MANY PEOPLE ASKED MARIN RENDIC WHY “PEPENERO”?... WHY THAT NAME? and I had the same question in my mind…

Umberto Eco made famous the quote... "Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus"… "Yesterday's rose endures in its name, we hold empty names"… and I would like to use it to introduce Marin’s decision… in end with time we always hold empty names but many times those empty names had a particular meaning when created…

Marin was looking for a name that could be a good marketing name too: simple and easy to memorize… PEPENERO for those who understand Italian is easy to understand because it is the union of words “black pepper”…

The idea to name the restaurant PEPENERO comes from his wife Ljiljana… the idea derived from their common love towards black color and pepper… pepper is a simple but at the same time King’s spice… thus PEPENERO has its “fil rouge” with the strongest driving force for humans… LOVE… 

In end PEPENERO restaurant was envisaged as a place of first-class gastronomic enjoyment with top-class service… and as Chef Marin Rendic use to say… people recognize if you do thing with love or not… the second is… to use his words “fake”…

Judging by numerous reviews, praises and awards, Marin Rendic managed to build in quite short time one of the best restaurants in Istria, possibly in Croatia... but all this did not actuallly happen overnight... Chef Marin Rendic has been building his career for a long time before he decided to open his own restaurant.

The years of apprenticeship, running several important restaurants, winning numerous cooking competitions, and perfecting his own cooking techniques, brought him to the vision of a place where he wanted to express his talent by being also his own boss.. 

I would be pleased to highligth only parts of Marin's road towards PEPENERO and should go back in time of his childhood when he was walking around his grandfather from Brac Island in their family kitchen... that was likly Marin's inspirational period... but in highschool Marin first inscribed him self to surveyor school in Karlovac (continental part of Croatia) where he grew up...

It was his father suggesting him to try cooking school... and he moved from surveyor school to cooking school. This was probably the big change in deciding Chef Marin Rendic's future career...

I will tell you more in the following about molecular cuisine, experiments and inovations... since Marin Rendic is keen to experiment and his gastronomic philosophy is today based on rich, elegant and well-rounded flavors... it is the outcome he gets by using all the knowledge he gained on modern culinary science... but traces of Marins's experimental attitude can be seen in his first practice class in his highschool in Karlovac...

WHAT HAPPEN AT MARIN RENDI C FIRST HIGHSCOOL COOKING PRACTICE CLASS?

At his first practice class the teacher asked the students to prepare a chop...

Marin convinced two of his classmates not to follow teachers' instructions but to do it on their own way... „differently“ :)... 

The professor, of course, went crazy and Marin and his two friends had to buy a new chop and do it once again as she requested... but when the process of electing representatives of the school for the competition between schools was made... they chose Marin and his those friends... and they won their first competition! :)...

Marin started gaining first experiences already as highschool student on Krk island during the summer time... later on he had opportunity to work in one of the most prestigious restuarants in Zagreb, than Germany,... than Istrian experience started with a prestigious and traditional family hotel located in Savudrija Villa Rosetta, another challenging opportunity in Novigrad was Navigare restuarant experience but still a little bit limiting to what Marin desired... the liberty to express and work on his talent...