Thursday 15th September 2016

Bob Thompson

After walking down the couple of hundred metres from Ljubljana station to this pub, the first thing I noticed was that it looked different from when I last visited, and that must have been ten or more years ago.

I am sure the pub was located on a corner. Some features were very similar. There was a covered terrace out on the street both then and now, but inside it looked very different.

I was with Steve and Russell and Steve agreed with me as we both thought it was previously to be found further along Kolodvorska; the street that nowadays gives its name to the pub. In those days it was a brew-pub. Nowadays it is one of a chain of three pubs. The brewery is now located in a very large pub found in a shopping mall known as BTC, to the north east of the city centre. Their other pub is also in a shopping centre to the south east of the centre known as TC Rudnik. TC must mean shopping centre in Slovenian.

As there are a number of office buildings around Kolodvorska so I guess they still wanted a presence in this area of the city. It seems that they cater a lot to the lunchtime and early evening crowd, as can been seen by their opening hours, please see below.

Even though we were there at 10.00 in the morning there were full meals being served. The menu is Mediterranean which is logical as Slovenia’s small coastline is on the Adriatic Sea, part of the Mediterranean Ocean.

Since their first brew-pub opened in this street back in 1992, shortly after the break-up of Yugoslavia and the creation of Slovenia, the owning family have concentrated on brewing beers in the Czech style. There are two regular beers: Svetlo pivo (light) (4.5%) and Temno pivo (dark) (7.9%), (I didn’t realise it was so strong!). Also appearing often is Medeno pivo (honey) (5.8%).

They also specialise in bottle-conditioned beers known as Šampanjsko pivo (Champagne-style beer). Their beers have won several international awards.

We were sat on the outside terrace but I looked inside. The layout is very much like a normal restaurant. There is not a conventional bar and I’m sure, compared with the previous pub in this area, it is much smaller. I must say that the food was very well presented and in some respects the beer is of secondary interest to many customers. Nevertheless it is of high quality and this pub is recommended.

Important Information:

Pivnica Kratochwill Kolodvor, Kolodvorska Ulica 14, Ljubljana 1000. Tel: 01 4333 114

Open: Monday-Friday 09.00-22.00; Saturday 11.00-22.00; Sunday: Closed

From the forecourt of Ljubljana Station you will see a small green area across on the other side of the road. Kolodvorska Ulice is the road on the right of this area. Walk along it and you soon find the pub on the left side of the road.