What to eat Bosnia And Herzegovina? culinary specialties and gastronomy

The restaurants are generally open every day from 8am to 10pm. This means that you can have a coffee or breakfast in the morning. The real service starts around noon. It is then possible to eat a full meal for the rest of the day. Some establishments, which offer a more upscale cuisine or with a more personal touch, are closed one or two days a week, and are sometimes only open for dinner or lunch. But this is rare.

Excluding drinks, you should plan on a budget of between 5 and 12 € for a full meal in most restaurants. From 15 €, you will find yourself in good restaurants or in establishments for tourists (not necessarily bad, by the way). In street food and fast food, it is possible to eat for less than 5 €. There is also a very small category of high-end gastronomic addresses starting at 25 €/person, in Sarajevo, Banja Luka or Trebinje.

The bill almost always includes service, bread, water and cutlery. As far as tips are concerned, the French have the reputation of being stingy here as elsewhere. Let's just say that, considering the prices charged, leaving 10% more for the staff is a good idea without jeopardizing your vacation budget. But nothing obliges you to do so.

In some villages or late at night in the big cities, you can only find food in a ćevabdžinica. This kind of place is similar to a fast food restaurant where they sell grilled meats placed in small round buns or pita and served with raw onions. There is a choice between ćevapi and pljeskavica. The former are spongy meat rolls (lamb and beef), the latter is ground beef steak. We, for eating on the go, prefer burek, a savory pastry with filo pastry filled with cheese or herbs. Not all of this is specifically Bosnian, as burek can be found as far away as the Near East, and ćevapi and pljeskavica, throughout the former Yugoslavia. However, there are two local variants of ćevapi: those from Sarajevo and those from Banja Luka.

This is the big concern of Bosnian restaurants: the smoke and the smell of cigarettes are omnipresent. Let's hope this will change with the new anti-smoking law passed in 2022.

Even the most touristy restaurant in Mostar, with its "traditionally dressed" waitresses, is not that bad. In fact, Bosnian restaurateurs are quite honest. The problem is that we eat a lot of meat here, and the meat served in most establishments is often fatty and tasteless. To eat well and/or healthily, it is better to avoid the touristy streets. Off the beaten track, there are even vegetarian addresses in Sarajevo, Banja Luka and Mostar.

Most cafes and bars close quite early, between 10pm and midnight for the most part. But the nightlife continues later in Mostar, Banja Luka and, especially, Sarajevo.

Expect to pay between €1.50 and €2.50 for a pint of local beer, around €3 for a small bottle of rakija, around €2 for a soft drink and just over €1 for a Bosnian coffee. Some bars and pubs offer happy hour in the larger cities.

Legislation prohibits the sale of alcohol to minors up to the age of 18. For adults, it is not advisable to be drunk on the public highway: it is very badly seen, especially in the vicinity of a mosque

Rakija is the traditional brandy of many Balkan and Central European countries (about 50 degrees of alcohol). The best is the one produced by some bars and restaurants as well as by private individuals. It is obtained by distillation of fruits. The šljivovica made from plum or quetsche is the most famous. Bosnia and Herzegovina is also a wine producer, mainly in Herzegovina, but the wine served in bars is usually not very interesting. Bosnians are more fond of beer. There are five industrial breweries in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Tuzla, Bihać and Mostar, as well as about 50 craft microbreweries throughout the country. Finally, the current fashion is hookah (plenty of shisha bars in Mostar and Sarajevo).

Even more than in restaurants and hotels, cigarette smoke is a nuisance in bars, pubs and cafes. Unless that changes with the new anti-smoking law passed in 2022

Not much. But there is a report of a credit card scam in a pub popular with tourists in the center of Sarajevo, near the Latin bridge: under the pretext of a problem reading the terminal, the staff swipes the card several times, resulting in several successive debits, but only one ticket is given to the customer.