Vodenica Mulino — Italian / Mediterranean, Skopje
Vodenica Mulino is consistently described by Skopje’s food community as the finest restaurant in the city — a judgment sustained by a combination of excellent Mediterranean cooking, a wine cellar of remarkable ambition for a restaurant in this part of Europe, and a setting on the Vardar riverfront that provides the most dramatic backdrop available in the Macedonian capital.
The menu presents Italian and Mediterranean cooking with the confidence of a kitchen that has studied its reference points carefully. Seafood sourced from the Adriatic and Aegean coasts arrives with the freshness that the rapid supply chains of contemporary hospitality have made possible even in a landlocked city; the pasta and risotto are executed with the precision that Italian technique demands.
The wine cellar is Vodenica Mulino’s most distinctive asset. In a city whose wine culture is still developing, the restaurant has assembled a collection that includes producers from across Europe and the New World at a level of quality and depth that surprises visitors accustomed to equating Skopje with limited cellar ambition.
Vodenica Mulino is the restaurant around which a serious visit to Skopje should be organised. The city’s extraordinary Skopje 2014 architectural project — the neoclassical monuments, the statues, the museums — provides a surreal and fascinating backdrop for an evening that begins at the riverfront and ends with the contents of the cellar.
Best Occasion: Proposal
The Vardar riverfront setting, the wine cellar, and the quality of the cooking create conditions for a proposal that is memorable without requiring the grandeur of a palace hotel. Vodenica Mulino is the most elegant restaurant in Skopje and manages special occasions with warmth and discretion.
Best Occasion: First Date
The river setting, the wine cellar that provides an agenda for the evening, and the Italian cooking’s inherent warmth make Vodenica Mulino an ideal first-date venue in Skopje — impressive without intimidating, elegant without being stiff.