Groceries from local producers and top cuisine at affordable prices - Yes, it's possible!

One of the restaurants that has been the talk of the town in recent months is Zagreb's Matrix, which has made signature food from a top chef accessible to everyone. The interesting gastronomic story quickly found its place in the media, which is not surprising since the most famous Croatian spin doctor Krešimir Macan is behind it, and photos of chef Marko Jantolek's imaginative creations have flooded social media. The combination of magical PR, a talented chef and a top sommelier has brought Zagreb an excellent new gastronomic story with a signature from the author.

Krešimir Macan He is the co-owner of the Matrix restaurant in Zagreb and claims that this venture is definitely better for him than politics because while politics divides, food and wine unite. Together with an IT expert Marija Stipanović, who has been successful in the restaurant business for a long time, Macan has embarked on a new adventure. They have assembled a top team with young Zagreb chef Marko Jantolek in the kitchen and an experienced sommelier and woman from the world of hospitality from Istria Manuela Maras at the table. The excellent PR man Macan explained the entire philosophy in one sentence:  "What we offer at Matrix is, above all, an experience."

Macan wanted to learn everything before this new life adventure:  "I studied how food is served, how the table is laid, how the complicated mechanism from the kitchen to the guest works. This is the only way you can provide the guest with the promised experience – because everything plays a role in it – from the top-notch food, the service, to the ambiance itself. I've been to restaurants for years, both for business and pleasure, and often something was missing for a complete experience. Somewhere the owner didn't understand the chef's ambitions, so the service was below the quality of the food, somewhere the chef was too lazy to change something in an exceptional location, and often everything was subordinated to quantity and profit, even though there was potential for much more if things were done differently. And so the idea of ​​a place where all of that would coincide as much as possible was born." explained Macan for Glas Istra. Today, everyone already knows about Matrix, as well as about the chef whose creations are often on the social networks of satisfied guests.

Matrix chef Marko Jantolek graduated from the School of Hospitality and Tourism in Zagreb. He then worked in several restaurants, and the turning point in his career was an invitation from Goran Kočiš, former chef and co-owner of Noel, the only restaurant in Zagreb with a Michelin star. He honed his craft at Noel for fifteen months, and the influence of working with a top mentor in a fine dining restaurant is evident in the Matrix menu. After leaving Noel, Jantolek was a sous chef and then head chef at the bistro Pod zidom. This popular chef has been involved in the Matrix project from day one. We used the visit to ask Marko what the situation is like at the Croatian gastronomic scene.

"The Croatian gastronomic scene, unfortunately, still lags far behind the world scene. I must admit that things have started to move and we can see progress for the better, but it is still not good enough and there are not enough quality long-term projects that would put Croatia at the top of world gastronomy, although given the resources we have at our disposal, we certainly have the potential and we belong there."

We are a country with excellent resources, and in some things we are unrivaled. Our olive oils are among the most valued and best in the world, Istrian truffles, top-quality wines from all over Croatia, cheeses, meat, fish, fruit and vegetables... all of these are products that are domestic, top quality, and recognizable, and that is exactly why we start from ourselves and at Matrix we use exclusively these domestic ingredients from small family farms for the best quality of dishes, and thus we achieve a difference that, believe me, is very noticeable. I believe that these riches that we have must be the guiding principle and direction by which Croatia will position itself on the gastronomic map and be recognizable to everyone," emphasizes Matrix chef Marko Jantolek.

The most pressing problem in Croatian tourism is the lack of labor, and Jantolek concludes that this problem begins in the education system.

"For those who love cooking, it is definitely a marathon, so they need to be optimistic, persistent and eager for knowledge and learning. As for Croatia, the problem begins with the disastrous education system for this profession. By raising the quality of gastronomy, investing in gastronomy, opening quality restaurants, bars, hotels, schools... we will enable young people to progress better and faster. Young chefs are not educated enough and have completely wrong expectations of tourism. They do not have quality mentors to guide them in the right direction, so they are left to their own devices and can really progress with their own efforts. With each new addition to Matrix's kitchen, our primary goal is to detect gaps in the knowledge they bring with them through familiarization with the processes and to provide quality education and guidance. Our dishes are complex and require good knowledge of various techniques that we use every day, and they are essential for their preparation. I believe that this is the right and only good approach, because in addition to ensuring the standard of quality of dishes that the guest is used to and expects, we most often open up new horizons for young chefs and expand their knowledge that they can later build on." Jantolek emphasizes.

Modern cuisine with a signature signature, using top-quality ingredients of Croatian origin from small producers, combined with top-quality wines, is the main theme of the restaurant, which owes its name to the Matrix Office Park business center in which it is located. Behind the glass wall of the spacious restaurant space, you can watch Chef Jantolek put together a menu, sort ingredients, and create new modern culinary creations. The kitchen seems cheerful, and the entire space exudes a relaxed, positive vibe that quickly creates a sense of closeness to the creatively decorated space.

The bistro-modern concept is combined here with the haute cuisine, which uses top-quality ingredients from local producers. Meat, cheeses, fruits and vegetables come to the Matrix from small family farms, and meat, fish and eggs are from free-range farming while tuna is Adriatic. 

The manager of the Matrix restaurant is experienced sommelier Manuela Maras, whom we asked how the market reacts to a restaurant like this.

"After only four months since the opening, I can say that we are extremely satisfied with the reaction of the market, which reacted extremely well to our restaurant. When I mention the market, I do not mean only the guests, but also the profession. In just three months after the opening, Matrix is ​​very much talked about in gastronomic circles, so we have already been included in the list of the best restaurants in Zagreb in the prestigious Gault&Millau guide, and our chef Marko was nominated for the best young chef of the year by a gastronomic media. This is only a confirmation of our quality, but and a motive for further improving the service and raising it to a new level.The lower price of the menu than what they would pay for the same quality in other restaurants certainly contributed to the guests' pleasure in the Matrix experience, but also the recognized fact that most of the ingredients are sourced from the surrounding area and that is necessarily from organic (free-range) cultivation.

A successful restaurateur is characterized by a talent for diversity. When equipping a restaurant, I believe, unlike previous experiences, that the key is to give the kitchen plenty of space and equip it with the best equipment, thereby providing better conditions for preparing our dishes, and giving our chefs enough space for creativity and further culinary development," Maras points out.

For 300 kuna you will get a tasting course here that truly showcases the best that the Matrix team has to offer, so if you are looking for a top-notch tasting, don't miss this course. The Matrix experience will confirm the accuracy of everything you have read in the past few months about this new Zagreb hub for lovers of fine cuisine.

The young chef stands firmly behind the reputation that the restaurant has built very quickly, combining ingredients superbly and creating unusual gastronomic stories. His skill is undeniable in preparing the most demanding cuts of meat and fish, and it is especially evident when you taste the creamy components that further enrich each plate. Even mashed potatoes from his hands come out as an interesting delicacy.

Chef Marko Jantolek quickly gained regular customers at Matrix thanks to his imaginative creations and top-notch execution. They make their own bread with a four-year-old starter, ferment kombucha, and even make their own ice cream. Interestingly, on the daily menu you will find dishes priced from 45 to 60 kuna, which are an ideal gablec, the kind of quality you will rarely find in Zagreb.

The menu is seasonal and contains about twenty dishes, and the prices are surprising for signature dishes at the level of fine dining with top-quality ingredients. When we asked how this is possible, Manuela Maras, the restaurant manager and an excellent sommelier, points out that it is very possible, as proven by the fact that this restaurant, despite its lower prices, has already paid off its initial investment.

"When our concept was coming together, our main guideline was to be of excellent quality, while at the same time being affordable to everyone who visits our restaurant. Since current trends in the domestic hospitality industry are bistro-oriented with more affordable prices, we found ourselves in this and today we can confirm that it is very possible to survive with top-quality, domestic food at more affordable prices," Maras explains.

Considering that she is a sommelier with considerable experience, we asked Manuela to evaluate Zagreb's wine offering.

"The sommelier profession has taken root well in Croatian restaurants, and it is important to emphasize that sommeliers are the main observers of the Croatian wine scene. I believe that a large part of the Zagreb restaurant scene is aware of wine and pays a lot of attention to indigenous Croatian varieties. The wine list, like for me, is the image of the restaurant. My job is to help guests choose wines, to suggest and assist them, regardless of whether they want to completely indulge and not think about which wine to drink, or whether they are in doubt about it.

When putting together the wine list, we took care to cover most of the indigenous varieties, but also to give every winemaker who has a good wine a place on the wine list. When asked which wines guests prefer, domestic or foreign, I think there are no rules. We have good guests who have a good wine drinking culture and know a lot about them, so we sell a variety of wines, and we offer over a hundred labels from the best Croatian and a dozen top world winemakers," emphasizes sommelier Manuela Maras, who is responsible for the Matrix Restaurant.

The food procurement system when working with small producers seemed challenging to me, but Manuela says they organized the procurement well.

"When it comes to purchasing food, the system is well-organized. We strive to use the highest quality ingredients available on the domestic market, and in these modest four months we have been very satisfied with the ingredients as well as the relationship with their producers, which is key to obtaining the best goods. Our "most attractive" product, which is highly recognized and appreciated in our country, and cannot be easily found in other restaurants, is Stancija Kumparička's goat cheese, which left National Geographic and Gordon Ramsey speechless in a recently recorded show, ranking it among the best in the world."

Finally, I was curious about how he evaluates the gastronomic offer of the Croatian metropolis?

"I think that Zagreb's catering offer has been quite dynamic in recent years. Several interesting projects have opened recently. Perhaps caterers have finally become aware that we need to follow the foreign gastronomic scene, and I hope that in a few years Zagreb will be included in the top destinations for world gastronomic enthusiasts," concludes the manager of Matrix Restaurant, Manuela Maras.

We are sure that many more stories with top taste will be told about this chef and his creations, and the Matrix will probably know and keep its regular audience with this approach. If you haven't already, a recommendation for sure - check out the menu and experience a new tourist story of the Croatian capital that smells of success.