The first thing to get straight: Zagreb is not coastal Croatia, and if you arrive expecting grilled fish, olive oil and Dalmatian cooking you will be looking for a restaurant that is importing it.
Continental Croatia — the Zagorje, Slavonia and the Pannonian plain — eats like its neighbours: Austrian, Hungarian and Ottoman influences on a base of pork, freshwater fish, cabbage, paprika and pastry. It is heavier, richer and much less photographed than the coast, and some of it is extremely good.
The dishes that are actually local
Štrukli. The Zagreb dish. Sheets of thin dough filled with fresh cottage cheese and cream, either boiled — soft, pale, served in the cooking liquid — or baked, browned on top with more cream poured over.
It is served as a starter, a main, or as a sweet version with sugar and walnuts. It is on the Croatian list of protected intangible heritage, and a good baked štrukli is the single best argument for continental Croatian cooking.
Purica s mlincima. Roast turkey with mlinci — flatbreads baked, torn up, soaked in the roasting juices and returned to the oven. The Zagorje Sunday dish and the thing to order if you see it.
Zagrebački odrezak. Veal or pork schnitzel stuffed with ham and cheese, breaded and fried. It is a cordon bleu and it is enormous. Not sophisticated, genuinely good, and named after the city.
Kotlovina. Sausages, pork and vegetables cooked outdoors in a wide shallow pan over a fire. A weekend and celebration dish rather than a restaurant one.
Čobanac, the Slavonian shepherd’s stew — several meats, a great deal of paprika, cooked for hours.
Kulen, the Slavonian paprika sausage, and češnjovka, the garlic sausage, both eaten cold with bread and cheese.
Freshwater fish — carp, pike-perch and catfish from the Sava and the Drava, usually as fiš paprikaš, a fiery Hungarian-influenced fish stew, or grilled.
Breakfast and the street
Burek, from a bakery, eaten standing up. Filo pastry coiled in a spiral, filled with cheese (sirnica), meat, or spinach. This is what Zagreb actually eats in the morning, with a yoghurt drink.
Bakeries are everywhere and open early. The rest of the pastry counter — savijača, pogačice, kifle — is the cheapest good food in the city.
Ćevapi — small grilled minced-meat rolls, served in somun flatbread with raw onion and ajvar, the red pepper relish. Bosnian in origin, entirely naturalised, and the standard cheap meal.
Sweet
Kremšnita, the custard slice, best known from Samobor and Zagreb.
Orehnjača and makovnjača — walnut and poppyseed rolled cakes, eaten at Christmas and Easter and available year-round.
Fritule, the small rum-scented doughnuts, which are everywhere during Advent.
Bajadera, the nougat praline from Kraš, the Zagreb confectioner founded in 1911. This is what Croatians take abroad as a present.
Where to eat
Gostionica and konoba — the ordinary eating house. Paper tablecloths, a short menu, a daily special, and portions aimed at someone who has done a day’s work.
The marenda. A set midday meal at a fixed low price, served in ordinary restaurants and much cheaper than the same kitchen’s evening menu. This is where the value is, and most visitors never notice it exists.
Around Dolac and Opatovina — the concentration of decent, unpretentious places, and better value than Tkalčićeva twenty metres away.
Martićeva and Vlaška, east of the centre, for the newer independent restaurants and the craft beer.
Tkalčićeva for the atmosphere and not for the food. This is said plainly on its own page and it is worth repeating.
Drinking
Coffee, constantly, sitting down. See špica.
Croatian wine is very good and barely exported, which means the wine list in an ordinary Zagreb restaurant offers things you cannot buy at home. Graševina from Slavonia for white — dry, fresh, and the country’s most planted grape. Plavac Mali from the coast for red. Malvazija from Istria. Ask for a gemišt — white wine with sparkling water — and you will be doing what the locals do on a hot afternoon.
Rakija. Fruit brandy: šljivovica from plums, travarica with herbs, medica with honey, orahovica from green walnuts. Offered as hospitality and not sipped politely.
Beer — Ožujsko and Karlovačko are the big two, and there is now a genuine craft scene with several Zagreb breweries.
Practical
Book for the good restaurants at weekends; walk in anywhere else.
Lunch is served early, from around noon, and dinner from seven. Kitchens in ordinary places close earlier than in southern Europe.
Sunday is quiet and many independents close.
Vegetarians have improved options in the centre and will struggle in a traditional gostionica, where the vegetable dish is likely to contain pork. Say so clearly rather than assuming.
Smoking is permitted on terraces and widely practised.