Old Dishes of a Young Family

Where is Jagnjenica? It’s a place where no main roads pass and no side routes lead by. That’s why every village – the more hidden it is, the more so – has its own inn, the soul of the place where everything happens. The more local the inn, the more traditional it is. We stay loyal to our own. This applies to both guests and inns – guests swear by their mother’s beef soup, and inns by their long-standing regulars. That’s why Jež has been here for more than one hundred years.

Yet the fourth generation of Jež did not merely change it – it developed it! Jež remains a homely inn where you can now also find a burger, yet still onion steak, the real Wiener schnitzel, vinegar beef from soup, forest mushroom soup, roasted potatoes with cracklings and skins, Krškopolje pork with capon, and duck with kipnik; a family inn where you still find mother’s semolina dumplings, alongside the son’s favorite dishes that father loved most; a local inn where neighbors sit at the table, and their produce and products are served on it, where local flavors are accompanied only by Posavje–Dolenjska winemakers, and only with their finest wines; and a new inn too – where bull’s testicles come with panko crumbs, huchen tartare with saffron sauce, and desserts everyone may have elsewhere, yet here in a trio are better than solo anywhere else.

So now, it’s not only Jež that must change and grow – we, the guests, must grow too. Not because of Jež, but because of ourselves. Because it’s time we discover where Jagnjenica is – and learn how to truly enjoy good food.

New Dishes from 1905

Where is Jagnjenica? Wherever Gostilna Jež is! So find it quickly on the map and enjoy authenticity, locality, homeliness – Jež-style: grandmother’s bread crust in white coffee, mother’s cabbage pasta with home-raised hen, and veal brains that father loved so much. Jež’s menu is served in courses, arriving at the table in a procession, just as the son envisioned.

This is still an inn established in 1905, yet the fourth and fifth generations of the Martinčič family create a culinary experience that adds refinement to authenticity, broad-mindedness to locality, and Jež’s gentle, flavorful quills to homeliness!

Like a miracle from a box, a bonbonnière of greetings opens – the beginning of a friendship that calls for reserving the largest possible table at Jež. It is a remembrance that is constantly surprised anew by the old dishes of a young family, satisfying curiosity for tradition and the desire for modernity with sincere flavors and sparkling ideas. Jež remembers old recipes very well – and improves them even better.

Krškopolje pork comes with cranberries, pheasant with roasted corn, and duck with cognac. Chamois is soft as foam, crispy as cracklings, and delicate in biscuit form. Mouflon appears as tartare and carpaccio, yet finishes in the bread oven; sea bass does not surprise because it comes from the Sava River, but because it is served from tail to head – and thus the best is yet to come. Slovenia may be small and the world vast, yet you gladly forgive Jež when sausage is prepared in the Primorska style and blood sausage in the French way. No, Jež is not like one egg to another; even the yolk from childhood comes with rum, and grandmother’s bread pudding from her apron is served with new ice cream in old coffee.

Ambience

Dishes