Denis

Denis Ibrišimović cooks from tradition, which he likes to present in a slightly different, more contemporary way. French and Mediterranean cuisine are close to his heart, and lately he and his team have been increasingly drawn to Japanese cooking, mainly for the new possibilities it opens in combining flavours and techniques. He loves to explore, but always comes back to the core ingredient: a dish has to keep its character and the flavours have to make sense.

Pickling and fermenting give him plenty to work with. They add new flavours to ingredients and preserve them beyond their main season, so in winter the plates carry pickled produce from the warmer months alongside truffles. He relies on the Vipava Valley and on working with local growers, because he knows the ingredients he cooks with inside out.

Barley has been with him since the very beginning of Podfarovž and has appeared on the menu in many forms. He likes it precisely because it is so simple: a traditional ingredient that allows for endless variations. The same goes for trout, which always invites a new technique or combination. Butter, for him, is the ingredient that simply makes a dish better, giving it richness and tying the flavours together.

When he is not cooking, his answer to the question of a favourite food is surprisingly simple: pizza. Podfarovž remains the place where he expresses himself through cooking, and where the work of the whole team can be recognised in every dish.