lamb under the sač or cooked in milk, dried beef and trout from mountain rivers. On the meze plate Njeguši prosciutto gives way to dried beef, and kajmak comes to every table.
