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Carrarina poljana 4, 21000 Split
Monday – Sunday 12:00 – 23:00
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A way to umami leads via Carrara Square

Whenever we enjoy a dish, we feel more than just four basic tastes – sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. There’s also a fifth, less-known taste called umami that enhances all of the above.

 

The fifth element of taste

This word of interesting history originates from Japan, where it denotes unity with the universe. The Japanese have been using it to express a deep connection and unity with food they felt overwhelmed with while eating.

At the time, almost like today, it was equally difficult to describe this taste that emerges when one feels the dish on the plate is a unit, with tastes perfectly balanced in a harmonious whole. A better and tastier one than the ingredients could ever be when tasted isolated.

Umami gives a taste of fullness and thus enhances the quality of all tastes in a dish. This synergy effect elevates the dish to a new level, and this feeling is often prompted by spices that usually serve to connect ingredients and round up the taste.

Umami Dalmatian way

This was not an unknown fact to people in Dalmatia, even though they couldn’t summarize it in one word that would take on in the world centuries later. In the lifetime of Emperor Diocletian, along the Dalmatian coast, people were using specific dips to enhance the taste of their food.

One was garum, dip made of fermented fish entrails, salt, and water, today greatly rediscovered. It is revived mostly because it’s easy to make and it doesn’t require additives. The other was varenik, dip largely used on the island of Brač. In essence, this is reduced wine must, and it is used to increase the gradation of wine in the process of making prosecco. But in the kitchen, it was used as a sweetener and spice.

The alluring scents enhanced by garum and varenik have lingered over the Carrara Square since Diocletian decided to build a palace here, so the location of our restaurant couldn’t be more appropriate. Since we tend to keep the tradition of fully enjoying quality food that will lead the way towards umami, we infused an X-factor to some of our dishes via exotic ingredients such as shrimp oil, ponzu dip, soy sauce, and yuzu.

You won’t be sorry if you try our Adriatic squid or the bass filet “snorkeling” in the shrimp oil, tataki tuna spiced up with ponzu dip (made of soy, fish, and seaweed), ceviche and tuna tartare “bathed” in yuzu, or sushi rolls with sweet miso sauce. Can’t choose between Agemaki Fantasy, Tiger Roll, or Mediterranean Roll? Take them all!

If you wish to see for yourself that umami is not just an empty story, book your table today and experience umami our way!

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