Typical Dubrovnik's cuisine is regular Mediterranean cuisine with plenty of fish and other seafood vegatables, olive oil etc. However we tend to eat a lot of meat, pasta and bread as well.

In order for you to say you have truly tasted Dubrovnik's cuisine, you must start with few oysters (if you have not tried it yet, it might be an aquired taste, being served raw and freshed sprinkled with lemon juice).
Then it is common to take either octopus salad, portion of mussels and other shelves roasted or boiled or seafood risotto red (with tomato sauce) or black (with squid ink). A portion of small fried fish (gerice) goes along with it just fine.

Up to this point it can be pretty much enough but if you wish to continue, usually one orders fish (mostly rosted) by the kilo, lobster (grilled, stuffed, baked, in a salad…), shrimps / prawns (fried, grilled, on bouzarra way) or squid (fried squid rings, roasted fresh squid, usually going with dalmatian cabbage- blitva).

For desert, two Dubrovnik specialties is Torta od Makarula (pasta and chocolate cake) and Rozata (special local pudding like desert).

Other than this seafood selection mentioned above, there are plenty of steak restaurants, spagheterrias, pizzerias where one can eat all the regular dishes you eat everywhere in the world. The local meat specialty would be Damatinska Przolica (roasted battered ramsteak with cabbage and potatoes on the side) or not so much local but wide known Cevapcici (minced meat sticks), raznjici (meat skewers) and Pljeskavica (specially made minced meat prepared as a hamburger).

When it comes to drinks, travarica (home made brandy – stong stuff) or orahovica (nut brandy – mild) are an absoulte must as a starter. Wine is usually drunk with main course, red wine goes more with meat and white goes better with fish. Being local patriots we would definetly reccommend Dingac (extra quality dry red wine from Peljesac region), Postup (high quality semi dry red wine also from Peljesac region) and Plavac Mali (quality red wine from various producers along croatian coast). From white wine sorts we recommend Posip (Posip Smokvica or Posip Cara, both from the Korcula island) and Dubrovacka Marastina (old sort of wine from Dubrovnik area that is being produced more and more in last few years).

TIPS:

• If ordering fish, you will be presented with raw fish on a platter to chose from.If the eyes of the fish are not blurry and the gills are red it means that the fish is fresh, if otherwise choose something else on the menu.
• The bowl of water and lemon you might get when oredring shrimps or lobster is used to wash your hands afterwords, not for drinking.
• Waiter tips are common but not necessary. Usual tips are around 5 percent.
• Do not by any means order beer with fish, you will be object of scorns from surrounding tables and waiters.