Where the sea meets the kitchen
For anyone who has spent time in Croatia, the appeal of its coastline needs little elaboration. The Adriatic is impossibly blue, the walled old towns are genuinely medieval, and the islands — Hvar, Korčula, Vis — carry a kind of languid, unhurried beauty that is difficult to find anywhere else in Europe. What has been less obvious, at least to the world beyond its borders, is that Croatia has quietly become one of the continent’s most compelling culinary destinations.
Unforgettable Croatia, the award-winning specialist operator that has been running luxury small-ship voyages along the Dalmatian coast since 2015, appears to have recognized this shift. For its 2027 season, the company has introduced what it calls a Michelin Star add-on — a complimentary, optional service for guests booking its Signature Cruises, through which the operator will secure reservations at Michelin-starred and Bib Gourmand restaurants in the ports of call along the route.
A table at the finest addresses in Croatia
The restaurants named in the program represent the upper tier of Croatian fine dining. In Dubrovnik, the offer includes Restaurant 360 — a clifftop institution whose glass-enclosed terrace overlooks the city walls and the sea below. In Šibenik, there is Pelegrini, which occupies a 15th-century stone palace in the shadow of the Cathedral of St. James and has earned considerable critical attention for its interpretation of Dalmatian cuisine. On the island of Korčula, LD Restaurant brings a more intimate, island-driven sensibility to the table.
What distinguishes this initiative from a simple list of recommendations is the logistics it removes from the traveler’s journey. Michelin-recognized restaurants in Croatia’s most-visited ports are not easy to get into during peak season, and the Unforgettable Croatia team handles the reservations directly, timed to coincide with each ship’s schedule. For guests who want to engage seriously with Croatia’s food culture without the friction of chasing bookings across multiple time zones, it is a meaningful proposition.
The wider program
The Michelin Star add-on is embedded in a broader 2027 season that encompasses 12 cruise itineraries and nine cruise-and-land journeys across 131 guaranteed departures running from May through October. Unforgettable Croatia operates a fleet of six small ships with a maximum of 18 cabins each — a scale that allows access to anchorages and passages that larger vessels simply cannot reach, and a level of intimacy aboard that is increasingly difficult to find in the broader cruise market.
Most itineraries sail between Split and Dubrovnik, tracing the length of the Dalmatian coast and calling at well-known ports such as Trogir and Hvar alongside lesser-visited islands including Vis and the national parks of Mljet and Krka. A separate Hidden Gems itinerary — with two departures in July 2027 — ventures further north, sailing from Opatija through Istria before heading south through Krk, Rab, Lošinj and Zadar to Split.
What’s included
All cruises include luxury airport transfers, daily breakfast, three-course lunches and select dinners, guided tours and experiences, daily swim stops, complimentary use of water sports equipment, and the services of a professional cruise director and expert guides throughout the voyage. The Michelin Star add-on is complimentary and optional — a layer of experience for those who want it, without being imposed on guests whose preference runs to something more casual ashore.
The culinary case for Croatia
It is worth pausing on why the timing of this initiative feels right. Croatian fine dining has been building momentum for a decade, with a growing cohort of chefs drawing on the country’s exceptional raw ingredients — its wild-caught fish, its truffles, its olive oils and indigenous grape varieties — and applying technique and imagination that has attracted serious critical notice. The Michelin Guide’s coverage of Croatia has expanded steadily, and the country’s restaurants are now drawing food travelers who might once have looked only to Italy or France.
For the small-ship traveler who values depth of engagement with the places they visit — and who understands that a great meal in a great city is not an indulgence but an act of genuine cultural inquiry — the Unforgettable Croatia model offers something genuinely cohesive. The ship gets you there, the guides explain what you are looking at, and the kitchen, if you want it, tells you something true about where you are.
All 2027 departures are now open for booking at unforgettablecroatia.com.
About the Author: Jason Kerr
