The number of Michelin-recommended restaurants in Serbia is growing rapidly, but not all of them manage to survive. Are domestic guests ready to shell out hundreds of euros for "fine dining"
Restaurant Legacy, one of restaurants with a Michelin recommendation in Serbia, he informed the guests at the beginning of the week that he was closing his doors.
It is not the first restaurant from Michelin's list of recommended restaurants in Serbia that has stopped working. It closed in the middle of last year G, Homa changed the concept of work and became Homa Bistrot, Salon in Zemun, the owners and now it is S5 by Angie.
Restaurant 27 on Senjak is closed due to the current police situation murder investigation which took place in it, The Square currently not working due to renovations.
On the other side of the restaurant Kebabs at Deki's in Strahinjiฤa bana, for example, during lunch and dinner you cannot find a free table.
Is "fine dining" the future of Serbian gastronomy or an expensive trend whose end is in sight?
Fine dining in Serbia
Legacy attracted a lot of attention after its opening, and the ambitious concept was additionally supported by guest appearances by renowned world chefs. However, the initial interest did not last.
With its closure, the number of Michelin-recommended restaurants in Serbia decreased to 22. Of these, two have one star each. Lobster in Belgrade and Fleur de sel in Novi Slankamen. With East i Iva New Balkan Cuisine, a prestigious label Bib Gourmet, which Michelin awards for "extremely high-quality food at affordable prices", since this year has also White River.
Michelin-recommended restaurants in Serbia are a relatively new phenomenon.
The first ones appeared only in 2021, with which the domestic gastronomic scene stepped into the world of fine dining, which at that moment had already been experiencing a great global rise for years.
The development of television cooking shows and the growing popularity of various online influencers have helped chefs become public figures, and going to a Michelin-starred restaurant has grown into a status symbol that is captured and shared on Instagram.
So even people who are not particularly interested in gastronomy started spending hundreds of euros for a meal. Previously, such restaurants had a much narrower circle of admirers, guests who were seriously interested in gastronomy.
A dinner of several hundred euros was not part of popular culture. Social networks have pushed that limit, but it seems that trend is also coming to an end. At least in Serbia.
An experience that Serbs have no money for
The fine dining experience in Serbia, in addition to whetting the appetite for "normal" guests, also opens up a minus on the account.
"Take a look at the fact that in Belgrade's fine dining restaurants, lunch/dinner for four costs 800-900 euros, and with 1 bottle of quality wine... the prices are European and the surroundings are Balkan", is the comment of one of the Instagram users on the news of the closure Tied.
Photo: Pexels / Iram ShehzadFine dining has become a popular concept in Serbia as well
In slightly better restaurants in Belgrade without any Michelin marks, a normal meal for two with salads, two glasses of wine, water and coffee, for example, costs ten thousand dinars.
These are certainly not prices that those with the minimum wage (it is not even intended for them), which is 65.000 dinars in Serbia, can hardly afford those with the average wage, which is around 118.000 dinars.
If you take into account the latest research conducted by the Center for Emancipation Policies, where they calculated that the consumer basket in Serbia for the year 2026 is 110.739,43, the question is how many citizens of Serbia can afford such a gastronomic experience.
Foreigners, on the other hand, who come to Serbia will prefer to go to restaurants with national cuisine.
Crash after the "hype"
Serbia is not the only country where "haute cuisine" restaurants encounter problems.
Top restaurants around the world often close due to high costs, rising food prices and inflation. A Michelin recommendation and stars bring fame, but no one is immune to the decline in living standards.
Photo: Pexels / Szymon ShieldsIs fine dining now just a dying trend?
The first wave of crisis in recent years was experienced by restaurateurs during the corona, followed by the hyperexpansion of the number of those with Michelin recommendations and the growing popularity of the fine dining concept. For example, in 2010 there were seven Michelin-starred restaurants in Berlin, and today there are 22.
However, the red lights come on. Between 2023 and 2024, five award-winning restaurants closed in the German capital. Several other such restaurants in the United States and Great Britain served dinner for the last time because of the big jump in prices, among them the famous Deanes EIPIC in Ireland because it "became too expensive for both the guests and those who run the restaurant".
Prices in Europe, at least as far as high-end restaurants are concerned, are higher than in Serbia, among the most expensive is Denmark, where fine dining costs an average of 500 euros per person.
Although it is undoubtedly a great skill when preparing food, some say an art, top gastronomy can hardly survive without enough guests who are ready to shell out dizzying sums of money for it.
Only in August: Save three thousand dinars on the annual subscription to the digital edition of "Vremena"! _Take advantage of the discount hereand support independent journalism.
What is happening in the country and the world, what is in the newspapers and how to pass the time?
Every Wednesday at noon In between arrives by email. It's a pretty solid newsletter, so sign up!
The elections for the president of the Football Association of Serbia are about to be postponed again because there are no registered candidates. Nikola Lazetiฤ's plan to take over the leadership of the Alliance failed after the defeat of the SNS in the parliamentary elections
Vuฤiฤ pardoned the batterers and Dijana Hrkaloviฤ. The election winners should abolish the sultan's power that allows one man to run afoul of the entire judicial system
Davor Matura's ALTA empire is the transplanted heart of the corrupt regime of Aleksandar Vuฤiฤ, who was defeated in the October 25 elections. From ALTA Bank, roads lead directly to the top of the progressive government.
Things are unfolding at an astonishing speed, as astonishing as the speed with which Vucic conceded a convincing defeat. Impatience is understandable, but misplaced
The archive of the weekly Vreme includes all our digital editions, since the very beginning of our work. All issues can be downloaded in PDF format, by purchasing the digital edition, or you can read all available texts from the selected issue.
