Restaurant Galion

Galion sits in a converted stone boathouse on the southern waterfront of Kotor, directly beneath the climbing fortress walls of the Old Town. The dining room itself — vaulted stone, candle sconces, white linen, an open kitchen at the back — is properly handsome, but the room is built around its terrace: a fifty-cover wooden deck that hangs directly over the bay, with the lit Old Town walls climbing the mountain behind and the lights of Prčanj reflecting in the water across the fjord. There is no other dining setting in Montenegro that competes.

The cooking is serious Adriatic seafood. A signature seafood platter that is the obvious first order — Boka oysters, langoustines, scampi, dentex sashimi, marinated anchovy. Whole salt-baked sea bass for two, finished and filleted tableside. A still-famous black-squid-ink risotto with tiger prawns and aged-Parmesan crust. The non-seafood line is short and considered: Njeguši pršut and goat-cheese tart, slow-cooked Lovćen mountain lamb, a vegetarian path built on Boka tomatoes and Adriatic herbs.

The wine programme is unusually serious for the bay — deep on Plantaže Vranac reserves, Friulian and Veneto whites, a useful French Champagne section, and an interesting natural-wine programme from small Crmnica producers. The sommelier team is properly informed and well-paced.

Dinner with wine lands around 110 EUR per guest. The terrace at sunset, on a calm summer evening, is the closest thing in the eastern Adriatic to a guaranteed romantic moment.

Galion is the Kotor proposal room. The waterfront terrace under the lit Old Town walls does most of the romantic work for you, the staff are skilled at the discreet Champagne service when the moment arrives, and the seafood-platter-and-whole-fish format takes the menu pressure off so that conversation can sit where it should. Book the corner terrace table at sunset, around 30 minutes before official sundown.