Uroš

He advocates cooking based on traditional recipes, the use of fresh locally grown ingredients and modern cooking techniques. Cooking is not just his job, it is also a hobby. Uroš believes it is most important that a dish he serves has a character that captivates guests and is prepared with love and respect for the ingredients as well as out of the consideration for guests.

“I appreciate good raw ingredients, farmers and producers who produce superb products with their knowledge, experience and tradition. This is the only way for cooking to develop and modernise, which is a great challenge for cooks.”

Uroš has always known that he would become a cook. His cooking talent surfaced in his younger years when he used to cook and prepare homemade dishes with his grandmother Ana. He was most fascinated by a visit to the Hospitality and Tourism Convention that he visited with his fifth-grade schoolmates as part of the cooking class. “I still remember my excitement when I saw what you can do with food.”

Uroš’s culinary creations begin with a single ingredient to which he adds flavours, structures and colours and seeks balance. For example, he emphasises the tenderness of rabbit with robust bacon and combines it with foie gras, glazed sour cherries and a crunchy crouton, with the surprising addition of vanilla seeds. Krištof and his team of cooks give him balance, as a good cook cannot do anything without a good team. “The atmosphere in the kitchen is very important and must be creative. We are not divided and instead breathe as a whole. This is the only way to create new dishes and beautiful plates.”

Cooking is discovering new horizons of culinary creations and flavour, but confectionery is more than that. Endless possibilities for creation in confectionery inspire him to create in all fields of cooking. Combining flavours and upgrading cooking techniques are the prerequisites for creating good dishes Uroš puts on the menu when “they reach perfection, are technically perfected and produce the right flavour.”

Uroš believes that cooking is a talent with which you are gifted. “Anyone can learn. But it’s different if you have talent – with it, you accept everything, work, read, visit good restaurants and learn.” He has been learning a lot. He cooked with and for the ‘great’. He cooked for Maestro Pavarotti and even the Pope under the leadership of Andrej Goljat, and for various embassies in Slovenia, but he remains modest. He points out that he has learned a lot from all the challenges he has faced in his career. It has been difficult at times, but today, looking back, he sees that everything had its purpose. After Brdo, he did a brief stint in a canteen, where he learned how to cook for 3,000 people. He later tried his hand as a banquet cook. Before Krištof, he delighted as a protocol chef for the Turkish and Finnish embassies for several years. “I often thought about training abroad, but it all came to me when I met various foreign chefs in Slovenia.”

Since Uroš’s job is also his hobby, he says that he will not run out of inspiration to create. “Today, cooking is very popular and has reached a point where we can prepare a dish that we can serve in first-class restaurants according to slightly modernised grandmothers’ recipes. We are going back to the roots, just look at stories of baking different types of bread, which captivate people worldwide.” In addition to exploring the cuisine of our grandmothers, he often finds inspiration in the culinary and confectionery literature from around the globe and online. “I’m referring to books and magazines that may not be interesting for everyone who cooks, but I find in them new horizons of modern cuisine and confectionery, which are almost infinite.”