Buzet, the city of truffles

Buzet is not a place that springs to mind when you think of a honeymoon destination.

The new town where most of the locals live, had one hotel, the unattractive Hotel Fontana, which was being renovated during the off-season. Not terribly romantic.

Not to be put off we visited the local tourist office where they were amazed that we had not hired a car as buses were not frequent in the area.

Undeterred we decided to walk to a restaurant, but after an hour or so walking down an empty road, we gave up and headed back to the old town.

The old town itself was tiny and mostly deserted. Being isolated, the views from here were green hills, white cliffs, a few red roofed houses and not much else.

The main reason we had come to Buzet was for a truffle degustation at Stara Ostarija. It was closed for lunch. So we booked for dinner, hoping that our journey into the middle of nowhere was not for nothing.

We returned to Stara Ostarija at twilight for our six course slow meal. We were the only ones in the restaurant. Now this was more like it, I thought to myself.

The first course was soft cheese with white truffles on bread. Kind of like cream cheese with a nutty twist. The second course was hard cheese with black truffles, prosciutto and olives. Not unlike a mezze plate and very tasty.

With both black and white truffles, the signature dish was the third course of soup and it was most definitely the best course. Course number four was ribbons of flat fettuccine pasta with lashings of truffle shavings. I had this dish once before in Rome, but not with quite as many truffles. I guess they don’t exactly have a shortage of them in Buzet.

By course five, meat with larger truffle shavings, I was beginning to get a bit truffled out. So by the time the desert course of cake with truffles arrived, I really could not stomach more than one bite.

So that’s what truffles taste like, I thought, as we rolled ourselves down the hill and back to the hotel.

Of course, by the next day, we had forgotten our gluttony and headed to the Zigante Tartufi truffle shop to stock up on various truffle pastes and oils to take home.

Buzet will always have a place in my heart. It was nice to be the only tourists in a small place. The truffle degustation was the most romantic meal that we had on our trip and it sparked a lust for degustation dining.

Next time we would definitely hire a car, try and book a place in the old town and book ahead for the truffle hunting season.