Split's best-known fine-dining seafood restaurant, on the first floor of the ACI marina with the whole harbour in front of it. Expensive, precise, and the view genuinely earns part of the bill.
By Ana Kovač
Book the terrace at sunset or do not bother. Around €70–90 a head with wine. The raw fish courses are the strongest part of the menu; the desserts are the weakest.
The raw fish courses are the strongest part of the menu — a crudo selection, a tartare, whatever is on the raw bar that day. The cooked fish is precise and expensive, and the desserts are the weakest part, which is worth knowing before you order three courses. The wine list is serious and the sommelier is worth listening to, especially on the Croatian whites, which are the ones you cannot get at home.
For straight Dalmatian seafood at about half the price, Konoba Matejuška is behind the fishing harbour.
Book a week ahead for a terrace table in July and August, and specify the terrace when you book, because the inside room is fine but it is not the reason you came. Around €70–90 a head with wine. Open lunch and dinner, closed Sundays outside high season. The sunset tables go first, and they are worth booking for.
For a smart dinner in the centre instead, Bokeria has the serious wine list.
For the rest of the evening, see romantic things to do in Split.
Within a short walk.
Adventure
Split's own barefoot ball game, invented at Bačvice in 1908 and played in ankle-deep water with no points and no winner. Free, faintly ridiculous, and the single most Split thing you can do. Locals will let you join if you ask.
Beaches
Split's city beach, and the only proper sand within walking distance of the palace. Shallow for fifty metres, which makes it excellent for small children and the reason picigin — Split's own barefoot ball game — was invented here.
Nightlife
Where a Split night ends rather than starts. The row of clubs behind the sand fills from about midnight, runs to three or four in summer, and sits a ten-minute walk east of the Riva, so nobody needs a taxi home. Loud, young and pop-driven — arrive before one and it will feel empty.
Beaches
A small sandy bay just past Bačvice, in front of the tennis club where Goran Ivanišević learned to play. Shallow, calm and mostly families — the quieter alternative when Bačvice is a wall of people.
Adventure
Wrecks, walls and caves within an hour of the city, on water that is warm from June to October and clear most of the year. A try dive needs no experience and no certificate; a certified single dive is the cheapest way to get wet if you already have a card.
Adventure
The noisy end of the Split waterfront, and the only place near the city with the full concession: parasail, jet ski, banana, tube, pedalo. Nobody will pretend it is authentic. It is, however, exactly what a bored eleven-year-old wants at four in the afternoon.
Food & drink
Twelve seats at a counter, a blackboard that changes daily, and cooking that is better than places charging three times as much. No reservations, no table service, and a queue outside from seven. Worth the wait.
Food & drink
A small konoba on a Varoš side street doing exactly four things well: grilled fish by the kilo, black risotto, octopus salad and house wine from a jug. No view, no English menu board outside, and a queue by eight in July.
Food & drink
Three and a half hours through the green market, the fish market and four family-run places inside the palace, eating soparnik, pršut, Pag cheese, fresh anchovies and rožata. Enough food to replace lunch, with the context that makes Dalmatian cooking make sense.
Food & drink
A stone-walled konoba in an alley behind the Matejuška fishing harbour, doing straight Dalmatian seafood without a single flourish. Small, warm and consistently very good.
Food & drink
A tiny sourdough bakery near the Golden Gate that sells out by early afternoon. Proper bread, burek, and the best breakfast pastry in Split for under three euros.
Food & drink
The nine-until-midnight part of a Split night, and the best of it. Small cellars and side rooms inside Diocletian's Palace pour Dalmatian wine by the glass with no music you have to shout over. Arrive before nine if you want a table, and leave around midnight when the lanes empty.