People ask me what surprised me most about Croatia. Honestly? The food. I expected the coastline, the old towns, the water that looks Photoshopped. I did not expect to come home still thinking about lunch.
Here is how Croatia fed me, one stop at a time.

Eating your way through a country is one thing. Being handed an apron is another.

At the ŠKMER Cooking Academy, our group cooked a marenda — the hearty mid-morning meal Dalmatian workers have eaten for generations, and the backbone of home cooking here. On the menu, all of it made by us: veal risotto, chicken tingul with pasta, stuffed peppers in tomato sauce, lamb with peas, meatballs simmered in tomato, and rožata — Dalmatia's caramel custard — lined up on the counter for dessert.

There is no better way to understand a place than standing in its kitchen, and no better souvenir than knowing how the real food is made.

In the Poljica region I tried soparnik, a thin chard pie baked under a bell of hot coals the traditional way. It is such a piece of Croatian heritage that its preparation is protected by UNESCO. Simple ingredients, centuries of practice — and proof that "peasant food" done right beats fancy food done halfway.

In Imotski, inland from the coast, I toured the Emotheo Heritage Hotel and dined at Tri Sunca. I did not stay in Imotski — but I wish I did. That is the honest review, and the reason I tell clients not to treat Croatia as coast-only: some of the best of Dalmatia is a short drive inland.

One afternoon we took a boat up the Cetina River canyon, sheer rock walls on both sides, to Kaštil Slanica — a restaurant you reach by water. Lunch was a tour of Dalmatian classics: pašticada, the slow-braised beef Croatians save for celebrations; black cuttlefish risotto, as dark and rich as it sounds; brodetto, the fisherman's stew; and fried frog legs, a specialty of the region.

And yes — I tried the frog legs. I loved them, and I would eat them again without hesitating. When a place has been cooking something for generations, trust the generations.

It was all washed down with Tribidrag — the original Zinfandel, born right here in Dalmatia centuries before California made it famous.

If you make me pick one meal from the whole trip, it's lunch at Rizman Winery in Komarna, on the Dalmatian coast. The terrace looks out over the family's vineyards running down to the sea, with the Pelješac Bridge in the distance — and then the food started arriving, and the view had competition.

Marinated anchovies with capers and arugula. Bruschetta topped with cuttlefish and shrimp, and another with olive spread and sun-dried tomatoes. Glasses of the estate's Pošip, raised more than once. And then the centerpiece: a family-style platter of shrimp risotto, set in the middle of the table for everyone to dig into.

Because here is what I learned in Croatia: they eat a lot of risotto, and I loved all of it — every region, every table, every version. But the one at Rizman, with that view and those people, is the one I'd go back for first. We finished with a hazelnut dessert I'm still a little bit mad I can't order at home.

The meal I will remember longest wasn't in a restaurant at all. A Croatian family welcomed us into their home — a house that has been in the family for generations, where they still make their own silk by hand. Four generations of women hosted us together: the great-grandmother, the grandmother, the daughter, and the great-granddaughter, with the son of the house at the table too.

And I learned the first rule of Croatian hospitality: when you walk into someone's home, you have a shot. Then another shot. Then you sit down to dinner — and have more shots.

It was a beautiful time, and the best argument I know for traveling this way: not just seeing a country, but being taken in by it.

Mali Ston Bay has been famous for oysters for centuries, and Bota Šare serves them from a floating restaurant anchored right in the bay. There is something about eating oysters that were in the water below you that morning, with the salt marshes and stone walls of Ston behind you, that no white-tablecloth restaurant can compete with.

We finished the trip the way we'd started it: at a table. Our last night in Croatia was dinner on the terrace of the Hotel Excelsior — a sister hotel to the Dubrovnik Palace, where we were staying — right at the water's edge, an island black against the night sea and a ship lit up in the distance. Baked scallops served in the shell on a bed of coarse salt, sliced lamb with roast potatoes — elegant food, eaten slowly, by a group of people who had eaten their way down the whole coast together and weren't quite ready for it to end.

Croatia is not a place you just see — it's a place you taste, region by region, table by table. The wine country, the oyster bays, the canyon restaurants you reach by boat: none of that shows up on a standard tour route, and all of it can be built into your trip if the person planning it has eaten her way through it first.

I have. Let's plan your Croatia.

— Kim Gerenda, Smooth Get Away Travel Group

(219) 224-8350 · smoothgetawaytravel.com