Gostilna pri Mostu

Restaurant Pri Mostu is said to be one of the best restaurants in the area, and for a reason! Believe me when I say that it totally deserves that title. Once you eat there, you will want to come back again and again. This place is, and I am speaking both from my personal experience, and from what other people say, the restaurant with the most personal approach in the whole region of Western Slovenia.

Where can you find Restaurant pri Mostu?

First of all, let me tell you that in Slovenian language, this restaurant is called Gostilna pri Mostu. If you will be asking people about Restaurant pri Mostu, possibly with an accent, they will most likely not recognize which place you are talking about.

In Slovenian, 'Pri Mostu' means literally 'at the bridge', and it refers to the restaurant's location. You will see why in the directions below. So how do you get to this place?

Restaurant pri Mostu is situated about twenty minutes of driving away from where my parents live, and yet, we were not eating there very often in the past. But when we discovered how awesome it is, we were eating there almost every Sunday!

It depends which direction you are coming from, but the instructions on how to get there are very simple, and the restaurant is impossible to miss because it is situated just next to the road. Well, in case you are still not sure, you have the bridge as an excellent reference point, and this is the only bridge in town, so it leaves no doubt about the right location.

If you are coming from the direction of Kobarid, you have to follow the signs for Bovec. It really is nothing complicated, all you have to do is to follow the main road, and you do not have to turn anywhere. On the way there, you wil be passing through the following village: Trnovo ob Soči, Srpenica and then Žaga. Žaga is the village where Restaurant pri Mostu is situated.

You have to drive almost through the whole village. At the very end, the road turns right and there is a previously mentioned bridge. The restaurant is situated just next to the bridge, and it also has a big sign on the wall, indicating that you have arrived to the right place. For your orientation, it takes about fifteen minutes of driving to get to Žaga from Kobarid.

If you are coming from the direction of Bovec (or further, Kranjska Gora and Kranj), you might accidentally drive by the restaurant first time, but there are plenty of spaces to turn around in Žaga. What confuses people here is, that the bridge just appears (there is a curve before), and before you realize that you have to turn right, you are already on the bridge. To make it easier for you, let me tell you that the restaurant's building is coloured pink. Not the shiny, bright pink, but that should be enough to recognize the right building, since there is no other pink house before the bridge. From Bovec to Žaga, the drive only lasts five minutes.

It might seem like the restaurant has no parking space, but it has it. And in fact, a very big one – there is a place for thirty cars! It is situated behind the restaurant, and to get there, you have to turn left right after the bridge, and drive up a short, but very steep hill. The parking is never full, althought there might be a lot of people eating in the restaurant. What is even better is, that almost the whole parking space has some shadow, which is really a big plus in summer months. After all, nobody wants to get back to the car after eating an enormous amount of food, and finding that it is too hot inside to drive or even just sit.

First impression

The first thing that went through my mind when I visited this restaurant for the first time, was: wow, that place seems so small! At that time, I already knew that the restaurant Pri mostu has a capacity of 120 persons at once. So do not be fooled – when you enter the restaurant, you will only see its front side. The back side is enormous. After all, 120 people is not a little number.

Food and drinks

I have eaten at this restaurant several times, and I have tried several different dishes. From what I have tried, those are the dishes that I liked the most:

1. They have a great selection of pizzas, and not only the usual ones. My favourite one has recently became pizza with nutella. No, I am not kidding. Of course, there are no other toppings on it, because this way, it would be disgusting, but damn, nutella on a pizza bread, who thought that it can be so tasty? Other pizzas that are good, are mexicana (the spicy one, and you can choose how spicy you want it to be), funghi (different kinds of mushrooms and a sauce, made ou of garlic, parsley and olive oil) and Pri Mostu (which is their 'home pizza', almost each restaurant has it, and theirs consists of mushrooms, different kinds of grilled meat, an egg and a few slices of a sausage).
2. Also, they have awesome grilled squids. I love this dish, and I must say that I have eaten one of the tastiest ones in my entire life in Gostilna Pri Mostu. The portion is just right, and you also get french fries along with the dish for no extra charge. The squids are small, almost small enough to eat one without slicing it, they are grilled just enough, and there is a delicious garlic and olive oil sauce, spread over them. For even a better taste, I always add a bit of lemon juice.
3. Then, there is a dish that they serve, which will make you lick your plate when you finish. What is it? Actually, I am talking about a simple mushroom soup. Simple, but tasty. There are different kinds of mushrooms inside, the taste is very rich, and the best way to eat it is to dip (home made!) bread into it. Both, the bread and the soup are excellent. Sadly, the soup is always served very hot. I believe it has to be that way, but once, I just could not wait to start eating already, so I burned my tongue and I almost did not feel the awesome taste before I finished it.
4. And, for the end, a thing that you absolutely MUST try: vanilla ice cream with pumpkin seeds oil. I think that we all agree that it sounds disgusting. It even looks disgusting! You can see it for yourself on the picture below. But this is one of the tastiest desserts you will ever have. When the restaurant owner strongly reccommended me to try this, I was hesitating, and asked for a really small portion. But I have soon ordered a bigger one!  I cannot quite describe the taste, because I find no words. But the combination is just perfect. The pumpkin seeds oil is served a bit warm, which makes ice cream melt faster, but it is even better to eat if everything becomes a liquid, so the two tastes can really mix up.

   

I wish that I could describe all the dishes that I have tried at Gostilna Pri Mostu, because I loved every single one of them, but there is simply too many of them to describe them all. So I just picked a few of my favourite ones. Well, if you would like to find out what else do they offer, you have no other choice than to visit them and see the menu for yourself, since this place still has no website.

Once, I was there with my friend, and she decided to order the dish that is a very big speciality in western Slovenia – a bear meat! Of course, I did not order it, but I also could not resist trying a tiny piece, and I almost threw up in the middle of the restaurant. The meat is somehow sweet, and it is impossible to chew it. An expression 'chewing the leather belt' came to my mind when I was discretly spitting the piece out into the napkin. Although, my friend said she liked it. But I would never try it again.

The staff

What I found interesting about the staff, is how different they are. And they do come from different countries (and once you meet the owner, you get to hear some interesting stories about that, too). There is, for example, one girl from Slovakia, who works there, and one from Zambia. And she speaks Slovenian so well that you think she must be living here in Slovenia her whole life, but she only moved here seven years ago.

They are all very talkative and will gladly assisst you if you need any help with choosing what to eat or drink. After you finish eating, they will always ask you whether you liked it or not. Sometimes, if there are not many guests in the restaurant at the time, they will even take some time to chat with you for real. For example, I was once talking to that girl from Slovakia, and we figured out that she knows my ex – roommate from my Erasmus exchange, which is also from Slovakia. We immidiately had to agree that the world is very small.

Besides the staff's very personal approach, there is another great thing – all of them speak several languages. Besides English, they also know how to speak Italian, German, French and the Slovakian girl even speaks some Japanese!

The good things…

Besides the things that I have described above, there are some more things that caught my attention in a positive way:

This one might seem funny to some of you, but during my several visits at Gostilna pri Mostu, I have not noticed a single town drunk, sitting behind the bar. You know, at some places, when you enter the bar, there is a group of people at the bar, sipping their beer, being loud and annoying and even insulting people that are passing by.  Believe me, such things can really ruin my day. Luckily not here.

Even if the restaurant is totally full, which can happen quite often on summer weekends, the staff will do anythig they can to find an available space for you. And by this, I do not mean that you will have to sit at the table with other people that you do not even know. Not at all. I have seen several occassions when staff members have brought a table and a chair, put it somewhere and told you to eat there. Tell me, where else can you see that? However, this is not possible if you are there with a group, so you might have to wait for an available table. It is a good idea to reserve the table in advance for any groups, bigger than five or ten people.

Also, despite that the restaurant is one hundred percent full sometimes, your food will be ready in no time. And this does not mean low quality! I have no idea how they do this, because there are only two cooks employed there, and sometimes, they have to cook for the group of fifty people or more, and you will still get your food in less than half an hour. Awesome, I know.

If you are coming from the direction of Bovec, you probably saw an agency that offers extreme sports in the Soča Valley, called TOP EXTREME, situated just before the town of Žaga. It is almost impossible to miss it, because, if not the numerous sighs, a hude piles of rafts and kayaks in front of this place are visible from far away. But why am I witing this, if it has nothing to do with Restaurant pri Mostu? Actually, it has!

They have a sort of contract between each other, and if you eat at the restaurant (regardless on the value, but you have to eat a meal, because a drink does not count), you get a nice, twenty – five percent discount for ziplining with TOP EXTREME. And that is not everything yet – shuttle from and back to the place is included. This zipline is fairly new, and I have not tried it yet, but it is said to be one of the best ones in Europe. Well, the scenery definitely is the prettiest.

The restaurant owner tries to interact with guests as much as he can, and in a very nice way, he is not pushy. He seems interested to know all about the country you are coming from and your vacation in the western region of Slovenia. Also, he is a hunter, and if he is in the right mood, he will tell some of his unsuccessful hunting stories, which usually make the whole restaurant burst in laughter. Once, he was telling about how he almost shot his wife 'by accident', as he called it, and on other occassion, he was telling how ashamed he was because he did not shoot any animals in the whole day, so he went to the supermarket, bought some meat and brought it home. He was then claiming that he has shoot it and also prepared the meat.

The portions are just perfect. Before I ate at Restaurant Pri Mostu for the first time, I only knew two kinds of portions in restaurants: the small ones, where you were even more hungry than before after eating it, and the too big ones, where you have to leave half of the food, because you simply cannot eat anymore. But in this restaurant, they must somehow guess how hungry you are. When I eat there, I always eat everything. As I said, just the right amount.

At the dining room in the back (the one that is usually reserved for bigger groups), there are two computers with internet access that you can use for free. Well, you must order something in the restaurant, of course. But I must say that I rarely see people, using the computers. I think that this must tell you something about the food quality. There is also a TVon the wall in the main dining room, but it is usually turned off...

…and the not so good things

There is not much negative things to write about. And they should definitely not discourage from your visit of this awesome restaurant. I have listed them just so you know what can you expect. So, let me start:

First of all, Restaurant pri Mostu is situated just next to the road, which can also be a good thing because it makes finding the restaurant much easier. But it can be quite dangerous for kids. In summer months, a lot of tourists pass through Žaga, and some of them drive very fast. So if you decide to go there with kids, I would advise you to sit inside instead. Also, it can be a bit noisy on the terrace, but still bearable. Meanwhile, you can barely hear any noise from the cars inside.

As I have mentioned above, the restaurant Pri Mostu accepts a fairly big amount of people, especially if you consider the size of the town it is situated in. And if different groups come to eat there, it can quickly get quite noisy. The restaurant has several 'rooms' that are reserved for groups, but we all know how loud some people can be after drinking something.

Even if the restaurant Pri Mostu has a modern equipment and everything, they have no website, which is a pity. I think that a lot of tourists (me included, when I go somewhere) like to check in advence where they will eat. But, on the other site, Gostilna Pri Mostu already has a very good reputation and a lot of guests, so they do not really need to advertise it online.

Prices                                                                 

After reading so many positive things about the Restaurant Pri Mostu that I have written above, you are now probably thinking that it must be super expensive to eat there. But it really is not. In fact, it is very affordable.

It makes no sense to start listing all the prices here, so I will just tell you that you can have a whole meal for about fifteen Euros at Gostilna pri Mostu.

Opening times

Restaurant Pri Mostu is open every day from 10.00 in the morning to 10.00 in the evening, except on Thursdays, when it is closed. They have somehow calculated that Thursday is the day when the least guests would come, so they are having a day off once per week.

Conclusion

From what I have written above, you have probably already guessed that  I do strongly recommend you to eat in this restaurant. Besides all other positive things that I have listed above, there is one more that I have left fot the end. And that is the scenery. The restaurant Pri Mostu is situated in the middle of the mountains, in a scenic town, and with river Soča with its unmistakable green colour, floating through town just next to the restaurant.

At this point, you probbaly think that you know everything about Gostilna Pri Mostu, that you should know. But you do not. I have saved the best for the end. Well, the best in case you love animals, which I am sure that you do.

So, Gostilna Pri Mostu owns a very friendly puppy and a parrot. And some snakes. Do I have your full attention? Then read on. The puppy is small, and very old, and he barks a lot. But do not get scared, in Slovenia, we have a proverb, that says: dogs who bark, do not bite. And this dog is a perfect example. It is behind the fence most of the time, so he does not bother the guests, but if you want, you can still pet him.

Then, the parrot. This one is the funiest animal ever. So, when you enter Gostilna Pri Mostu, you will most likely hear somebody screaming. And if you understand Slovenian language, you will be surprised about the bad words you hear. Well, at least I was, when I went to Gostilna Pri Mostu for the first time. It really sounded like a very angry human. But then I figured out that this is actually a parrot, who was taught those words by tha owner. Pretty funny, if you are not a religious person!

And last but not least, the snakes. They are not situated in cages, but outside the restaurant, more precisely just below the terrace. But do not worry, they never come up. Those are not pet snakes, but this place seems like a heaven for them, where whey breed. And in summer months, you will be able to spot over a ten of them on the same place. The restaurant owner said that they do not bother him, so he will not kill or remove them, and I totally respect his decision!

All I am going to say for the end, is: please, do yourself a favour and go eat at this restaurant!