Restaurants
Michelin gives Slovenia a 13th star
One new star, four special awards and a first-ever Opening of the Year for Slovenia. The full breakdown — every restaurant, every chef, every town.
Sava Marević
Chef & Founder of savamander
19 June 2026 · 11 min read
Michelin published its seventh Slovenian selection on 16 June 2026, and handed out the awards at a ceremony reported by the Slovenian government two days later. The country now carries 13 stars held by 10 restaurants, out of 74 recommended addresses — two more restaurants and one more star than the 2025 edition. One kitchen was newly starred: Galerija okusov in Petrovče.
Quick summary
- Selection
- 74 restaurants
- Stars
- 13, across 10 restaurants
- Breakdown
- 1 × three star · 1 × two star · 8 × one star
- New stars
- 1 — Galerija okusov, Petrovče
- Bib Gourmand
- 12 restaurants
- Special awards
- 4, including a first Opening of the Year for Slovenia
Gwendal Poullennec, international director of the MICHELIN Guide, framed the selection around the network behind the kitchens — the farming and artisanal partnerships that let small inns and ambitious gourmet restaurants pull from the same larder. That is not PR fluff in Slovenia's case. Several of the restaurants below are ten minutes from the farms they buy from.
The three-star restaurant
Hiša Franko
- Location
- Kobarid, Soča Valley, Slovenia
- Chef
- Ana Roš
- Award
- Three MICHELIN Stars — retained in the 2026 selection
- Cuisine
- Creative, Soča Valley terroir
- Concept
- Country house restaurant with rooms in the Julian Alps, built on a tasting-menu format.
About the chef
Ana Roš is Slovenia's only three-star chef. Hiša Franko was awarded its third star in the 2023 selection and has held it in every edition since. She is largely self-taught and has run the kitchen at Kobarid for two decades.
Why it is worth watching
The restaurant's identity is tied to one valley: trout, alpine dairy, wild herbs, cured meat and fermentation done in-house. It is the reason international guests fly into Ljubljana and drive two hours west.
Sava’s take
What I respect here is the discipline of staying put. It would have been easy to open a second place in a capital city. Instead the whole operation is aimed at making one remote address worth the drive.
The two-star restaurant
Milka
- Location
- Kranjska Gora, Slovenia
- Chef
- David Žefran
- Award
- Two MICHELIN Stars — retained in the 2026 selection
- Cuisine
- Modern, alpine
- Concept
- Small restaurant with rooms beside Lake Jasna, working in a fixed tasting-menu format.
About the chef
David Žefran has led Milka since it entered the Guide and took it to two stars, which it has now retained across successive editions, including 2026.
Why it is worth watching
A serious two-star operation in a ski town, running year-round rather than only in season — commercially the harder version of the job.
Sava’s take
Two stars in a resort town means your covers swing wildly with the weather and the school holidays. Holding a standard through that is a staffing achievement as much as a cooking one.
The eight one-star restaurants
Eight restaurants hold one star in the 2026 edition — one more than last year. Seven were reconfirmed; Galerija okusov is the newcomer. In alphabetical order:
COB
- Location
- Portorož, Slovenian coast
- Chef
- Filip Matjaž
- Award
- One MICHELIN Star — retained
- Cuisine
- Creative
- Concept
- Fine-dining restaurant on the Adriatic coast, listed by the Guide in its top price band.
Why it is worth watching
The coastal counterweight to Slovenia's alpine kitchens: Adriatic fish and shellfish handled with a creative, tightly composed approach rather than the standard grilled-fish-and-a-view formula.
Sava’s take
Coastal Slovenia has been coasting on the view for years. A creative kitchen holding a star in Portorož is the useful kind of pressure on everyone else on that stretch.
Dam
- Location
- Nova Gorica, western Slovenia
- Chef
- Uroš Fakuč
- Award
- One MICHELIN Star — retained
- Cuisine
- Contemporary, seafood-led
- Concept
- Restaurant on the Italian border built around fish and the produce of the Vipava and Goriška region.
About the chef
Uroš Fakuč has held a star at Dam across multiple Slovenian editions of the Guide.
Why it is worth watching
Nova Gorica sits on the Italian frontier, and the cooking reflects both sides of it — Adriatic fish, Friulian and Slovenian technique, Vipava wine.
Galerija okusov
- Location
- Petrovče, Savinja Valley
- Chef
- Marko Magajne
- Award
- One MICHELIN Star — NEW in the 2026 selection, plus the MICHELIN Young Chef Award
- Cuisine
- Modern Slovenian
- Concept
- Tasting-menu restaurant in the Savinja Valley with a modern interior and a generous menu format.
What the guide highlighted
Inspectors praised aesthetically precise, seasonal dishes drawing on local tradition, described as clean and even playful. Their standout was a catfish and buckwheat dish — a mosaic of steamed fish set over a buckwheat cream.
About the chef
Marko Magajne took the only new star in the 2026 Slovenian selection and also collected the MICHELIN Young Chef Award at the same ceremony.
Why it is worth watching
Buckwheat and freshwater fish are unglamorous, deeply Slovenian ingredients. Building a starred tasting menu on them rather than on imported luxury products is the interesting decision here.
Sava’s take
Catfish and buckwheat as the dish the inspectors single out — that tells you where this kitchen's head is. Anyone can buy langoustine. Making a freshwater fish and a peasant grain into the memorable course is real cooking.
Gostilna pri Lojzetu
- Location
- Dvorec Zemono, Vipava Valley
- Chef
- Tomaž Kavčič
- Award
- One MICHELIN Star — retained
- Cuisine
- Slovenian, contemporary
- Concept
- Restaurant inside the Zemono manor house, one of the longest-running fine-dining names in Slovenia.
About the chef
Tomaž Kavčič is a third-generation restaurateur and one of the country's best-known chefs, cooking at Zemono since long before the Guide arrived in Slovenia.
Why it is worth watching
It is the bridge between the old Slovenian gostilna tradition and the current starred generation — Vipava produce, house-cured meats, a strong regional wine list.
Grič
- Location
- Šentjošt nad Horjulom, near Ljubljana
- Chef
- Luka Košir
- Award
- One MICHELIN Star — retained. Sommelier Nejc Farčnik took the MICHELIN Sommelier Award
- Cuisine
- Farm-to-table, fermentation-led
- Concept
- Family gostilna in a hill village, cooking almost entirely from its own garden, animals and foraging.
About the chef
Luka Košir runs the family house at Šentjošt and has become one of the most recognisable faces of Slovenia's self-sufficient, whole-produce cooking.
Why it is worth watching
Very little is bought in. Menus follow what the garden and the woods give that week, with fermentation and curing filling the gaps out of season.
Sava’s take
Cooking from your own garden sounds romantic until you have to write a menu on a Tuesday with what actually came out of the ground. Doing that at star level, week after week, is the hardest version of this job.
Hiša Denk
- Location
- Zgornja Kungota, Štajerska
- Chef
- Gregor Vračko
- Award
- One MICHELIN Star — retained
- Cuisine
- Modern, produce-driven
- Concept
- Small restaurant in the wine hills north of Maribor, close to the Austrian border.
About the chef
Gregor Vračko has held Hiša Denk's star since the early Slovenian editions of the Guide.
Why it is worth watching
Štajerska is Slovenia's wine and pumpkin-oil country. The kitchen leans hard on those local products rather than importing a coastal or alpine identity.
Hiša Linhart
- Location
- Radovljica, Gorenjska
- Chef
- Uroš Štefelin
- Award
- One MICHELIN Star — retained
- Cuisine
- Modern Slovenian
- Concept
- Restaurant with rooms in a historic building in Radovljica's old town.
About the chef
Uroš Štefelin is known for reworking traditional Slovenian dishes — štruklji among them — in a modern format, and has held the star through successive editions.
Why it is worth watching
It is one of the clearest examples in the country of national dishes being taken seriously enough to be rebuilt rather than served as heritage.
Pavus
- Location
- Tabor Castle, Laško
- Chef
- Marko Pavčnik
- Award
- One MICHELIN Star — retained
- Cuisine
- Contemporary Slovenian
- Concept
- Restaurant inside a hilltop castle above the spa town of Laško.
About the chef
Marko Pavčnik took Pavus into the starred selection in the 2024 edition as that year's newcomer, and has kept the star since.
Why it is worth watching
A castle location that could easily have been a banquet operation is instead run as a tasting-menu restaurant with a small team.
The four special awards
Slovenia collected four individual awards at the 2026 ceremony. Michelin presented its Opening of the Year Award in Slovenia for the first time, and it went to Gostilna Francl in Celje. Marko Magajne of Galerija okusov took the Young Chef Award alongside his new star. The Sommelier Award went to Nejc Farčnik of Grič, and the Service Award — given for a warm, relaxed, genuinely hospitable welcome — went to Peter Patajc of Gostilnica Ruj.
- Opening of the Year — Gostilna Francl, Celje (first time awarded in Slovenia)
- Young Chef Award — Marko Magajne, Galerija okusov, Petrovče
- Sommelier Award — Nejc Farčnik, Grič, Šentjošt nad Horjulom
- Service Award — Peter Patajc, Gostilnica Ruj
Twelve restaurants hold a Bib Gourmand in this edition, two of them new: Klinec in Medana, where the inspectors picked out teletina pod peko — veal cooked under the traditional bell — and a second newcomer named in the Guide's release.
Why this edition matters
Slovenia entered the Guide in 2020 with six starred restaurants. Seven editions later it has ten, and per head of population its star density now sits in line with the European average among countries the Guide covers, according to the Slovenian Tourist Board. Deputy prime minister Anže Logar and tourist board director Maja Pak Olaj both used the ceremony to tie the results to higher-value tourism — which, translated into kitchen language, means more guests arriving with expectations and more pressure on staffing across the whole country, not only in the ten starred kitchens.
Original media unavailable
The ceremony and restaurant photography belongs to the MICHELIN Guide, the Slovenian Tourist Board and the individual restaurants. We have not licensed it, so rather than show an unrelated stock image we link to the official galleries.
Sources & further reading
- MICHELIN Guide Slovenia 2026 — official press release (16 June 2026)Awarding organisation
- The MICHELIN Guide Slovenia 2026 is Out! — guide.michelin.comAwarding organisation
- Prestigious Michelin stars awarded to ten Slovenian restaurants — Government of SloveniaGovernment / ceremony report
- MICHELIN Guide Slovenia — full current selectionAwarding organisation
- Slovenian Tourist Board — I feel Slovenia press centreTourism board
Facts were researched from the public sources listed above and rewritten in savamander’s own words. No paragraphs are reproduced from other publications. Commentary marked as Sava’s take is opinion, not reporting. Facts last checked 29 August 2026.
