“Cooking is both a science and an art, a mix of creativity and technique that allows us to transform simple ingredients into something extraordinary.” – Janez Bratovž

There’s a quiet kind of genius hiding in Slovenia’s kitchens — the kind that doesn’t shout, doesn’t posture, doesn’t need a spotlight. It lives in dishes like štruklji, those humble rolls of dough stuffed with whatever the land, the season, or your grandmother felt like giving you that day. At first glance they’re nothing flashy — just coiled pastry, sometimes boiled, sometimes baked — but like most great things from this part of the world, the beauty is in the details.

Štruklji were born out of peasant logic. You had dough. You had cheese. Maybe some leftover meat. Maybe apples from the yard, walnuts from the neighbor’s tree, or tarragon because someone’s aunt swore it cured everything from heartbreak to headaches. So you rolled it up, sealed it tight, and made something greater than the sum of its scraps. That’s the soul of Slovenian cooking: resourcefulness dressed up as comfort.

This dish wandered through the hills of Zagorje and into the kitchens of Ljubljana, picking up little quirks along the way. Every valley, every village, every household seems to have its own version — thicker dough, thinner dough, tangier cheese, sweeter filling, tighter roll. You could travel the whole country and never eat the same štruklji twice. That’s the kind of diversity big nations brag about; Slovenia just quietly cooks it.

And then there’s the ritual — families gathering around long wooden tables, rolling dough until their forearms burn, dusting flour across the room like first snow. Weddings, holidays, lazy Sundays… štruklji have shown up for all of it. Food as glue, food as memory, food as an excuse to keep people in the same room just a little longer.

On my last trip to Ljubljana, I found myself in a tiny cooking school on Celovška cesta — the kind of place where the floors creak, the knives are sharp, and the instructors talk about dough the way poets talk about love. They walk you through the process like a secret initiation, teaching you how to stretch the dough thin enough to see light through it, thick enough to hold its dignity.

If you want to learn how to make štruklji the way Slovenians actually do — with care, precision, and a sense of inherited magic — you can start here:

Reserve your spot: http://www.otokkuhanja.si/

Phone: +386 51 611 510Email: lukapolak@otokkuhanja.si | janpolak@otokkuhanja.si Location: Celovška cesta 69, 1000 Ljubljana

Go take the class. Roll the dough. Make a mess. Taste the history.Some dishes aren’t just cooked — they’re passed down, lived in, carried. Štruklji is one of them.