I knew Marin Rendic cuisine was mostly based on fish and seafood and while watching and taking pictures of the semi-circular glass panel made of stain-glass pictures of these sailing boats I thought how these colored glasses fit PEPENERO and Marin’s story…

Marin Rendic’s story could be traced starting from his grandfather from his father’s side… native from the Island of Brac in Dalmatia…

Brac is famous for tourism, fishing, agriculture (wine and olive oil), but over all for its precious white stone which was used in building Diocletian's Palace in Split.

The interesting thing is that historically, Brac was famous for goats (and for a millennium goat is also the symbol of Istria :)); even Pliny the Older made comments that from the island of Brattia (the Latin name for the island) comes excellent cheese, wine and olive oil… 

I had 10 minutes to enjoy the interior of PEPENERO before Chef Marin Rendic joined me… and I like details… and several elements took my attention… I would like to use those details to expose more easy PEPENERO STORY in the following for the Istria from Smrikve readers.

The first thing I noted was the wall with prizes achieved by Chef Marin Rendic, and although he is only in his early 30’s from that wall you can learn that he has received various National and International recognitions...

• I would recall few of the most prestigious awards I noted:
• ''MASTER CHEF of the 1st ORDER'' from the Union of Chefs of the Mediterranean and European Regions,
• Jeunes Restaurateurs d’Europe membership,
• 14 points award by the Austrian guidebook Gault Millau,
• since 2005 he is yearly recognized as one of the TOP 10 Golden Croatian Chefs,
• TOP 5 Istrian Restaurants,
• and many other acknowledgements for participating in various competitions and events are on that wall...

To give you an idea of PEPENERO interior design… it is easy to say that is of top quality and modern décor… and by knowing today more about Marin Rendic I would say that overall is in line with his current cuisine style…

PEPENERO & Chef Marin Rendic cuisine could be defined as creative Mediterranean cuisine combined with experimental molecular cuisine elements…

Before Marin’s arrival PEPENERO waiter with smile preferred the word Avant-garde… experimental… to the molecular cuisine word… small but important differences… like every detail is managed with care at PEPENERO…

In those 10 minutes my attention was attracted also by the “accessories” table. In the luxury business the term “accessories” has a clear and specific meaning but in PEPENERO culinary artistic studio the “accessories” on that table I noted were:

• Istrian traditional “gold”= olive oil… that ancient “gold” allowed the building of Pula’s Arena… I noted olive oils of prestigious families on the table such as: Chiavalon (ranked top 15 emerging olive oil makers in the World), Ipša and Belić…
• balsamic vinegar or better known Aceto Balsamico di Modena aged for years was another element I appreciate and I noted immediately…