What to Eat in Ston Beyond Oysters: A Local Food Guide

Salt, Mussels and the Mali Ston Bay

Ston has been harvesting salt since the Republic of Ragusa walled the town in the fourteenth century, and the pans at Solana Ston still work on the same grid of shallow basins beside the road to Mali Ston. The dry, windy summers from June to September do the work of evaporation, so a bag of coarse fleur de sel bought at the site tastes of a specific season rather than a brand. Use it on the grilled fish you will eat later; it is coarser and more mineral than supermarket salt, and it keeps indefinitely in a dry cupboard.

Second to the oysters, and often better value, are the mussels farmed on ropes in the Mali Ston Bay. Order them buzara-style — white wine, garlic, parsley, breadcrumbs — at a konoba on the waterfront in Mali Ston rather than in the upper town of Ston, where the tables face the car park. The bay is brackish where the Neretva river meets the sea, which is exactly why both shellfish grow so fast here.

What Else Belongs on the Table

The Pelješac interior behind Ston is olive and vine country. Look for zvijezda, a small star-shaped wild vegetable that grows on the slopes and appears on spring menus, and for local olive oil pressed from groves around Ponikve and Čara. A green salad dressed with new-season oil is the best thing on a summer table and the thing most visitors skip because it sounds boring. Try it once before you decide.

For a sit-down meal, pršut from the Pelješac hills is drier and saltier than the Istrian version, sliced thin and served with sheep's cheese and olives. Grilled scampi, cuttlefish risotto and a whole orada round out the standard konoba list. Ston also makes its own wine from the Plavac Mali grape grown on the steep slopes at Dingač and Postup.