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What to Eat When You Visit Slovakia
Jun 1, 2026
Heading to Slovakia and wondering what traditional foods you should try? In this video, we dive into Slovak cuisine, local specialties, comfort foods, desserts, drinks, and the hearty dishes that make food in Slovakia such an underrated part of visiting the country. From bryndzové halušky and schnitzels to soups, sausages, dumplings, pastries, and local beers, Slovak food is filling, flavorful, and heavily influenced by Central European traditions while still having its own unique identity. In this video we cover: Traditional Slovak dishes Slovak comfort foods Must-try desserts and pastries Slovak beer and drink culture Breakfast, lunch, and dinner traditions Mountain foods and hearty meals Foods tourists may be surprised by Restaurant tips and dining etiquette Cheap eats and local favorites What tourists should order in Slovakia Whether you’re visiting Bratislava, exploring the mountains, or road tripping through Central Europe, trying the local food is one of the best ways to experience Slovak culture. If you enjoy honest travel advice, food travel, and learning about local cultures through cuisine, subscribe for more travel videos from around the world. #Slovakia #SlovakFood #FoodTravel #TravelTips #EuropeanFood #Bratislava #TravelAdvice #CentralEurope #WoltersWorld #TraditionalFood Wolters World for Food! Our videos focus on helping travelers know what to eat when they travel, the traditional food that you always want to eat when you travel. Copyright Mark Wolters 2026 Filmed in Bratisalava, Slovakia Our Main Channel: https://www.youtube.com/woltersworld Visit Our Amazon Store for Drinkware, cookingware, travel gear, and other necessities of life. http://www.amazon.com/shop/woltersworld Follow Jocelyn on Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/jocelynwoltersworld Follow Wolters World on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/woltersworld Follow Our Shorts Channel for quick travel tips: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmSIWRrLCcqamLlTEEBLFLA
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0:00
Hey there fellow hungry travelers, Mark here with Walter Swirl and today we're in Bratislava
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Slovakia and today we're going to talk about what you should eat and drink when you're here
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in Slovakia and I'll be honest with you, you're going to have some fortifying portion sizes when
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you do come here to Slovakia. You have a lot of like mountain influences like mountain cheeses
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and kind of hearty meats and foods that'll keep you going when you're here in Slovakia and I'm
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going to be honest with you, when you go around and you're looking for restaurants, Slovakia is a lot more affordable than if you're coming from like Austria or Germany coming this way on your
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trip or if you're coming from Budapest and you're going to Slovakia or coming to just in Bratislava it is a much more affordable I find destination to go out and eat and so
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you can really enjoy a lot of stuff so don't be afraid to have the desserts when you're
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here they're quite good okay now let's start off with the national dish and the thing is
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the national dish it actually there's a cheese that you're gonna see in a lot of different
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things it might be in like dumplings it might be with gnocchi it might be with you know other
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things but the brinzda cheese it's a soft sheep cheese and i'm going to tell you it can be a bit
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punchy like some people think it's a little too strong i personally really like it but i like
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strong cheeses but you're going to have that a lot of dishes but the probably the national dish
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when you really have to have when you're here and you'll see it you go it looks like cottage cheese
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with some bacon on top no no brinzovi haluski is the national disc basically what it is is a little
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potato gnocchi like don't think the big fat gnocchi think little like little like oatmeal
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sized versions of gnocchi they have that and it's mixed with that cheese and it is so good and the
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thing is they have these amazing bacon bits on top just stir it up and enjoy you're gonna love it i
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mean some people like it's a little strong mark you're wrong it's not too strong it's too tasty
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you want to have that so that's a really big national dish you should have when you're there
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um another thing you're going to see is uh capustinica and i know i'm butchering the name
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that's why I'm going to give you the English explanation because Slovak is hard. But basically
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it's a cabbage soup. Now this is more, I'll be honest with you, I'm here in the summertime
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I don't really want to eat it now for a hot soup, but in the winter and Christmas time you're going
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to have, I mean you'll be all over, you can have that, but traditional restaurants will serve it
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all year round. It's a cabbage soup that'll have a sauerkraut soup with smoked sausage inside
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mushroom, garlic, a lot of flavors in it. So it's actually a nice like warming soup, you can have
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that. And there's a lot of soups you can have when you're here. So if you see soup on the menu
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it makes a really good starter and another thing that might pop up on the starter menu
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is the potato pancakes so the let me try to get this one right and basically we're going to see potato pancakes twice okay one is lokshi and the other one is this
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lemme yakova plaki and lemme call it plaki that this is much more if you ever think of like the
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shredded potatoes that they put stuff in and make like a shredded potato pancake that's what this
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this one is. They put some, you know, sour cream on there, maybe some garlic sauce. We had that for
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a starter the other day. We just cut it and shared it with everybody. It was really good, but you can
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have that. That's a really nice one. I like that one. The other thing, the loxhi, the loxhi is more
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like, imagine a crepe made out of potato flour. That would be the best way to have it. And a lot
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of times it can be served as a side dish. Like I had duck last night and the duck on the side had
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that loxhi as the side dish, but it was plain. It was basically folded over and cut up and we had
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it like that. However, you can get it where it's filled with different things. Maybe you'll have
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it with you know poppy seeds or maybe have with some plum jam or something in there Like a lot of things could go in it but it could just come as a kind of plain potato crepe kind of thing as a side dish especially with your duck And I guess if you thinking about meat dishes when you want to have when you here I not going to lie to
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you. The duck is fantastic. I can try to say it and I will try to say it so that everyone can laugh
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at me in my horrible Slovak. Okay. So it's Pechena Kachika. Okay. So of course I said that wrong. Just
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know roast duck. You can't go wrong. The one thing you got to realize is the Czechs and the Slovaks
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both do duck fantastically and you want to have that roasted duck and it'll come with the lokshka
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and it'll come with red cabbage so you can have that that's like a really traditional kind of
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thing i mean i loved it my wife loved it we all loved it i mean literally the duck falls off the
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bone jocelyn dropped her knife on the floor and i'm like babe just use your fork and literally
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could shred all of the duck right off the bones oh my god it was so good so the duck is fantastic
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Now, another soup I think is good for you to try when you are here, if it's in season, you see it, is the bean soup
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Pazlova Pulevka. Yeah, I know. I'm butchering it, but you know what? It's better than AI trying to save people, right
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But the bean soup's pretty good. They have bacon and veg in there and beans, of course. You know, like white beans usually kind of stuff
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But honestly, any of the bean soups you're going to have when you're here is going to be good. That's nice. Another thing you have to realize is they like their cheeses here
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A lot of sheep cheese, okay, when you come here. Now, I talk about the Britsna, which is like the natural one that's kind of strong
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But another one I like, and you might see it on a starter menu, you might see it on a menu, or if you go out to some of the villages or you go to some of the markets
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you might see Bustiapak, which is basically a smoked cheese. It's smoked and then grilled
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It is so good. They'll serve it with some jam. Oh, yeah. Like, that stuff is awesome
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And you might have, like, we had it just on a little bit of bread. I mean, forget the bread. And the thing is, oh, when you eat it, it's almost like a squeaky cheese when you have it
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But it's so good. Now, if you're looking for some cheese to have with your beer, a nice little snack you can have there
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And please bear with my pronunciation. The Viprajni Seer, the fried cheese
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Yeah, think about it. Breaded and fried cheese. Now, sometimes you might think, oh, fried cheese
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That's like a starter, right? No, you might have it as a main meal with some french fries, okay
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So they do love their cheese here. And it is really good. Now, there's also lots of meat you can have with here
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A lot of pork dishes you can have. That's going to be good. So pork steaks, all kinds of stuff
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Also, you can get ham hocks, you know, hocks from Germany, the pork shank
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You can get that when it's here, and that's also fall off the bone fantastic. So you can get that with some sauerkraut on there
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I mean, oh, you're going to eat well when you are in Slovakia. Also, you need a snack
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Plenty of the stores will have these, like, fantastic little bakery things in there. So if you want to get some bread rolls or some stuff inside, you have lots of options
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So you don't have to go hungry when you're here. Also, they do decent donuts, too
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But I will tell you, fortifying portions makes it hard sometimes to get to the dessert menu
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But there are some desserts I think you should really try. One, this is a dessert, but you also see it at bakeries
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You might have it when you go to somebody's house. They might have them at festivals and stuff with the kolache
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Basically, it's basically like, think about a sweet pastry or a sweet bun. It's filled with like jam, maybe, or like plum jam or apricot jam
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I mean, it's really maybe a sweet cheese. It's a really nice thing. You've probably seen them back home, but they're really nice
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But for me, the one I liked is the Shulansi Simakom. I know I'm butchering it, but basically what it is, they call it like poppy seed noodles
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No, it's not poppy seed. It basically big fat gnocchi covered in butter and sugar and poppy seeds And you look at it and think is that like chocolate on there or something no that is like the ground up poppy seeds it is so good it not like insanely sweet but it insanely good and where i went for lunch yesterday they had it on
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the main menu and the guy's like oh that's actually a dessert i'm like no no no it's on the main menu
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stuff so i'm gonna have that and then maybe have a dessert later he's like hey it works for me man
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but those are awesome like i really love that that was really good um and what you'll see is like
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fruit will come up a lot in some of the desserts and fruit will come up a lot like in the in the
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schnapps and stuff and so i think we should talk about the drinks when you're here and the thing is
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if you compare like the czech republic to slovakia slovakia is much more spirits and czechia is much
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more beer based kind of things now you can get beer when you're here the local beers uh slati
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bajant uh shadi uh uropiner they're they're decent you have decent beers when you're here
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But the thing is, it's the schnapps you want to have, the spirits you want to have afterwards. And the big one is stevovica, which I'm sure I'm butchering, but it's a plum brandy
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And this is one of those things, my friends. This is definitely a have it after your meal to help the digestion go down
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But it'll come. Don't ever shoot it unless you want to, like, breathe fire
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Because they don't mess around with their spirits when you're here. It's definitely a sipper thing, but that plum brandy is really nice
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But also there's lots of other ones. Jocelyn had an apple, like an apple spirit yesterday
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Her friend Sandra had a juniper spirit. I mean, we had all these different things
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It really helped with the digestion because the food is kind of heavy, but it is one of those things they're definitely sippers, not shooters
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Also, if you're going to be drinking here and you're with other people, you don't drink until everybody gets their drink
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Also, you don't eat until everybody gets their food because that's just rude people, right
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But also here when you cheers, you always cheers with eye contact, okay
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Very important. Now, other things you might look at in terms of drinking, Slovak wine is pretty good
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You can get that when you're here, and they'll sell that at the restaurants as well. If you're looking for non-alcoholic drinks, a lot of the restaurants will make their own lemonade
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And it might be not just lemonade, lemonade. We can get strawberry lemonade, passion fruit lemonade, other kind of fruits that are there that can be very refreshing
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A lot of them come with, like, the soda water in it, so it's kind of a bubbly, refreshing kind of thing
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So you can do that. And the thing is, if you go to a restaurant, you can ask for water. Bottled water is very popular here, but you can drink the tap water
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It's not a problem, okay? So you do have that. If you want still water, make sure you ask for still
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because I find like they kind of default to the bubble water when you're here. Another thing you might want to try when you're here
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but maybe not get the half liter until you decide you actually like it, is the local soda, Coffola
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And Coffola, if you see it, it looks like Coke. People talk about it looking like Coke and kind of tastes like Coke
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but more herbally, they're not wrong. Okay, it's kind of like if you had Coke
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and you put like three quarters Coke and one quarter root beer
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and took down the sweetness level and the carbonation level, that's what you have there
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I mean, it's an acquired taste. It's not horrible. It's not bad. I mean, Liam wasn't a fan of it
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He goes, hmm, tastes like communist time Coke. I'm like, well, that was communist time Coke
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He's like, oh, OK, it makes sense. But I'll be honest with you. It's an acquired taste
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It's not horrible. It's kind of like when international tourists come to the US, they try root beer
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They're like, huh, OK, it's interesting. I tried it. I'm going to move on
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That's why I just want to warn you, go with the smaller one first and then see if you like it
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I thought it was OK. Liam, not as big of a fan. Now, if you want to have something that's from local around here, don't forget to have the kofola
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This is basically the coke from back in the day. It does taste a bit different
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Liam was not a fan. It is definitely more of a bitter kind of thing than a very super sweet drink so just be aware of it I love it Tastes like that She loves it Please Now some advice when you go to restaurants when you here in Slovakia One thing whenever you go in and this is for shops as well
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you go into restaurants, bars, shops, you want to greet the people when you come in, so make sure you say
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Dobre den, which is like, good day. It's a good way to, like, ingratiate yourself with the people
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If you're here in Bratislava, or if you're in some of the places where, like, up to the Haidtach, where a lot of tourists, international tourists go
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finding menus with English isn't a problem. However, if you're going to go into some of the smaller towns
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and some of the back in the country kind of stuff. Yeah, you're probably not going to have English on the menu
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so do be aware of that. So have a travel app on your phone so you can translate things there
10:57
Also, Dobroszut is Bon Appetit. So when they bring your food out, they'll say Dobroszut
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which is like, you know, Bon Appetit, go ahead and eat. That's like the signal to dive into all the tastiness
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And I will say, when you are eating in Slovakia, no one's going to rush you
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Because, like, you sit down to eat, you're going to be however long you want to be. It's not really a big deal
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But also they don't rush you because the service isn't super fast, okay? So do know that you might need to remind them that you need another Pivo, another beer
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Or you might want to remind them, hey, can we get the menu for desserts? Because they're not going to come and bother you when you're here
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It's professional. It's not rude. It's professional in terms of like, hey, I will come when you need me, so let me know
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So you see them walk by and be like, hey, can we get the menu, the dessert menu? Hey, can I get another Pivo, please, another beer
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They'll gladly do that, but they're not really, it's not like in the U.S., they're like, hey, how can I help you
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So do be aware of that. You have to be a little bit more forthcoming with your needs. Also, you've got to ask for your bill
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Now, you usually tip about 10% and you can just tell them, you know, hey, put 10% on the bill, like when you pay with your credit card
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No big deal. If you want, you can pay with your credit card and tip in cash. I'm going to share they'd appreciate that more
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You can do those things. So in Slovakia, there is all the traditional stuff, but you don't have to have just traditional Slovakian food
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They make actually really great foods that are, you know, not traditional
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I have this bowl of salmon and there's couscous and veggies and hollandaise sauce
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Who doesn't love hollandaise sauce? Mark has an avocado toast. Liam has savory waffles
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And they're sort of almost like an eggs benedict on a waffle. So you can find all sorts of really great foods if you get burned out on eating the usual Slovakian food
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And that's okay. We all get a little burned out sometimes, no matter where in the world we are
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Now, overall, eating here, it is very much a meat and dumpling kind of fortifying adventure in culinary eatingness here in Slovakia
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And so I want to tell my vegetarian friends, it can be a little tough for my vegetarian friends, travelers coming here
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Bratislava has options, but when you're going farther out in the country, not as many options
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However, I will say it has gotten much better the last few years, so you should be able to find something
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But it's not like all these things have been translated over into Slovakian, vegetarian kind of stuff
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So just be aware of that. Also, if you have any food allergies, don't be afraid to ask the chef
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Tell the chef, indicate to them. Obviously, you wouldn't be. But have your little card say what allergies you have
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so they can cook it in a separate plate. But here, at least in Bratislava, we were
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We didn't have any problems asking about that. So kind of a fun thing. Anyway, what are your favorite Slovak dishes
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Because I know there's literally tons more things you want to eat when you're here, but we only have so much more time, and it's almost lunchtime
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so I got to go eat. And I wish you all the best. Bye from here in tasty, tasty Bratislava, Slovakia
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Oh, hey, also, if you're going around and there's markets going around
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You'll see sausages and pork steaks and all kinds of fantastic food
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You can buy off the street. You buy off the street. Whether it's the snacks and the sweets or the meats kind of stuff, you're going to love it
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Anyway, I wish you all the best. I'll say bye from here in Bratislava
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