July 23, 2022 – Do you like a hearty Croatian brunch? If marendas, as they’re commonly called here, are your thing, then Zagreb is the place to go. This city has just been voted the second best European city for brunch.

As Ana Blaskovic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Croatian capital has been ranked among the best cities in Europe this summer for a good brunch. The city of Zagreb was crowned the second best city to eat brunch, or as we call it, marenda, a meal that falls somewhere between breakfast and lunch, with a score of 8.85 out of a maximum of 10.

Only Athens in Greece was ranked higher than Zagreb with a total score of 8.88 (out of 10). This conclusion was reached following research conducted by the Uswitch.com portal, which combed through the ratings of visitors to 235,000 restaurants in several European capitals.

Despite the city’s high ranking, the average price of a meal in top restaurants is also the seventh highest in Europe. A visitor will pay 32.48 euros for his Croatian brunch in Zagreb, almost double what he would have to pay (no pun intended) in the Greek capital, where it will cost around 16.6 euros.

For tourists looking for a good meal, Athens is the first choice thanks to the choice of 1136 restaurants where the average brunch is the fifth cheapest in Europe. Next to Athens is Bratislava, a brunch costing only 24 cents more, or 16.42 euros on average.

Zagreb and a good Croatian brunch is followed by Valletta in Malta with a slightly lower restaurant rating of 8.84. Not only does the capital of Malta offer some of the best dining experiences in all of Europe, but it also scored the second highest rating among European capitals in the vegetarian restaurant segment.

At the same time, the average brunch on this Mediterranean island is almost 10 euros more affordable than here in Zagreb, and cheaper meals are also offered in Lisbon, Sofia, Prague and Bratislava.

In anticipation of another record-breaking summer tourist season in which visitors will be on the lookout for a good restaurant after seeing the sights and attractions of the capital, the last one is worth remembering. Last year, 13.8 million arrivals and 84.1 million overnight stays were registered in the Republic of Croatia.

Compared to the pandemic-dominated year 2020, domestic tourism workers, as well as all those who indirectly live from tourism, were able to rub their hands with satisfaction with 77% more arrivals and 55% more overnight stays. more. At the same time, the city of Zagreb has successfully built its image as an extremely popular destination in the mainland of the country over the past ten years, with 638,000 officially registered arrivals.

According to the latest data from the city of Zagreb, in the first four months of this year there were 221,600 tourist arrivals and 510,300 overnight stays. Compared to last year, Zagreb recorded 165% more arrivals and 132% more overnight stays, but tourism in the capital has yet to fully recover from the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic . At the end of April 2022, there were around 30% fewer arrivals and nearly 17% fewer overnight stays in the city by tourists.

Over the past decade, the attractiveness of the Croatian capital as a destination and its offer have increased, with the opening of hostels, apartments, hotels and numerous restaurants. The coronavirus pandemic has stopped the upward trend in its very momentum, as the largest number of tourists to Zagreb arrive mainly by plane, and this mode of transport has been suspended for several months for tourist purposes.

With summer in full swing and the numbers for 2022 looking extremely promising, even surpassing those of 2019 in some areas, a Croatian brunch ranked number two across Europe is sure to help put Zagreb on the gastronomic map.

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