What to eat in Slovakia? - Slovak dishes and specialities

Whether you’re hiking in the mountains, exploring towns or simply relaxing in a water park, you’ll surely get hungry at some point. And that’s great, because travelling means also tasting local delicacies and Slovak cuisine can offer quite a number of them! Find out what you can be cooked, for example, with the bryndza cheese!

Let's start with the classics, i.e. the most popular Slovak specialities. The first is, of course, the famous fried cheese, a slice of yellow cheese in bread crumbs coating fried on fat. This vegetarian cutlet tastes best with fries and tartar sauce. You can also try bryndzové halušky, which are dumplings made by pressing potato and flour dough through a sieve, and served with bryndza cheese and greaves.

Slovaks often eat soups, so if you also like two-course dinners you will be fully satisfied. You’ll find here the classic tomato or potato soup, but we recommend especially the onion and garlic soups, as well as the very dense bean soup with lots of vegetables. Caring about calories is rather pointless - almost all of them are finished with cream. Just like in the Polish Podhale region, on the Slovak side of the Tatra Mountains you can have a soup based on sauerkraut with potatoes and sausage, and sometimes pieces of meat. What is typical only for Slovakia, however is demikát, a cream soup made of... the bryndza cheese! Depending on the recipe, you can also find in it pieces of potato, fried bacon and or an egg. The whole is topped off with some chives and crunchy croutons. Delicious!

The centuries-old ties with Hungary are of course also reflected in the Slovak cuisine. You can easily get here an aromatic and rich goulash soup with lots of paprika or a classic pork goulash, served with potatoes, bread or... knedlíky (dumplings).

Slovaks appreciate meat of different kinds. If you want to try something original, do order duck with red cabbage, bacon-wrapped sirloins or beef cheeks braised in wine. Try also the liver, preferably accompanied by fried onions and fruit jam - a combination that may be unusual, but is definitely worth a try.

Although many dishes in Slovakia are based on meat, if you eat only vegetarian dishes you won’t be left unsatisfied. In addition to the aforementioned fried cheese, you can also order dumplings with cream sauce, different variants of rice with vegetables or dumplings with the bryndza cheese, which are one of the most important Slovak specialities (just tell the waiter in advance that f you don’t want them sprinkled with greaves). Another popular dish is strapačky or potato and flour dumplings (once again - watch out for the greaves) topped with sour cream and served with sauerkraut. There are also different pancakes, which are mostly eaten in sweet version, so they can also serve as breakfast or dessert with coffee, according to your preferences. You’ll be surprised by the taste of lokše, which are pancakes made from potato dough. They are usually served as an accompaniment to meat, but for vegetarians they can be served as a stand-alone dish with a salad and tartar sauce.

If you like beer - you won't complain. If you like wine - you'll be satisfied as well. Slovaks produce both of them and their quality is increasingly appreciated by critics and tourists. Other popular beverages include the tokay wine and Kofola, the local (Czechoslovak) version of coca-cola.

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