Modra hviezda, Bratislava

Modra Hviezda, or “Blue Star” is a traditional Slovak restaurant halfway up the hill to Bratislava’s beaten-up castle. It was, apparently, once some kind of stable block, and has wonderful olde barrel vaulted rooms with various olde bits of ironwork hanging up.

The waiting staff were friendly and tolerated my abortive attempts to speak Slovak to them. In fact, they even encouraged me to continue mutilating their language, writing several useful phrases out phonetically on a bit of paper.

The food is good. Do not fear the garlic soup - this, in addition to scaring off vampires, muggers and ensuring that you will not pull, tastes divine. It’s definitely garlicky, but not aggressively so and is deliciously creamy. It’s also served in a hollowed out bit of bread, and I can testify that bread soaked in creamy garlic soup is A Good Thing.

Otherwise, we had a Slovak delicatessen selection which was very tasty and a couple of well done Central European stews for mains. And some glasses of the fiery plum brandy “Slivovitz” to round things off, and help us roll back down the hill again.

It’s a little out of the main centre of the old town, but worth a short wander. You may even be lucky and catch the little old guy who sits in a corner busting out Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance no. 8 on his accordion…