Luka

Luka's grandmother Anica was a good cook and as he spent a lot of time with her when he was a child, he helped her cook. He remembers that he liked baking cakes the most. This cooking aficionado declared in the second grade of the elementary school that he would be a cook when he grew up. And so he is. He creates in Galerija okusov together with Marko Magajne, with whom he struck up a friendship at the secondary hospitality school in Celje, and the team.

Luka constantly thinks about cuisine, creates and explores. He says that it isn’t difficult, as he lives on a farm: “The magic of it all is that I listen to the environment and present it on the plate. With homemade bread made with flour that I picked up at the mill in the morning, with fresh herbs that I picked from nature, with cheese that I discussed with the delivery guy… When you start working, you see what quality ingredients are and what cuisine is. Genuine, quality and fresh flavours.” He admits that there is some adrenaline in not ruining a quality ingredient, but rather processing it so that it remains genuine. In this way, all his senses are always on alert, as there is no place for automatism in his work.”

He believes that flavours are the most important element, which is why he works a lot on flavours as well as on pleasure. Only after this does appearance play a role. “It’s nice to see ornate creations on a plate, but guests basically come to eat something good. My grandmother taught me that.” For guests to enjoy dishes, they can’t all be strong, full and filling. Dishes must be in balance and must follow each other accordingly. “In this way, guests always want more, and aren’t so full that they can’t swallow another bite.”

A good cook is precise and swift, and their dishes are high quality and constant. This means that they know how to process an ingredient in the right way and prepare it at the right time. To this end, cooks must cooperate with other people: “You can’t do anything alone. A team is a whole and must be harmonised. In our team, each member can present an idea. Then we discuss it together,” says Luka.

He ‘raises’ young cooks in this spirit, advising them: “Steal knowledge.” This is just a little joke to relax them, but basically, it is real advice. Therefore, each new cook in Luka’s team must write down in a notebook at least one thing a day that they learned that day.

Luka also teaches guests or better yet – he broadens their culinary horizons and uncovers new flavours of known ingredients. He always asks his guests if there is something they don’t eat. Then he invites them to try just that. Beetroot baked in soil or coarse salt with numerous herbs, buckwheat porridge cream and spruce tips fermented with blueberries sounds completely different, right?

Luka’s relentless curiosity attracts: “I just have to create. All the time. In this way, I discover new ingredients and techniques. All my dishes are original. It isn’t difficult to put together a new dish, as high-quality ingredients are abundant in Slovenia. Sometimes, I like a dish so much that we change the whole menu to balance it with other dishes. If four or five seasonal menus were available at Galerija okusov, I’d go crazy,” he says honestly.