Danijel Đekić - Chef of the Year 2020
Danijel Đekić, the chef of Monte restaurant in Rovinj, has not always been a cook. When Rovinj was not so popular among tourists, together with his parents he opened a restaurant where he started working as a waiter, and after two or three years he moved to the kitchen and discovered his real vocation. That period was not crucial only for his career, but also for his private life, because in '87 he met Tjitske Brusse, the love of his life and his future partner.
The nineties were not known as flourishing years for the gastronomic scene and the young couple moved to the Netherlands. This is where he learned many valuable lessons and gained experience in many high-quality kitchens, from steak restaurants to haute cuisine restaurants where he has been named executive chef. Together with his wife, he ran a deli & catering restaurant and for about ten years they lived between Utrecht and Rovinj, back and forth. After 2001 they decided to settle down in sunny Rovinj and take over Monte restaurant.
The chef learned from many big names from the gastronomic world, like Alain Passard and Gael Orieux, but according to him, the biggest and most valuable experience was gained in Barcelona, where he learned about infusion method, roner and vacuum cooking. Today, chef Danijel, together with his wife Tjitske, works hard to keep up the standards of their fine dining restaurant that won the first Michelin star in Croatia. They call their cuisine "evolutionary", meaning that they constantly work on developing new dishes, improving them, keeping the high standard, consistency and creativity, and using seasonal and local food. The main source of their ingredients is Rovinj's market, fishery and butcher's shop, while they get some of the spices from other countries. The chef likes to play with the ingredients, the colours, the textures and with different culinary techniques. He pays the biggest attention to the presentation of the food. His first gourmet dish was pork with a Kulen whipped cream (kulen is a kind of chorizo sausage), that takes up to 24 hours to get done.
A top professional, extremely humble, the chef thinks that the main ingredient of his success is teamwork. No doubt, chef Danijel Đekić is the Gault&Millau Chef of the Year 2020.
