Zagreb eats like a Central European city with the Adriatic within reach: Zagorje curd cheese and štrukli, breaded veal, beans with sausage, washed down with Graševina or a Zmajska IPA. Three days through its markets, taverns and brewpubs.
Zagreb's second market fills Britanski trg every morning until 14:00 — around 60 stalls of Zagorje cheese, sir i vrhnje sold in plastic tubs, wild garlic in spring and forest mushrooms in autumn. Sundays add an antiques fair.
An old-school gostionica two blocks off Zrinjevac where waistcoated waiters serve grah s kobasicom (bean and sausage stew), Zagreb-style breaded veal and pan-fried liver. The daily gablec lunch plate is the local office ritual.
The working-class market locals rate above the tourist-facing ones: a covered fish hall, a full butchers' row, and grandmothers selling homemade ajvar, honey and rakija from the pavement. Open 07:00-15:00, Sundays to 13:00.
Vaulted 19th-century brick cellars beneath Kaptol holding roughly a thousand Croatian labels — Istrian malvazija, Plavac Mali from Pelješac, Graševina from Slavonia — plus olive oils and truffle products from Motovun.
A courtyard kitchen that cooks one thing only: štrukli, the Zagorje curd-cheese pastry, served boiled in broth or baked bubbling in its own dish, in savoury, truffle, pumpkin-seed and blueberry versions. Opens at 11:00 in winter.
Trading since 1837 as a brewery tavern, this Mesnička dining room plates the city's namesake dish — zagrebački odrezak, veal stuffed with ham and cheese, breaded and fried — alongside purica s mlincima and štrukli in beef soup.
A vaulted hall with a summer courtyard off Teslina, known for lamb and veal ispod peke — cooked for three hours under a cast-iron bell buried in embers — plus grilled Adriatic fish and a strong Dalmatian wine list.
Chef Goran Kočiš's small dining room near Trg Republike Hrvatske, the first kitchen in the Croatian capital to hold a Michelin star. Tasting menus of six to nine courses rework Zagorje and Adriatic produce, with Croatian wine pairings.
The roastery that started Zagreb's third-wave scene, tucked in a passage off Ilica, pouring single-origin filters and espresso from beans roasted in the city. Saturday morning here is špica — the ritual see-and-be-seen coffee hour.
A hole-in-the-wall window running since 1987, grilling chicken, turkey and beef to order and packing it into bread with a dozen sauces and salads chosen at the counter. Stays open past 04:00 at weekends.
The brewpub that revived Croatian beer in 1994, brewing Zlatni Medvjed lager and Grička Vještica dark ale on the premises. The kitchen turns out ćevapi, pork knuckle and grilled sausage designed around the half-litre pour.
Twenty-odd rotating taps on Opatovina weighted towards Croatian brewers — Zmajska Pivovara, Nova Runda, The Garden Brewery — with tasting flights, bottle fridges and a terrace below the Kaptol walls. Third-litre pours €3-5.