Saša Began, The Great Zadar Chef of Tomorrow: Great Dishes of Aged Fish

The spacious restaurant terrace with an exhilarating view of the Zadar Channel with its foundations immersed in the sea itself, and the elegant interior of the restaurant combines the traditional ambiance of a tavern with the latest design trends. The entire restaurant complex is located in a fishing harbor in the very heart of old Zadar, after which the restaurant acquired its name - Foša.

This restaurant has been high on the lists of the best Croatian restaurants for a long time, has had special Michelin recommendations for years, and has been highly rated in the Gault&Millau yearbooks. Foša is an active member of the international restaurant association Jeunes Restaurateurs and thus is often the host of interesting gastro events of the mentioned association and with its cuisine. It is often a guest at different events in Croatia and abroad.  

Saša Began has been the Foša Restaurant chef for seven years already. He is a chef of the younger generation that has come out of the Zadar Cooking School.  Today, it is clear to the guests of Foša that in recent years it has been chef Saša who is responsible for maintaining the traditionally high status of Foša and the constant improvement and refreshment of the restaurant offer. Began has continuously been working on improving himself and keeps the restaurant's cuisine modern and creative. In his own way, of course. Began's talent has, of course, first been recognized in Zadar and then much further. High public recognitions have begun to arrive, so last year Began was named Chef of the Year by the Croatian National Tourist Board, and this year the prestigious Gault&Millau guide named him the Great Chef of Tomorrow.

In his work, chef Saša has been possessed by the sea and its fruits, not only due to the old choices of the former chefs of Foša making it an exclusively fish restaurant, but also due to his own commitment. The menu consists of only two meat dishes, sirloin and duck breasts, while the rest are specialties of Saša's creation of white and blue fish, shellfish and crustaceans. 

Almost every year, Saša creates some new dish from the Adriatic king scampi. How could it not be, when the habitat of the tastiest scampi in the world is only 30 km north of Zadar, in the spacious Velebit Channel, known for the dangerous northerly wind, as well as this magnificent orange crab. Began has included scampi carpaccio in his menu also this year. This elegant cold appetizer consists of micron-thinly sliced meat from the tail of a scampi, from which Saša created a pancake and covered it with tomato consommé foil.  He enriched the dish with a with purple onion gel, sturgeon (or trout) caviar and tomato powder and topped it with basil oil. He thus created a spectacular refreshing summer snack.

In recent years, Saša Began has dedicated himself to an unusual segment of fish offer more than any other chef in Croatia – to aged fish. It has already been known that fish meat can also be aged for several days, like the meat of warm-blooded terrestrial animals, and with special dry age refrigerators. Saša first started experimenting and then creating his own dishes from aged fish. In the restaurant's dry ager of the restaurant, there are always wild tuna from fish farms around Zadar or greater amberjack from the Cromaris Company and XXL sea bass from the farms of the MarFish Company from the island of Ugljan.

This company is known for its high-quality sea bass grown in cages from three to five years and fed with the best fish food that can be found in the world market. The edible fish of this company reaches a weight of at least one to over three kilograms, and when taken out of the cage, the workers of the company kill the fish in the Japanese humane method called ike jime. The fish is thus quickly killed with a thin needle passed through the spine, after which all the blood is immediately released whereby top- quality meat is acquired and bleeding is prevented.

Later, by aging in a dry age refrigerator, the cleaned fish matures for five or more days, thereby gaining in taste quality and specific texture of the meat.

Chef Saša has thus created aged fish and placed it in the Foša menu classic Japanese sashimi served with orange ponza sauce and wasabi. That sashimi is one of most requested dishes in Foša. Another simple dish is just as requested and it is an imaginative dish that is basically very traditional. It is aged sea bass fillet grilled on charcoal, but just on one side, on the skin. The chef thus acquired a crispy skin but retained the juiciness and all the original taste of the fish meat. Began then combined the fillet with chicory, a sweet tuber. He made puree and chips from it, and also added grilled vegetables and completed everything with fish demi-glace sauce.

It is a perfect and complete dish that the restaurant serves independently or in one of the tasting sequences of dishes. This dish, along with other dishes prepared by chef Saša Began in the prestigious Foša Restaurant are to be tasted at every visit of Zadar.