Konoba Stori Komin

Having read of a remote konoba in a deserted village on Hvar, I nervously dialed the number to request a reservation. “TOMORROW?” The man on the phone seemed to be yelling at me. “Bad weather! Bad weather!” he repeated. 

“Seven o’clock?” I asked, my resolve shaken. 

“TOO LATE!” he yelled. “BAD WEATHER!”

“OK,” I agreed, hoping I’d heard him correctly and trying to regroup. 

“LUNCH!” he yelled. 

“OK,” I said. “One o’clock?”

“OK! OK!” he yelled. 

“Four people?” I pleaded. 

“OK!” he yelled. Rattled, I thanked him and hung up. What just happened? 

“I think we have a reservation for tomorrow for lunch,” I told Brian.

We set out the following morning, Google having appraised us of a) a four mile walk estimated to take 90 minutes and b) likely rain around noon. (“BAD WEATHER!” Brian said.) The walk took us on the main road out of town, lifting initially then slowly descending through a rolling landscape of mostly olive trees and fewer vineyards.

The season to harvest grapes is well past and the grape leaves are shades of yellow and rust but the olives are just coming on, their gnarled branches arrayed in striking diversity: large and larger green olives, small and larger purple olives. We passed several groups of mostly older people harvesting olives, standing on short ladders to rake the plump fruit onto nets spread below. Climbing up again, we could see the ocean before us as we passed another small village on the coast and turned left to enter a kind of low canyon, the road narrower and more winding but flanked on both sides by the same olive trees.

Rain started in earnest just as we came in view of Malo Grablje, a stone village abandoned in the 1960s possibly due to grape blight. We peeked in and around the buildings of the village as the rain poured down: rotting floors and ceiling beams, piles of rubble in the corners, half doors that opened stiffly to dark rooms or fallen walls. 

I guess this olive press was too heavy to pack?

Just shy of one o’clock, we climbed a short set of stairs to a spot that was clearly a restaurant: a covered outside patio and a smaller inside space, just a few tables, all with an unobstructed view of the kitchen. A wiry man with a ruddy complexion greeted us. “Emilee!” Berti exclaimed. We smiled and nodded and sighed in relief: there would be lunch! But not, as hoped, octopus peka, a traditional Croatian dish of meat and potatoes slow roasted under a iron bell covered in hot coals. Berti informed us that despite my second phone call, he’d elected not to prepare it (perhaps misunderstanding me just as I’d worried I’d misunderstood him). But not to worry, he reassured us, he’d grill lamb and veal instead. In the meantime, would we care for some grappa? What about anchovies, ham and cheese? (OK! OK!) 

A few minutes later Berti reappeared from behind the kitchen counter with two plates; the first held anchovies in two colors (the oxidized ones we’re familiar with as well as a paler variety) arrayed in a star pattern, covered with olive oil and dotted with capers. The second plate was piled with dark olives, prosciutto, slices of mild cheese and tomatoes so salty they crunched in our mouths. “WINE?” Berti asked us. 

“OK,” we agreed. 

“WHITE OR RED?”

“What do you advise?” Brian asked him. 

“RED,” he said emphatically. “WARM YOU UP! COLD DAY!” 

After we’d cleared the appetizer plates, Berti brought us a large platter of buttered onion-y potatoes, duvec (Croatian ratatouille) and a daunting pile of grilled meat. We tucked in energetically and ate all the potatoes and vegetables and made a serious dent in the meat pile.

Next came a lull in the action; Brian scooted over to sit near a table where two locals were eating and interrogated them about Croatian language, what to do in Slovenia, kinds of grappas to try. Berti joined the conversation as his cooking allowed, offering an impromptu grappa flight including one that after some help from Google translate we realized was flavored with loquat pits.

Joe wandered into the kitchen to watch Berti prepare a kind of flan, cracking egg after egg into a large plastic bucket. He poured the custard over a prepared caramel layer in a square pan which he placed into a water bath and carried outside to the wood fired oven, Joe tailing curiously behind.

Lunch finished with a large plate of sugared almonds, just prepared and still piping hot inside. We lingered over the almonds and the rest of the wine, then a glass of dessert wine and several more shots of Berti’s various homemade grappas. “I’m certain he makes them himself,” Brian said later, “because they were all poured from repurposed plastic bottles without labels.” Two plus hours later, we were sufficiently lunched (stuffed! groaning!) and set off back into the rain.