Skopski Merak

If you want one dinner to set the tone for a stay in Skopje, make it this one. Skopski Merak is a proper Debar Maalo kafana, a live tavern five minutes on foot from our flats, where the grill smokes, the rakija pours and a band picks up most nights around nine. It has been doing this since 1991, and it shows: this is the loud, warm, low-effort first night you book the moment you land.

Order to share. The kitchen is built around a wood-fired oven, so the move is grilled meat (skara) plus mezze across the middle of the table. Get the pastrmajlija, the boat-shaped Macedonian flatbread topped with cured meat that everyone tells you to try and they are right. Add slow-cooked pork ribs, a few skewers, a shopska salad, warm bread, and start with rakija before working into the Macedonian wine list. Vegetarian and vegan plates exist too, so a mixed table is easy.

The room is the point. It is cozy and traditional in the way you picture an old-town kafana, usually full, and the service is generous with both food and attention. The starogradska (old-town) music gets going in the evening and turns festive on weekends, when it is loud in the best sense. Portions are large and the bill stays modest, which is part of why locals never really stopped coming.

Getting there is the easy part. From the Debar Maalo apartments it is a short, flat walk through the neighborhood, Skopje's food-and-cafe district, a few minutes from the city center and the Vardar. In warm months ask for the terrace. Hours run roughly from morning to midnight, later on Friday and Saturday, though they shift with the season.

One piece of advice: book ahead, especially on weekend evenings, because the place fills. You can reserve through their own site (skopskimerak.mk) or by phone. If you are still mapping out where to eat in Skopje, start here on night one, then let Debar Maalo's terraces and bars take it from there.