Trogir native Grga Barić (49) does not have a classic hospitality story, he did not fall in love with cooking as a child, on the contrary, he had a difficult childhood, and due to a complicated family situation, he grew up with his grandmother and left the family home very early. For many years, he sold sports equipment, and then he fell in love with his wife Andrea, who was in the hospitality business. Shortly after their wedding, Andrea‘s father handed over the management of the Dino café to them, but Grga and Andrea had a different vision: to turn the café into one of the most successful restaurants in Trogir. Twenty-five years later, they succeeded. Their greatest success is their regular guests, and they already know in advance when someone will come. Although at first, Grga says, he just circled around the kitchen and had his own chefs, over time he fell so much in love with gastronomy that he took over the management of the restaurant.
"I‘m in the kitchen from morning till night, I met people, chefs, gastronomy, ingredients, whether everything local is the best or not. I came to the conclusion that not everything local is the best, oysters, for example, I import from France because they have proven to be the best, as well as some meat, while tuna and other fish, as well as fruit and vegetables, are domestic. I travel the world, I watch what people consume. I have created a base of guests who return year after year, I know exactly when a guest will come and what they like. I work with foreigners without a menu because they always come back. The menu doesn‘t change often, it‘s based on Mediterranean cuisine," explains Grga, who had just been shopping before the interview, a task he does early in the morning. He is in the restaurant every day from ten in the morning until a few hours after midnight, and every ingredient and every dish passes through his hands. Although during the summer months he sleeps only three to four hours a day, it is not a problem for him because he makes up for it in winter when he goes to bed as early as 9 pm.
"My wife handles the finances in the restaurant, but she is also an excellent connoisseur of gastronomy. When we started this story, we were young, ambitious, and over time we opened two pastry shops; one in Trogir, the other in Split, which we had to close because of the pandemic. Guests still miss our Don Dino ice cream, which was a mix of nougat, pistachio, and crumble. During the corona, we also had a sushi bar, but I realized that I don‘t function well on a hundred fronts and that I would rather devote myself only to the restaurant," says Grga, who fell in love with tuna while he had the sushi bar. He brought in sushi masters who showed him the technique and taught him the basics, and he took care of the rest himself. He spent hours in the kitchen to learn everything about tuna, which he now prepares in many ways.
"For five years now, we have fresh tuna every day, I have fallen in love with this fish. I started to study it, it‘s best raw with a few drops of olive oil. I learned the technique, closed the sushi bar, and moved the tuna to the restaurant because everyone was asking for it. I bought a display case and exhibited it in the restaurant. At first, I had to prove it to people, but today everyone knows that the best tuna in Trogir is eaten here," he says.
The menu also includes meat, fish, pasta, and only one risotto, which was created by Grga‘s wife Andrea – Don Dino. He always, he emphasizes, loved risottos, but none were good enough for him, so he decided to keep only one on the menu. He went for training with the famous chef Hrvoje Zirojević, who taught him that the most important thing for a good risotto is a quality stock, while another famous chef, Ivan Pažanin, with whom he worked for two years at Don Dino, taught him how to run a restaurant.
"Both Ivan and Hrvoje helped me a lot. Hrvoje taught me the technique of making risotto, taught me that a good stock is the most important. Our risotto consists of sea urchin meat and shrimp meat, pistachio granules, and aged Pag cheese. For example, we also make tuna tartare with only four ingredients, but I don‘t want to reveal them, no one knows except me and my wife," says Grga, who is also helped in the restaurant by his 21-year-old daughter Zara, a law student in the Netherlands. The two younger ones, Eli (13) and Toni (12), for now stay away from the kitchen and restaurant.
"When my wife tells me I have to take the kids to practice, I often forget, but I never forget to go for fresh tuna," Grga says with a laugh. In winter, he devotes himself to family life, and it is also important to him that he has given up alcohol and cigarettes.
"For five months a year, the restaurant is closed, and then I‘m just a dad or I travel the world. We have friends we travel with, we‘ve been to Vietnam, the Philippines, Jordan, and this year we‘re going to the Caribbean to sail. Often, new dishes are created on those trips, my wife is especially inspired by travel, and so far we have visited about a hundred Michelin-starred restaurants," says Grga, who loves his job so much that even during the winter he can‘t completely relax and is thinking up new recipes for the season, but has a much calmer pace.
"I get up at five, meditate, exercise, walk a lot because chefs have to be physically fit to withstand all the effort. In the afternoon, I spend time with the kids and go to bed before 10 pm," Grga concludes.
Don Dino Risotto
Ingredients (for 4 people)
400 g cleaned Adriatic shrimp, two teaspoons of sea urchin meat, 600 g Arborio rice, half an onion, a bit of shallot and parsley, half a glass of homemade tomato sauce, a bit of butter, shrimp shell stock (cooked for 7-8 hours)
Preparation
Sauté the shallot and onion in olive oil, and when they brown, add the parsley and tomato sauce. Gradually add the shrimp stock, then the rice, and cook for 15 minutes. Near the end, add the shrimp meat and make sure not to overcook it. After five minutes, add a bit of butter, remove from heat, and add the sea urchin meat, mix everything together, then add some Pag cheese on top and pistachio granules.
Apple Crumble
Filling
Ingredients:
6 apples, 100 g sugar, vanilla sticks, cinnamon flavor, 1 dl water
Preparation:
Cook everything together for five to ten minutes.
Dough
Ingredients:
250 g butter, 250 g sugar, 250 g flour, 300 g nuts
Preparation
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