September the 20th, 2023 – The recently held Zagreb Michelin chef workshop is the first such workshop held outside of the French capital.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the very first Masterclass workshop of the global gastronomic guide Michelin to be held outside of France and the first of its kind in the world was held in Zagreb. It gathered around fifteen of Zagreb’s top chefs who own restaurants bearing the stars and other marks of that well-respected guide.
The Zagreb Michelin chef workshop was led by the distinguished chef Riccardo Gaspari, owner of the SanBrite restaurant from Cortina di Ampezzo, Italy, which has boasted a Michelin star since 2020. On top of that recognition, it has also recently been awarded a green star for sustainability in gastronomy, which was one of the main topics of the workshop.
“We’re looking forward to being in Zagreb, and I believe that this workshop will be useful for everyone, especially for the further development of the gastronomic offer in Zagreb. There’s a lot of potential for that, and there is a lot of work to be done, so this is a good idea from the city’s tourist board,” said Gaspari back at the opening of the Croatian workshop.
Gastro-tourism stories
The host of the workshop was the much loved Zagreb restaurant Dubravkin put, and every establishment marked with a Michelin mark in Zagreb was invited to the workshop, which was free of charge.
“I’m grateful to all the chefs who responded to the invitation to come to the Zagreb Michelin chef workshop. The Tourist Board of the City of Zagreb has nurtured a strong relationship with Michelin for years now, and we’re honoured that they chose Zagreb for the first such workshop to be held outside of France and in general in the world. They plan to continue with this new format,” emphasised the director of the Zagreb Tourist Board, Martina Bienenfeld.
“Gastro-tourism stories are particularly important and well woven into the overall tourist offer of a destination, and gastronomy is connected to the entire sector. As such, it’s actually a “mirror of the destination”.
Along with accommodation, every trip implies a restaurant offer and all tourists and travellers look for these two things first. In this regard, the Michelin labels, as the world’s most famous gastronomic guide, mean a lot because they facilitate the search for good restaurants and food. They also offer a certain level of security, especially to those who have gone somewhere for the first time and don’t know the destination,” said Bienenfeld. She assessed that everyone in Zagreb with Michelin labels, just like with other restaurants across the world, sees an increase in both visibility and recognition. Regarding this year’s tourist traffic, she said that it is going well, that September so far has already been better with tourist arrivals and overnight stays than September 2019. Since the beginning of the year, all of these results have been excellent.
The Australians have made a come back
“From the beginning of this year to the middle of September, Zagreb was visited by about 900 thousand tourists, who realised 1.7 million overnight stays. Compared to the same period back in 2022, these are increases of 22 and 15 percent respectively.
In all of this, tourists from the USA are in first place in terms of the number of realised overnight stays, and the return of tourists from other distant markets, such as that of Australia, is also noticeable. Considering the announcements and occupations from the market, as well as the business and offer of Zagreb as a city break destination and others, we believe we’ll see the continuation of such trends until the end of the year,” concluded Bienenfeld.
