Private Belgrade Food Tour at Kalenić Farmers Market

Seven Tastes of Serbia, Straight from the Traditional Producers

Duration: 1.5 hour   Price: EUR 40 per person

This is a private, 90-minute food tour at Kalenić farmers market in Belgrade’s Vračar neighborhood. With Ksenija, a local guide who lives 500 meters from the market and has shopped here for 15 years, you taste seven Serbian specialties right at the stalls: burek, ajvar, fresh cheese, kajmak, čvarci, žito and Oriental sweets. After the tasting, you walk the neighborhood and learn where locals eat. The tour costs € 40 per person and runs daily, between 8:30am and 1pm, at the specific time we agree on at booking. 

Who Is this Tour Best For

• Travelers who want to taste most of Serbian food in one morning
• Food lovers who prefer markets to restaurant
• Travelers who want an immersive and flexible experience with real conversation instead of a long group tour

Tasting food at Kalenić Farmers market, you’ll experience more than flavors: Belgrade locals hand-picking groceries, producers from all around Serbia cheering for their goodies, local customs and traditions, scents and colors of fresh produce, the mood of the season and talk of the town.

If you’re looking to explore the city beyond food, check out the other seven tours that connect you to Belgrade’s original culture.

Taste 1: Burek, Locals’ Favorite Breakfast

We start the tasting with burek, a phyllo pastry filled with cheese or meat, or without filling, which is my personal favorite. The place where we’ll have burek, straight from the oven, has been in business for almost 80  years, from grandfather to grandson Ivan. Ivan still serves the customers behind the counter, after spending a night shift thinning the dough.

Taste 2: Ajvar, a Gourmet Red Pepper Spread

Next taste stop is a stall with ajvar, a delicious red pepper spread some call veggie caviar. Mirjana and her daughter prepare it every August as a winter pantry staple, after an old family recipe. They source peppers from Southern Serbia, spend days in the garden roasting them on the grill, peeling the crust and then cooking the peppers on wooden stoves.

Taste 3: Fresh Goat Cheese

 At the farmers’ market, you’ll want to try something you can hardly find in a restaurant: fresh goat cheese. Our favorite comes from the hills around the town of Vršac, in North-East Serbia. You won’t believe that Anka milked the goats and skimmed the milk just 24 hours earlier!

Love pairing local cheese with local wine? Read how to pair Serbian wine and food.

Taste 4: Kajmak, the Savory Milk Spread

The other dairy superstar we taste is kajmak from Western Serbia, a high-fat spread that tastes best when you let it melt a bit on warm, crunchy sourdough or corn bread. In summer, you’d want to slice fresh tomatoes on top.

Taste 5: Čvarci, Crunchy Pork Cracklings

 Another fatty guilty pleasure is čvarci, similar to pork rind. Cracking and melting on palates, an explosion of taste and texture even from a minimum dose. Our guests are particularly impressed by a variety from Valjevo region in Western Serbia, called tobacco čvarci for their shape and color.

Tastes 6 and 7: Sweets With Ancient Traditions

Our final stop is a stall that belongs to another another third-generation maker-shop owner – Ljiljana. Ljiljana’s grandfather owned a pastry shop in the 1930s, and later her father brought the masters specializing in Oriental desserts from today’s North Macedonia to Serbia.

Liljana serves products of two diverse ancient traditions.

One is žito or koljivo, boiled wheat with wallnuts. Its meaning is rooted in the belief in Resurrection. Žito is served at Serbian family feasts celebrating their patron saints’ days. The feast gathering family and friends is called Slava. Slava is listed as UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The other tradition is that of Oriental desserts, baklava and its relatives tulumbe, urmašice and kadaif. Their long history goes all the way back to Mesopotamia. These tasty sweets came to the Balkans with the Ottomans and have remained ever since.

Why is Kalenić Farmers Market Tour More than Food Tasting

After the food tasting, we take you around the neighbourhood, to show you where the locals eat. You’ll discover the places where different generations of Belgrade locals come for a cup of coffee, a good meal, or a takeaway. From traditional Serbian cuisine to the innovative bistros with promising young chefs, you’ll end the tour knowing where to book the table.

Before choosing the place to eat, you’ll want to read about traditional Serbian dishes and where they taste best.

Spending a morning with Belgraders at their favorite farmers market you’ll get to see their most authentic and relaxed selves. Going to farmers’ market every weekend is the locals’ favorite habit. So is the socialising after the market, sipping coffee for hours with close friends. Take our tour and soak in this unique Belgrade feeling of taking it easy.

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