---
title: "Cap Aureo, Grand Park Hotel Rovinj: one Michelin star, Jeffrey Vella and their vegan menu"
date: 2025-07-07T05:52:35Z
modified: 2026-09-19T15:45:49Z
permalink: "https://www.had.si/blog/en/2025/07/07/cap-aureo-rovinj-michelin-star-jeffrey-vella-vegan-menu/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: "Cap Aureo in Rovinj has earned its first Michelin star. I tried chef Jeffrey Vella's seven-course vegan menu and found it worth every cent."
wpid: 390138
categories:
  - michelin stars
  - reflections
tags:
  - michelin stars
  - reflections
  - Cap Aureo
  - Cap Aureo Rovinj
  - Cap Aureo vegan
  - Croatia
  - Michelin
  - Michelin stars
  - Rovinj restaurant
  - vegan food
  - english
  - pll_6aaeadf708932
language:
  - english
post_translations:
  - pll_6aaeadf708932
featured_image: "https://www.had.si/blog/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://www.had.si/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/cap_aureo_rovinj_11.jpg&nocache=1"
featured_image_alt: cap aureo rovinj 11
timestamp: 2026-09-19T15:45:49Z
---

[Cap Aureo restaurant](https://www.maistra.com/properties/grand-park-hotel-rovinj/restaurants-bars/cap-aureo-signature-restaurant/#/), where chef Jeffrey Vella is based at the Grand Park Hotel in Rovinj, received its Michelin star only last week. Croatia now has 13 Michelin-starred restaurants. Rovinj alone has three: Agli Amici and Cap Aureo at the Grand Park Hotel, plus Monte in the old town itself. On Friday, while driving towards Krk, I decided to try my luck and called all three restaurants…

First, I called Monte, where nobody picked up. Then Agli Amici, where they told me they do not serve vegan food. Finally, I called Cap Aureo, where I began, as always, with my usual question: do you have anything free for two people tomorrow? Then I always add the other part: one person is vegan. There was no awkwardness at the other end of the line, nor the usual response: I’ll check and call you back.

I had more luck than sense, as they had exactly one table free because someone had cancelled their reservation. If the whole experience begins with making the booking, then my experience of Cap Aureo was going to be excellent. I had not heard someone so kind on the other end of the phone in a long time, and everything was arranged within a few minutes. They sent me a link by email where I had to enter my card details, in case I did not turn up and they had to charge me part of the amount. Fair and square.

Since they had only just received their Michelin star, I naturally expected that things would not all run like clockwork. I was wrong. On Saturday, I headed to Rovinj via Učka. Parking outside the Grand Park Hotel, where guests’ Rolls-Royces, Bentleys and other prestige cars are parked.

As I was curious about the price of a night in a five-star hotel, I checked. The cheapest room was over 850 euros. One minimum wage. But the hotel is full, because there is a clientele that can comfortably afford it. As I wondered whether I would be prepared to pay that much for a hotel, I realised something simple: because it is Rovinj, it seemed too expensive to me. If it were Cannes, I would be prepared to pay it. I see destinations close to us a little differently, places where only a few years ago I was staying in a hotel for a hundred euros. But back to the Cap Aureo restaurant experience itself.

The restaurant is on the fifth floor, which means one thing: the view. The old town, the sea, boats rocking in the late afternoon light. Instagrammable. Minimalist decor, but exceptionally pleasant. Not to mention the friendly staff, who introduce themselves and make sure the whole evening is enjoyable and runs smoothly.

The restaurant is part of the hotel, as is Agli Amici, the only Croatian restaurant with two Michelin stars, but they are separate restaurants that simply happen to be housed in the same hotel. Naturally, I first congratulated them on the Michelin star and asked whether anything had changed. Since on Saturday they had had it for only five days and had not even put it on display yet, the answer still surprised me: there are far more bookings, and people genuinely do go for those stars.

Cap Aureo also offers a 20-course tasting menu. I chose the seven-course one, with Coca-Cola to accompany it, which costs 5.60 euros there. And of course, the vegan menu. Even though the restaurant was full, the view from the terrace is to die for, especially at sunset and after they open the panoramic windows, when the fresh breeze adds the finishing touch to the whole experience.

The staff are precise, but not stiff. Professional, but not condescending. The explanation of every dish was like a short story: where the ingredient came from, how they prepared it, why it was on that plate. It never felt as though you were at a lecture, more as if a friend were telling you how they picked those herbs in the surrounding meadows that morning. No bullshit.

What is interesting is that their service runs unbelievably well. Everything happens exactly as it should, and every detail has been refined to perfection. The fact that eight people can handle 12 tables at once and there is no half-hour wait between courses comes down to the restaurant’s structure and the team’s organisation. As someone who asks a lot of questions, I made that clear from the start. And I got answers to every one of them.

Their menu comes in a “bible”. It also contains one of the gifts every restaurant guest receives. They call their amuse-bouches “grickalice”, or nibbles. When I received the first nibble, I could honestly tell the person looking after our table that I was delighted to have got a table there. Asparagus, which is not one of my favourite foods, had been prepared in such a way that I had to check twice whether it really was asparagus. Hats off. If I could conclude from the first dish that it could only get better, I was looking forward to the evening ahead.

And I was not wrong. Every dish was slightly more complex, but above all more meaningful, despite using simple ingredients: beetroot in four different ways, tomato in seven, Swiss chard in five. Very tasty and, above all, beautiful food, prepared by someone who knows exactly what they are doing. No tofu and no substitutes, none of the things supposedly needed by someone eating vegan. Flavours I was not used to, surprising me from one plate to the next.

Although I usually look for some small thing that, in my view, should not be on the plate or that disrupts it, I could not find one. More than that, every bite impressed me. And the best thing is that at the end I was given the recipes for the dishes I had eaten. One of those thoughtful touches that costs little but stays with you forever.

Let the food photographs speak for themselves, without me trying to explain everything that was in every dish. Looking around at the other tables, I noticed a strange phenomenon: people had smiles on their faces. That says the most about the restaurant itself and the experience it gives its guests.

Cap Aureo is not a restaurant you go to every day, unless you are very well off. But it is a restaurant you should visit at least once, to feel what it means when nature, technique and imagination come together on a plate. Rovinj is beautiful in its own right, but Cap Aureo adds that finishing touch which means you are in no hurry to leave.

And yes, Michelin was right. This time, really.

The vegan seven-course menu costs 160 euros. Worth every cent, and especially worth the drive to Rovinj. Now I at least know where I will eat when I am in Istria. Assuming I can get a table, of course, because I am afraid this will be the hit of this summer.

_This post is not paid for or sponsored in any other way. It is simply an account of my food experience there. As people are all very different, someone else’s experience may, of course, be entirely different from mine._

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