My 3 Favorite Shops in Zadar, Croatia

My 3 favorite shops in Zadar

Though I am generally not much of a shopper, I love anything to do with eating.  So it is no surprise that my three favorite shops have to do with food and wine!  All three shops are located in the Old Town of Zadar, and all three are family-owned, offering almost exclusively their own products.

My number one is Natura Zara, located at Brne Karnarutića 7, in the old center of Zadar.  It belongs to Zvonimir Bukvić and the two prized products that he offers are the honey from his father’s beehives near Zadar, and the olive oil, also from his father’s farm.  I haven’t tried all of the products in the store, but I can verify that both the honey and olive oil are excellent.  And locals who care about the quality of the honey come here.

With the exception of the famous Croatian Maraschino liqueur, everything in the store is handmade, and natural.  He knows the source of every product and values purity of process and product.

He carries a range of top wines from Croatia, liqueurs and handmade soaps and cosmetics.

Tastings for a few products are available (not the soap.)  Since I have seen pomegranate trees everywhere, I had to try the pomegranate liqueur, šipak voćni liker.  It’s funny – on the back label, it says Jako Alkoholino Piće, which Google translates as “very strong drink.”  But at 17% alcohol, I think it must be a technical term which Google Translate doesn’t know.  Very strong or not, I bought some, as a gift.  Then I changed my mind since it exceeds the luggage allowance for liquid, so I drank it, as a digestivo, of course.

I also sampled the Teranino, a wine/fruit liqueur with aromatic herbs and spices, that he said is particularly popular with women – maybe because it is a pretty low alcohol liqueur at 15.9%?

And of course, there are wines and other natural products from around Croatia, which I will have to try next time.

My second favorite store is called Bibic, which, except for the Luxardo Maraschino liqueur, the chocolate that goes well with their wine, and the only gin that is made in Croatia, offers products that all come from the family Bibic, which is the reason I like this store.  Just 45 minutes from Zadar, the family grows grapes for the wine and lemons for their own limoncello.  They get salt from Nin and age them in their unused red and white wine barrels.  And they do make their own brandies and maraschino liqueur as well.

And even though that one Maraschino liqueur is not theirs, it does have an interesting and Croatian story.  It is made the Italian firm Luxardo, who originally developed the recipe using the maraska, the sour cherries native to here, and produced the liqueur in northern Dalmatia.  After his facility was bombed during World War 11, Luxardo moved to Italy, where he continued to make the maraschino liqueur.

A trip to Sibenic and Krka falls would have to include a trip to the Bibic winery, just up the hill from Skradin.

And the third shop is Iloki Podrumi.  This is a wine store that sells only their own wines, from eastern Croatia.  But the cool thing is that you can also buy wine by the tap. 

You can bring your own bottles, or buy their plastic bottles to be filled.  With five white and one red (cabernet sauvignon) on tap, you can buy wine to go with any food.  This is more like everyday wine, but to buy a better one, they also sell bottles of their wine.

So there you go, two shops that are local to Zadar, one other that is also Croatian, all selling only their own and Croatian products.