Enjoy life like an Istrian

Labinski krafi / Istrian ravioli class

Available: Year around
Group size: 2-12
Vegan/vegetarian option: Yes
Premium wine tasting option: Yes
Duration: 6h Full-day class / 4h Half-day class

Easily the best kept culinary secret of our peninsula, this ravioli-like pasta hails from east Istrian town of Labin, and is hard to find even on the menus of local restaurants. Traditionally made on special ocasions such as Christmas, it boasts rich, cheese-based filling, accompanied by an unusual combination of condiments including vanilla, nutmeg, lemon zest and raisins. Altogether they make for a dish somewhere halfway between a sweet and a savoury one.

For this class we make them savoury, accompanied by žgvacet, typical Istrian stew we usually make for pasta class. Another option is to make krafi with another local gem, padela-style meat, half sauteed, half fried in rich, thick sauce. Vegetarian option is available as well.

Other Programs

Vegetarian / vegan class

Being a poor area for a long time, Istrian cuisine was short on meat, so many of its traditional dishes are vegetarian / vegan or can be easily made so. For this class we make minestrones, creamy risottos or pastas with vegetable- or mushroom-based sauces, in spring – wild asparagus in every possible way…

Learn to cook with truffles from starter to desert. A showcase for Istria’s most renowned food item. Where best to learn to cook with this delicate mushrooms if not in region graced by plenty of both black and white ones?

For our easily most creative class, we browse the fish market for daily offer and pick the best of the catch according to your preferences – be it shellfish, calamari, sardines, crayfish… Then we turn it into dishes our grandmas used to make and feed us when we were kids.

Dating back to ancient times, čripnja/peka is a baking bell made for cooking on open fire. Food prepared in them turns out neither cooked nor baked, but somewhere in between, crispy on the outside, yet tender on the inside. Veal, lamb or octopus usually find their place in a čripnja/peka.

For this class we source the best pieces of fish Pula’s fish market can offer, along with some seafood of your choice. We practice fish filleting, and use fillets to prepare raw fish dishes such as carpaccio, popular in Istria in recent years.

Although heavily influenced by Italian cuisine, Istria developed its own, unique types of pasta. For this class we prepare the most popular ones, namely fuži and pljukanci. We usually serve them with another local staple, žgvacet, a slowly cooked stew made from chicken or beef.

Ruling Istria for centuries, Venetian Republic left its mark in its traditional cuisine. The most common dish is bakalar na bijelo (known as baccalà mantecato in Italian), paté made from stockfish (air dried cod), which was being imported to Venice since centuries ago.

Labinski krafi / Istrian ravioli class

Other Programs

Vegetarian / vegan class

Truffles galore class

Traditional fish class

Čripnja / peka class

Filleting & grilling fish class

Pasta class

Baccalà / stockfish class