Looking back at our visit to Palute restaurant in Postira, Croatia

This week we purchased our tickets to visit Croatia this Summer. Yes, it seems a little early, but the Winter is hard on us so we need to have something good to look forward to! Also, Croatia is a hot destination, so it gets harder to get good tickets the longer you wait. I guess getting those tickets got me thinking about our last trip there. I then found out that I started to work on a blog post about one of the restaurants we went last Summer but I forgot to finish the post to share with you. So I went ahead and worked on it tonight!

The name of the restaurant is Palute, which seems to be a very common name for businesses in Croatia! If you google it you will find many Palute restaurants, but I did not find the one that I am writing about here. Probably because that is not a typical restaurant as you will find out...

This is one of those places that you go to that end up being an experience you will always remember. It all starts as soon as you enter the place - olive trees, grape vines, peach trees, flowers...all perfectly framed by the most gorgeous sunset.

That alone made me want to stay. As we walked up a little further we were welcomed with a taste of a locally made aperitif.

As that drink burned down my throat, I suddenly realized my children were not next to me (sorry, I was mesmerized by the whole thing!). I quickly found out that they were already at the restaurant's playground with their grandma.

Nice! I could for a moment take it all in without interruptions. I immediately walked towards this gorgeous orange light that I noticed from a distance. I could not tell if it was the sunset being reflected or something else...

And then I saw the most beautiful scene - a man caring for amazing looking meats in a large wood burning fire. Whole pig, whole lamb, and chicken were looking as golden as can be. That was dinner, and I could not wait for it!

While the family was getting settled at our table, I wondered around and got to meet a couple of very friendly locals. We tried to talk - some English, some Croatian (about 10 words I know), and lots of gestures!

Palute in Postira, Croatia, serves simple and delicious home cooked style food. It is not your typical restaurant. There, dinner is served at a specific time - for everyone . You must call in advance to make sure you get a table and you must arrive before they set out the food. At dinner time, you line up and serve yourself buffet style. New dishes come from the kitchen while you are eating, so you can go back to the buffet table and help yourself as many times as you wish. There are so many delicious things to try: from a simple salad made with amazingly sweet locally grown tomatoes to lamb that has been roasting on that fire all day long. From amazing freshly caught seafood to fried zucchini cakes. Again, nothing fancy, no mystery sauce...it's simple food cooked by people that care and know what good flavors are.

What I heard is that Palute used to (or still does?) host and caterer receptions, such as weddings. People that experienced their food during those events were so excited about it that they started to wonder if they also operated as a restaurant - but they didn't. With time, as the interest in their food grew, they decided to open their doors to dinner some days of the week. And they maintained the buffet style which they were used to doing for big events.

The kids enjoyed their time at Palute also. They loved to start the evening at their playground. They tried to make friends with kitties (see that one on the roof):

My son, his cousin, and the kitty

And because my daughter was very kind to her brother during a sibling conflict, the waiter gave her (and all the other kids) a treat: they got to see and pet a pony. They still talk about that day at Palute...