An inn on the Soča
Hiša Franko is an inn at Staro selo, near Kobarid in the Soča valley of western Slovenia, close to the Italian border, mountains and a turquoise river on the doorstep. Ana Roš, largely self-taught, took over the kitchen and turned it into a landmark.
There was no fine-dining tradition here to lean on; the restaurant invented one from the valley up. It reads its own mountains and river with unusual clarity.
What the valley gives
The cooking is built almost entirely from what surrounds it: foraged herbs, valley trout, mountain cheeses and cured meats aged in the cellar. Personal and place-bound, closer to an essay than a menu.
It shifts with the season and the forage, so no two visits are quite alike. That is the point.
A restaurant invented from the valley up.
A great table in a place with no fine-dining past to lean on, made entirely from its own ground. Worth the journey, and the overnight.
VANE selection. Chosen with a critic's eye and judged independently. It's here because we judged it, not because it paid. This is a researched profile, not yet a first-hand VANE verdict; where we have eaten there, the review says so.
Image: Photo: Dclemens1971, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
