Where to stay

Hotel Korcula De La Ville Built in 1912, this hotel retained only its elegant facade and superb sea views when it underwent refurbishment in 2015. Centrally located and now stylishly contemporary with enviable views of Korcula’s romantic harbour. Rooms from £100. Obala dr Franje, Tudmana 5, hotelkorcula.com

Hotel Korsal This family friendly residence has brought modern minimalism to Korcula, along with views over the working harbour. Not super-luxe, but only a couple of minutes walk from the grand staircase leading into the old city. Doubles from £127. Setaliste Frana Krsinica 80, 00 385 20 715 722, hotel-korsal.com

Lesic Dimitri Palace This Relais & Châteaux property comprises a collection of beautifully furnished town houses marching up the steps from the sea to form a series of ‘residences’ – self-contained suites that share a living room and deck. £300. Don Pavla Pose 1-6, 00 385 20 715 560, lesic-dimitri.com

Pension Marinka Simple rooms and self-catering apartments set within lovely gardens surrounding the Bire winery. Marinka’s picturesque setting is close to the beach at Lumbarda. Apartment with balcony from £39. 20263 Lumbarda, 00 385 98 344 712, bire.hr/en

Travel Information

Korcula is two hours and 40 minutes from Dubrovnik and four hours from Split. Croatia’s currency is the kuna (HRK) and Korcula is one hour ahead of GMT. Dubrovnik is a two-hour, 40-minute flight from London.

GETTING THERE
British Airways serves Dubrovnik, the nearest airport, daily. ba.com
easyJet flies from Gatwick to Dubrovnik four times a week during the high season (June to September). easyjet.com

RESOURCES
Croatian National Tourist Board has useful information on the country’s history, culture and geography. croatia.hr

Korcula Tourist Board has more information on Korcula’s attractions, events and activities. visitkorcula.eu

FURTHER READING
Jester’s Fortune by Alan Lewrie (McBooks Press, £17.65) an 18th-century naval adventure based on the Adriatic Coast.

CARBON COUNTING
Want to offset your carbon emissions when visiting Korcula? Make a donation at climatecare.org and support environmental projects around the world. Return flights from London to Dubrovnik produce 0.32 tonnes C02, meaning a cost to offset of £2.88.

Where to eat

Prices are for three courses, excluding wine, unless otherwise stated.

Adio Mare Long-standing Korcula favourite now keeps up with the times by serving lobster and other local seafood sashimi-style. Its great glory, though, remains its black cuttlefish risotto. Choose local Bire Grk from the short wine list. Reserve a table on the roof terrace as it gets busy. £30. Marka Pola 2, 00 385 20 711 253,konobaadiomare.hr

Filippi Occupying a prized spot in the old town, Filippi serves traditional dishes such as octopus salad and home-made macaroni with a modern twist. Duck is a speciality, and the best of the island’s wines are served. £30. Setaliste Petra Kanavelica, 00 385 20 711 690, restaurantfilippi.com

Konoba Gera This outdoor eatery abutting an organic family farm in a tiny inland hamlet serves Stela Segedin specialities. Macaroni is made minutes before being plunged into the pot, and airy, sugary crostele with candied lemon peel and home-made liqueurs round things off superbly. £18. S Segedin, Zmovo, 00 385 20 721 280

Konoba Komin Enjoy views from the sea wall and succulent peka dishes – octopus or lamb cooked in the fire under a huge iron bell-shaped dome. Order in advance, as cooking time is long and slow. Main courses £8-£14. Setaliste Petra Kanavelica 26. 00 385 20 716 508

Konoba Raciska Settle down at an alfresco table and devour local sardines in sweet-sour sauce or brodet, the local take on bouillabaisse. £20. Setaliste Petra Kanavelica br 1, 00 385 99 315 1350

Konoba Maslina This roadside taverna near the beach resort of Lumbarda serves island dishes seen nowhere else, including pogaca – grilled vegetables topped with melty cheese on flattened home-made focaccia. Hearty appetites can continue with pasticada, a rich meat stew. £15. Lumbarajska cesta bb, 00 385 20 711 720, konobamaslina.com Konoba Mate Biba Milina, a former chef at LD, serves simple but sublime dishes including home-made macaroni tossed with cream and fresh- picked wild fennel. Also try her home-produced prosciutto. This culinary outpost of an organic farm lies 10km west of Korcula. £13. Pupnat 28, 00 385 20 717 109, konobamate.hr

LD Terrace Elegant dining and an expert sommelier on hand. A sophisticated interior offers a view from on high when weather is too inclement to dine alfresco overlooking the sea wall. £40. Don Pavla Poše 1-6, 00 385 20 715 560, lesic-dimitri.com

Food Glossary

Brodet

Fish and shellfish cooked in broth – a local take on bouillabaisse

Crostele

Deep-fried pastry strips (left) coated with icing sugar and served alongside home- made candied lemon peel

Cukarin

Traditional celebration cookies made with ammonia as well as the usual flour-sugar-butter mixture

Pasticada

Slow-cooked lamb marinated overnight in red wine and cooked with plums Peka Bell-shaped lid under which octopus or lamb are stewed very slowly with seasonings in a wood fire. The Korculan version of a tagine

Pogaca

Korcula’s take on pizza has a foccaccia base and a topping of thinly sliced grilled vegetables, topped with local sheep’s cheese melted in a wood-fired oven

Food and Travel Review

The Greeks brought wine, the Venetians laid exquisite stones and Marco Polo bequeathed pasta to his hometown of Korcula. It’s surprising that this beautiful Croatian island within a couple of hours of the country’s top resorts, Dubrovnik and Split, remains relatively undiscovered. Not so undiscovered that Prince Andrew has not already enjoyed its wares, mind you, while F1 mogul Bernie Ecclestone is regularly spotted shopping in the morning fruit market. This all helps explain why such a tiny jewel has a boutique hotel, a fantastic winery, an enclave of restaurants and a cake shop with worldwide followers among its lesser-known treasures.

It is undoubtedly the food and wine, shaped by a long list of invaders – Austrian, French and Russian conquerors followed the Venetians, who ruled for centuries – that draw the connoisseurs, as life is lazy on this island and natives never leave, Marco Polo being the uninhibited exception. Apart from days when there is a candle-lit religious procession or a performance of the moreska – a terrifyingly spectacular costumed sword dance – there is almost nothing going on. Entertaining tourists wasn’t even contemplated until a century ago, when it was acknowledged that the island’s stone-carving and ship-building industries were on the wane and the few sandy beaches and safe harbours could be used as a source of income.

Activities today may be limited to bathing on beaches or in world- class pools (Korcula is a noted producer of both swimming and water-polo champions), cycling, trekking hilltop nature reserves, sailing, shopping for exquisite Adriatic coral jewellery and simply hanging out, but home-made pasta, super-fresh fish, local lamb and olive oil, and wild herbs are always lying in wait to refuel.

Culinary traditions remain undented by time thanks to an army of island elders who have devoted their lives to safeguarding ancient recipes and ethical cultivation practices they would not dream of allowing to become extinct in the name of progress. If only other European islands had done the same.

Take Smiljana Matijaca, who for the past 21 years has turned up at her tiny town bakery by 5am to peel tons of oranges and lemons, hull almonds and crush walnuts to make the traditional cakes without which festivities such as christenings and island ceremonies simply cannot be held. ‘These goodies, which all our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had recipes for, are vital for our celebrations, but no one else bothered to keep making them, so when there’s a do the cry goes up “call Smiljana”,’ laughs this strong-armed lady who still makes cukarin – little pretzel-shaped cookies made to be dunked in prosek (a sweet dessert wine) – the traditional way with ammonia.

‘It may sound odd, but it’s essential for the right texture and flavour,’ she explains. ‘If you don’t use it, you really can’t be said to have baked true cukarin.’ Such is her love of these traditional tasty morsels, her bakery is named after them.

Then there’s tousle-haired young agronomist Vlaho Komparak, who has made it his mission to make honey flavoured with the sage, lavender and rosemary growing wild across the island in the hilltop apiary behind his house. The honey must be reserved in advance as despite producing three tons a year, Vlaho always sells out.

Also at risk of constantly selling out of her produce is Diana Marovic, who returned to her family smallholding after years of nursing in the capital, Zagreb, to raise her children and restore her grandmother’s olive groves. Now she makes not only olive oil, but also liqueurs and vinegars flavoured with hand-foraged herbs and rose petals. ‘I spent years researching the traditional recipes and I still use a whole kilo of rose petals to make one tiny flask of liqueur,’ she says. When not in her beautiful and romantic little shop, Eko Skoj, on the ‘new’ promenade – this elegant palm-bedecked strip lined with ancient fishermen’s houses beside a harbour, out of which locals fish sea urchins for their lunch, must be at least 200 years old – Diana is at home on the farm a couple of miles out of town making marmalade and candied peel from her own orange trees.

Another, apparently unrelated Marovic serves the classic dishes of old to tourists at one of the simplest but best alfresco restaurants along the sea wall of the old town. At Konoba Raciska, chef Matko Marovic explains why islanders have such a strong tradition of eating sardela u saura, sardines in a sweet-sour sauce. ‘The fishermen always used to catch so many sardines that a method was needed to preserve them for the whole week in the days before refrigeration,’ he says, flouring the little fish before they sizzle in the oil, then plucked back out to be treated to a fragrant herb bath.

Self-taught Matko, who took to the stove when he tired of working in an office, flours and fries the small, super-fresh fish in sunflower oil and sprinkles with salt before removing them and adding chopped onion, bay leaves, sprigs of rosemary and a little sugar to the pan. The marinade, to which garlic and a lot of fresh lemon juice have been added, is poured over the sardines, served with the inevitably wonderful local bread when the juices have cooled down.

Given that sweet-sour sauces were brought to the outposts of their empire by the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago, it’s tempting to think that Marco Polo might have enjoyed these marinated sardines in his home, just steps up the alley from Raciska. It’s easy to imagine the explorer, born here in 1254, gaining inspiration for his travels from the panoramic view of the mainland and neighbouring islands from the square loggia tower – his birth home’s finest feature.

Keep ascending the steps (these numerous stone staircases connecting the sea wall with the elevated centre of the old town are a special island delight) and you come to the piazza, dominated by the 15th-century St Mark’s Cathedral (Cathedral Sveti Marko) with its gloriously embellished cupola. The treasury, full of rare silver and other precious objects, can be visited, and opposite the cathedral a museum tells the story of the rich history of the island.

St Mark’s was the apotheosis of a century when no surface was left untouched, as stonemasons vied to decorate every pillar, portico and roof and adorn buildings with ornate coats of arms. The handsome grand entrance to the old town is much younger; the stone staircase of 1863 that leads up to the 13th-century square tower bearing the crest of the Venetian Doge. Several other towers, round and semi-circular, skirt the sea wall that encircles the old town.

Fronting the piazza, with a terrace high above it, is Adio Mare, which 40 years ago was the only restaurant in town not attached to a hotel. It’s ironic that it serves the most comprehensive range of seafood on the island, yet does not have the view enjoyed by the many eateries that have sprung up along the sea wall in the past 15 years – the result of an independent Croatia firing locals with an entrepreneurial spirit after the lazy years of collectivism. Today, the culinary action is hot all along the sea wall, but apart from the spectacle of a 5kg octopus simmering for hours under a huge iron dome, or peka, in the open fire at Konoba Komin, travel further afield is needed to discover the island’s most traditional dishes. Such as pogaca, better than any pizza you’ve ever tasted and far more labour-intensive; it’s available exclusively at Konoba Maslina, a roadhouse 10 minutes’ drive from Korcula town, just before you hit the low-key beach resort of Lumbarda.

Ljiljana Duhovic, who runs the restaurant with her husband Marko, shows how it’s prepared: it’s not a pizza at all, but a large, roughly flattened dish of focaccia topped with delicately sliced courgettes, aubergines and local sheep’s cheese that melts as they are run into the wood-fired oven. It’s not the most complicated dish Ljiljana makes – that must surely be her pasticada, a stew of beef marinated overnight in wine after being stuffed with carrots and herbs – but it’s the most popular. No one visits without ordering one of the focaccia pies to share, with an order of its little sister, pogacica: small, square puffs of heaven that are a Croatian take on the Native American frybread sold on the roadsides of Arizona. Being handily situated along the beach run keeps Maslina buzzing, but there is nothing to take you inland to the tiny hamlet of Pupnat apart from a desire for simple yet sublime cooking. Biba Milina once created complex and sophisticated dishes for the fancy LD Terrace, the restaurant in Korcula’s Lesic Dimitri Palace hotel, but her mission now is to let the produce of her own goats and chickens speak for themselves.

The fanciest dish – and one of the finest tasted on the island – was LD’s house-made macaroni garnished with grey mullet roe on our last night. But Biba’s barely cooked omelette of young wild asparagus, home-made prosciutto and pecorino cheese, shivering in the lunchtime breeze, really did give that complicated concoction a run for its money, using just four impeccable ingredients.

It’s that ability to dodge at will from a highly sophisticated dinner – not only at LD, but neighbouring Filippi in Korcula Town, where the dressing for the macaroni might well be duck ragu – to a simple taste of heaven in the herb-scented silence of the interior that makes this island a special treat for the taste buds, spirit and eye. Indeed, Marco Polo would be proud to explore his hometown today.