Dining Review: Taverna de Amicis - Rovinj, Istria (Croatia)

July 2021

Dining Review: Taverna de Amicis – Rovinj, Istria (Croatia)

There are a ton of places to eat in Rovinj and navigating them can be tricky. There are many that are overpriced looking to hit an uneducated market of tourists. There are places serving non-traditional food for those tourist that want something like home. Like any destination, it takes a bit of homework to ensure that you are going to have a great, authentic meal as best you can. Taverna de Amicis was recommend by our Airbnb host and upon further review, it felt worthy of a try. I made a reservation through Facebook and we were good to go.

The restaurant is not far from our Airbnb on the opposite side of the center of Old Town situated on an incline. It was impressive how they got the tables and chairs to rest on this angle and keep everything level.

We started with out new favorite wine Malvazjia, ordering the Ravalico Malvazjia Istarska. On these hot sumer days, this wine is just perfect. And it also goes well with the seafood onsought we were about to tackle.

Mussels with garlic, olive oil lemon

To start, we ordered something we do not traditionally order – mussels. I am not sure why but something the garlic was calling my name. And thankfully it was super garlicky as I was hoping. These were a great light way to start the meal. And the sauce made for some great dipping action with the bread (scarpetta forever). I think we may order this more often. Awesome start to the meal!

Fish in the over with potatoes, vegetables, and olives

Solid meal, whole fish was delicious, everything was well executed. Service was excellent though overall meal was nothing extraordinary.

Grilled scampi

The menu was so vague I really was unsure what was going to come out but I was hoping it was going to be whole, intact prawns that I get to peel apart. And to my delight, it was – just look at these guys – oh I was a happy camper. These were simple and delicious and I enjoyed every moment dissecting the succulent meat from inside. I forgot to mention that there was a side of potatoes with a green (either chard or spinach) but who has time for that – my hands were so dirty but I kept all my clothes squeaky clean.

Tres Amicis dessert

The dessert was an easy choice – the marscapone, whipped cream, peanut butter, and cocoa. Get out of here. While splitting was the right thing to do, we really could have each has our own – it was that good.

Overall, we were both extremely happy with our decision to eat here! While it may be cliche to get seafood at the seaside place, I do not know if there is a better time to get it. The staff were all fun and friendly providing great service despite how busy it was – I was certainly glad to have a reservation (made via email/Facebook) as people were being turned away without one. Great start to our time in Rovinj!