Trophy Chef of the Year for Marijo Curić chef of the restaurant 360 in Dubrovnik

The long-time chef of Dubrovnik’s best restaurant has dedicated more than half of his life to gastronomy. Behind his seemingly simple, visually perfect and deeply thought-out culinary creations are 25 years of dedicated work and improvement, perseverance on the best ingredients, technical precision and tradition as constant inspiration. When you are born in Dubrovnik and you are surrounded by the wonderful beauty of the city since your childhood, you carry the aesthetics with you and along the way you pass it on to others through your calling. Marijo Curić decided as a child that his calling would be cooking. After graduating from a specialised cooking high school, he started as an assistant chef, and joining the Gil’s restaurant directed him towards high gastronomy. When he assumed the position of executive chef at the restaurant 360 in 2015, he gathered a team of colleagues who share his passion for classic French cuisine, but also for the uniqueness of local ingredients and somewhat forgotten old recipes. Enriching them with new flavours and giving them a new, modern attire was a big challenge. They successfully overcame it: three years later, the 360 restaurant received a Michelin star, a table needs to be reserved weeks in advance, and the waiting list at the height of the tourist season is enviable. Chef Curić fulfils his professional curiosity and aspiration for constant progress in winter, when 360 closes its doors to guests for a short time, and he travels to world metropolises such as London, Paris and Milan to exchange experience with colleagues in the most prestigious restaurants. For the fifth consecutive year, 360 is among the best Croatian restaurants as awarded by Gault&Millau Croatia, and chef Curić and his team of fifty associates enrich each new season with new culinary creations. Because they consider every dinner a premiere, and the guests - world travellers with refined taste and strict criteria - are its most important protagonists. The chef’s biggest concern is their impression of the meal they just had, because he and his team want to ensure being up to the task.