Slovenia, a central European country with outstanding natural scenery; ranging from mountains to lakes, forests to caves.

The Slovene language is Slavic and therefore quite unlike the Latin and Germanic languages used in a large proportion of Europe. That being said, the high level of English speakers throughout the visited regions: Ljubljana, Bled and Postojna was extremely high, which provides a huge relief when travelling with allergies. Communicating with the locals was not a problem and very enjoyable after learning a few local phrases and pleasantries.

From visiting the restaurants it was clear that Slovenia offered, delicious and heartwarming cuisine and we came across many potato, meat, pasta and dumpling options. One particular food which  stood out was the štruklji; a succulent pastry based dish stuffed with a range of fillings. While the cottage cheese and mushroom štruklji was popular, hazelnut štruklji were also seen to be very common, something to be aware of if suffering from a nut allergy.

Where to eat in Slovenia?

A potentially flawed ambition to taste everything that Slovenia had to offer, led to the two restaurants particularly standing out.

If visiting the Postojna caves there are an abundance of fast food options next to the ticket hall, serving pizza, burgers and fries. However, if you walk past these and continue to the Postojna cave entrance there is a restaurant called Jamski Dvorec, where we were able to find Slovene Cuisine.

In the town of Bled one impressive restaurant was “Ostarija Peglez’n”. Providing views of the lake from outside, this restaurant seemed particularly allergy conscious and the menu came complete with an allergens page, providing a huge relief for some their customers who may be travelling with allergies.

This allergen page lists 14 allergens: Gluten, Shellfish, Eggs, Fish, Peanuts, Soybean, Milk, Nuts, Celery, Mustard, Sesame, Sulphur Dioxide, Lupine and Mollusc in 4 languages: Slovene, English, German and Italian. These allergens are assigned a number and each menu item has relevant allergen numbers assigned, which helps those of us travelling with allergies make an informed choice. Of course it is still recommended to alert the waiter of any food allergies you may have.

In summary, the number of English speakers across Slovenia seemed to be very high, communicating didn’t seem to be a problem and the cuisine is extremely tasty. One last thing to note however, was that the use of hazelnuts seemed to be high in snacks and confectionary.