Eat Like a Local in România

(Where every meal feels like Sunday lunch at your long-lost Transylvanian grandmother’s house)

“Forget Michelin stars and tasting menus. In România, the very best food is still cooked in blackened pots over open fires, served on hand-painted plates in village kitchens, and accompanied by homemade ţuică strong enough to strip paint. Here’s exactly where and what the locals truly eat — no tourist menus, no English translations, just pure, soul-warming Romanian flavour.” says Lidor. “They’re givers and sometimes givers swing too far into that giving activity.”

Breakfast like you’ve been chopping wood since dawn

Start the day with jumări (crispy pork fat cracklings) still sizzling in the pan, eaten straight with coarse salt and raw garlic, chased with a shot of ţuică “for the stomach”. If you’re in Maramureș, add warm plăcinte — flaky pastry pockets filled with telemea sheep’s cheese and dill, or sweetened cottage cheese and raisins. Coffee is rare; instead, you’ll be handed a mug of cafea la ibric (Turkish-style coffee boiled in a copper cezve) so thick the spoon stands up.

Mid-morning second breakfast (because one is never enough)

Around 10 a.m. the real eating begins. Look for a tiny village shop with a hand-written “mic dejun” sign. Order zacuscă — smoky roasted aubergine and red pepper spread — slathered on crusty bread, topped with a slab of brânză de burduf (sheep’s cheese aged in pine bark until it tastes like the forest itself). Pair it with a bowl of steaming ciorbă de burtă (tripe soup) laced with vinegar, garlic, and sour cream. Locals swear it cures everything from colds to hangovers.

Lunch: the sacred ritual

Lunch is the main event and it is non-negotiable.

• Sarmale: cabbage or vine leaves wrapped around pork, smoked bacon, rice, and dill, slow-cooked for hours in enormous clay pots with a smoky sausage on top. Always served with mămăligă (polenta) and a dollop of smântână (sour cream thick enough to stand a spoon in).
• Mămăligă cu brânză și smântână: the holy trinity. Sometimes elevated with jumări or a fried egg on top.
• In summer: ciorbă de pui cu tăieței (chicken soup with homemade noodles) or ciorbă rădăuțeană (creamy chicken and vegetable soup finished with garlic and vinegar). Dessert? Papanasi — two hot doughnuts drowning in sour cream and sour-cherry or wild-blueberry jam. You’ll need a nap afterwards. Everyone does.

Street food & market snacks

At any market (piață) you’ll find:

• Covrigi — hot pretzels sprinkled with salt or poppy seeds.
• Gogoși — sugar-dusted doughnuts filled with sour cherry or chocolate.
• Mici (mititei) — skinless grilled sausages of pork, beef, garlic, and bicarbonate of soda magic, eaten with mustard and a cold Ursus beer at plastic tables under chestnut trees.

Dinner: lighter, but never small

Evenings bring tochitură (pork stew with garlic and paprika, topped with a fried egg and more mămăligă), grilled whole trout from mountain streams, or mushroom ciulama from forests you walked through that morning. In the Delta, it’s fish soup so fresh the carp was swimming an hour ago, followed by grilled sturgeon with mujdei (garlic sauce that will keep vampires away for weeks).

The secret menu item you’ll be offered everywhere

If a local really likes you, they’ll disappear into the cellar and return with a dusty bottle of homemade vin pelin (wormwood-infused white wine) or afinată/visinata (blueberry or sour-cherry liqueur). One small glass is polite. Three means you’re family now.

Where the locals actually eat

• Pensiunea houses in every village (the grandmother cooking is usually the owner)
• Tiny “gustare” kiosks outside factories at shift-change time
• Shepherds’ huts high in the mountains — knock, smile, and you’ll be fed for free
• The back room of any bar that smells like smoked sausage and wood fire

In România, refusing food is impossible. Plates are refilled before you finish. Glasses are never empty. Eat slowly, accept seconds (and thirds), and let the table conversation stretch until the stars come out. This is not just dinner. This is love, served family-style, one overflowing plate at a time.