Montenegro's coastal cooking is simple: fresh fish, olive oil, chard, potatoes and polenta. Fishermen work close to the shore, so the table sees red mullet, gilt-head bream, dentex and small oily fish, and the Bay of Kotor is known for its mussels and oysters. Fish is usually grilled, boiled, stewed in brodet or fried, and summer brings fishermen's feasts all along the coast.
What to eat on the Montenegrin coast: how fish is cooked, what brodet and buzara are, where the mussels come from and how to order fresh fish.
Fish from the shore
Montenegrin fishermen work the inshore waters in small and medium boats, without going far out. The net most often brings in red mullet (barbun), a small red fish, and with luck dentex, pandora or gilt-head bream. From midsummer the migrating fish arrive, from small single-portion amberjack upwards. A konoba's menu depends on what was caught that morning, so it is worth asking.
Four ways to cook it
There are four basic methods. Na gradele the fish is grilled, brushed with rosemary and served with a dressing of garlic, parsley and olive oil. Lešo it is boiled with oil, wine vinegar, onion and bay leaf and served with potatoes or chard. Brodet is a thick stew of several kinds of fish, such as scorpion fish, moray eel and cuttlefish, served with polenta. Small fish are fried: red mullet rolled in cornmeal, whose red oil was once used to cook squid too.
Did you know?
Boka brodet was born in Muo, a fishing village in the Bay of Kotor: bigger fish sold better at the market, so fishermen kept the small ones for themselves. That is how picarel (girice) became the trademark of Boka brodet.
The Bay of Kotor
The bay has its own kitchen. Its best-known dish is Boka brodet, which breaks the rule by using a single kind of small oily fish, sardines or sand smelt, simmered for at least two hours. The bay is also known for mussels, which grow wild along the shore or are farmed in the sea, and for oysters. Sea bass na gradele, scorpion fish lešo, marinated sardines, black cuttlefish risotto and salt cod are on the table too.
Mussels are most often cooked na buzaru: white, with white wine, garlic, parsley and a few breadcrumbs, or red, with tomato. Bread is a must, for the sauce.
The market, meze and a glass of wine
Below the walls of Kotor, to the right of the main town gate, is the town market. Arrive early and you will find the fishermen's fresh catch, and Kotor's konobas buy the same fish from the same fishermen. By the sea, meze means cheese in oil, prosciutto, olives and picarel or salted sardines with wine. For white wine ask for local grapes, krstač or Boka's žižak, and coastal people like bevanda, half wine and half water.
