Haute cuisine made with the best Croatian ingredients

Restaurant Matrix

Restaurant Matrix recently opened in the Matrix Office Park in Zagreb. Run by Chef Marko Jantolek, the restaurant offers creative modern dishes made with high-quality ingredients from local farms. Each dish is designed to include all important nutrients, vegetables, grains, and protein combinations. Most of their customers come during lunchtime, mainly from the business centre, so all meals come at affordable prices. 

Bistronomy concept

The concept of restaurant Matrix is part of a popular bistronomy concept, where typical bistro dishes are prepared with haute cuisine methods. 

Haute cuisine (French: [ot kɥizin]; lit. ‘high cooking’) or grande cuisine is a cuisine of ‘high-level’ establishments, gourmet restaurants and luxury hotels. Haute cuisine is characterised by the meticulous preparation and careful presentation of food. 

The interior design follows this concept with its modern, simple and cosy style. The spacious dining area offers a rare look into the kitchen through a huge glass wall. Attention to detail is visible everywhere, especially when it comes to lights, plates and glasses. 

Located in Matrix Office Park, a new business centre in Zagreb, it is a restaurant that, thanks to the creativity of Chef Marko Jantolek, stands out from the rest. 

Owners Mario Stipanović and Krešimir Macan, wanted to create a place that serves popular dishes in new ways, with the best quality ingredients at affordable prices. 

Fruits, vegetables, meat and eggs come from family-owned farms nearby, while tuna fish is from the Adriatic Sea. 

They follow a zero-waste concept, where all the ingredients are used and employees take leftover food home at the end of the day. 

Every day, the Chef personally assembles all ingredients, prepares sourdough bread, ferments kombucha and makes pasta from scratch. 

Menu highlights

Chef Marko Jantolek, who sharpened his culinary skills in bistro Pod Zidom and Michelin star awarded restaurant Noel, has prepared a menu with 15 dishes. 

By having fewer dishes on the menu, he can get locally produced ingredients based on the season. 

The Chef’s greeting welcomes all guests in the form of three homemade sourdough bread types combined with cheese cream, butter with tomato and onion mixed with olive oil come paired with champagne. 

The signature dish is tuna tartare with a twist. Combined with overnight stored gazpacho and mint, coriander, ginger, thyme, and garlic give this tartare a unique taste. 

Chef Jantolek is famous for dishes inspired by French cuisine. The most important ingredient is cheese. Restaurant Matrix sources top-quality goat cheese from Kumparička, near Pula in Istria. He combines beetroot pasta filled with creamy goat cheese, drizzled with beetroot cream, sour beetroot and shredded goat cheese. 

The meat dish that stands out is the veal shank. The meat is prepared sous vide – cooking the food in temperature-controlled water, having already been left to marinate for 48 hours in an air-tight container. It is then served with cauliflower couscous, tuna cream, cappellacci pasta (stuffed and resembles a hat), and capers. 

An in-house sommelier, Manuela Maras, will help pair all dishes with wines from a rich wine list. The wine cart options depend on harvest and currently includes ten selected international labels and famous Croatian wines, emphasising small and new winemakers.