Nika Babić (Veganika)

For those who don’t know (Vega)Nika's story, let’s start at the beginning. You grew up in the kitchen of your family pizzeria, but cooking was not your first career choice. How and why did that change?

That’s right, my parents still run a successful pizzeria in our hometown of Črnomelj, and that was my first contact with the food and beverage industry and with food preparation. More than working in a pizzeria, though, I was drawn as a child to my mother’s kitchen upstairs. That's where I liked to sneak off during the day and make things my own way. Of course, the "sneaking in" was more theoretical because my mother always knew when I had some inspiration due to the mess I left behind (laughs). Well, as is often the case for the children of family-run restaurants, I swore to myself that I would never work in the food and beverage industry, and enrolled in a secondary school for educators. So, while the food business was not my chosen career, food was something that I was always very interested in and was somehow drawn to. Even during my time at the secondary school, I thought a lot about children's nutrition, which is extremely important for their growth and development.

That's how food found me again, and I found the medium that I had been searching for since I was a kid, which was to unleash my creativity through food in my own way, according to my own inspiration, and not to follow the usual path of a family business. The idea of having my own bistro had been growing in me ever since I arrived in Ljubljana, and the idea matured and crystalised at Bazilika with the knowledge and experience I gained working with Darja. I felt that the time was right, everything seemed achievable, and then everything happened very quickly. I think that it was within three months of leaving my studies and finishing my internship at Bazilika, full of the enthusiasm and energy that one has at 26, that I started taking the decisive steps on the road to setting up the Veganika bistro.

You have, of course, acquired a lot of the knowledge needed to run your own place at home and while working in the food and beverage industry in general, but cooking with exclusively plant-based ingredients does require slightly different skills and knowledge to those required for omnivorous cuisine. How and where did you learn and hone your skills? What is the biggest culinary challenge for you? What do you hope to achieve with your cooking?

I was strongly motivated to find flavours that could replace ingredients of animal origin, first and foremost for myself. Veganism thus became my way of life and I wanted full and interesting flavours. With an omnivore diet, everything is easier, you just salt and bake the chicken or pork and it tastes good, or make scrambled eggs with salt and pepper and you have a great breakfast - but with a plant-based diet you have to start being more adventurous with your use of spices, and maybe bring some new techniques to the table. Yes, roasted carrots taste good, but roasted carrots with sumac taste much better!

You have to get to know yourself a bit better, dare to experiment - it doesn't always work out the way you envisioned, but you slowly get a feel for the right combinations and there are fewer and fewer “hit and misses”. Nowadays, there is of course so much information available on preparing vegan meals that it's getting easier, but even before that I used to "consult" many books when I was creating. I really liked Asian, Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean cookbooks, many of which were "omnivorous", and I was particularly attracted to them because of their generous use of spices, which was in stark contrast to traditional Slovenian cuisine, where we are used to spices in pinches. This emboldened me. During that nascent period – aided by social networks, by enormous stacks of books, and by piles and piles of spices, which I was accumulating enthusiastically and even more enthusiastically throwing into pots and pans – I experimented and had a blast doing it.

My biggest challenge in the kitchen at the moment is wild plants and mushrooms as well as fermentation - I find the latter to be just plain cool. It's complex and requires a lot of knowledge, but it's spontaneous, it's natural, it’s "pedal to the metal", which kind of resonates with my character and personality (laughs).

As far as Veganika and its guests are concerned, the biggest challenge and goal is to break the stereotypes about vegan food being boring. It seems to me that there are fewer and fewer of them, although maybe that's just me as I live in a kind of bubble. I am trying to get people to understand that vegan food does not mean that they will be deprived of the flavours and enjoyment of food. I want them to experience a meal with us as a generally good meal and not get the feeling that their experience was about eating vegan. In summary, I want people to come to Veganika because they want to eat well, full stop. That's kind of my vegan activism. I think this is the right way to get more people to eat a plant-based diet more often - it is much harder to convince people ideologically or philosophically.

It's been more than a year since the opening of the Veganika restaurant, which succeeded the bistro last November. What are your first impressions? What are the biggest changes? What surprised you the most? How has the move and the transformation into a restaurant been received by the locals, especially the existing regulars? Do you have any new regulars at the new location?

The most surprising thing about the new location is that the transition happened overnight from a daytime bistro, where guests come for a quick lunch during the day, to a restaurant that people visit in the evenings. If I’m honest, the beginnings were quite scary - a new location, a new concept… What will happen now? How will people come to terms with it all? The thing that helped was the truly warm welcome we received from the neighbours, which made us quickly feel part of the community here at Gornji trg - so the fear disappeared and the transition was quite smooth. After one year, I can now say that we really feel at home at Gornji trg.

The "new Veganika" has fewer guests who only come for quick snacks during work, while such lunch-break guests used to be the majority of our regulars at the bistro. There are, however, still a few who have moved with us from the premises on Komenskega ulica, which means the world to us. We have also gained new regulars - those who come in weekly with colleagues, and on weekends with their families to celebrate special occasions or just for coffee and pie. Some of the guests come in for all of the above occasions, which we are very happy about.

Of course, we had many guests from abroad during the summer, including some who visited us every day of their stay in Ljubljana, but we somehow get the fuzziest feeling seeing those whom we host all year round.

Your cooking style is distinctly eclectic, which is reflected in Veganika's diverse but nevertheless well-structured menu. The dishes complement one another and, for the most part, work well in a "food sharing" concept. The menu features your native Bela krajina and traditional Slovenian specialities, influences from Italian and Spanish cuisines, sometimes Eastern European dishes... Often, inspiration comes to you from much further afield. How do you decide which dish deserves a place on the menu and will work well with all the others?

To an outside observer, my decision-making process about which dishes to put on the menu can look extremely hectic and impulsive. At some point, I decide that we need a new menu, so I start writing down or building up a picture in my head of what I want it to look like and which ingredients I want to highlight at that time. Then I combine, change, and rotate ingredients, techniques, and dishes until I am happy with the whole picture.

I want the menu to be different, but not too "wild" - to include food that people are familiar with, but still spice up the dishes just enough to push a mental boundary or two. I always ask myself how I can create a less classical combination of influences from different cuisines. For example, polenta is well known to Slovenians, and shiitake mushrooms are not alien to us as Asian cuisine is quite well known here; but in combination, these two ingredients are just the right surprise to pique one’s interest, but not put people off by being overly exotic.

I know that the menu will work as a unified whole because I always try to use seasonal ingredients that I take to different parts of the world with my spice choices, or exotic ingredients that I bring back home with local, seasonal foods.

Let's talk a bit about ingredients. Which ingredient that we all use in our daily cooking has the most untapped potential? One you could not go a day without in your restaurant? What is your favourite local, maybe even traditional, ingredient? And which ingredients from which world cuisine do you like to use the most?

For me, the most untapped potential among everyday ingredients is that of tubers - beetroot, kohlrabi, etc. While fancy top chefs do know how to use them and often incorporate them into their menus in creative, surprising ways, at home we often go no further than pickled beetroot and some soup with tuber vegetables.

Tempeh is a must-have and an indispensable ingredient for me in a restaurant, while garlic, onion, thyme, and marjoram are traditional, perhaps I can say typically Slavic. And then there are soy sauce, miso, and seaweed sharing the top spot from world cuisine.

Great ingredients, creative combinations, cooking know-how, the right equipment... all these are, of course, important aspects that serve the highest purpose - the ultimate taste of the dish. And yet you paved your own culinary path with your Instagram pics and, to this day, both you and your guests are very active in snapping photos of Veganika's plates. Do you think that we often choose dishes for their appearance rather than for their description?

What I'm about to say may be a platitude, but it's true. We humans are visual creatures and we like things that are beautiful. The food has to be beautiful and consistent with the effect you want to achieve - sometimes you want it to look home-cooked, other times more refined and elegant. I'm of the opinion that those who come for the good food don't come to us for the appearance of the plates, but Instagram culture does have a powerful sway. If you like the plate and the ambiance, you're more likely to want to show off your "perfect moment" on social media.

Guests order blind in the restaurant because our menus don't have photos, of course. God forbid! But the photos they come across when they search for our restaurant online certainly make a sort of general impression, and they often ask what the people at the next table are having. In short, appearance certainly has an impact, if not on the choice of dishes, then no doubt on the overall experience.

What are your goals for the future? What are your wishes for the Ljubljana (vegan) culinary scene? And what are your wishes for Veganika in particular?

My wish is for Veganika to do well and I want us to keep breaking new ground. I want us to look at our old menus in five years and laugh because we were so young and our menus were so "simple". It is important to me for us to always be learning and improving, being more adventurous, pushing boundaries - both our own and the boundaries in the mindsets of our guests.

As for the scene itself, I hope it can become the next Berlin, or another big metropolis with a rich and varied vegan selection. I think that being at an intersection of cultures, Slovenia has a lot of potential for this, and our environment also brings a lot to the table. That is why I believe we could really become an exception to the norm on a global scale - not just in the vegan area, but in the entire culinary milieu. Ljubljana's culinary scene is already exceptional - we have a number of restaurants that are included in the Michelin Guide, and we already boast a few stars. I hope that some of the established or hidden talents will consider opening a vegan restaurant at this level in the future. Would it not be amazing if Ljubljana had a vegan Michelin star?

What are your favourite restaurants and bars in and around Ljubljana? Where would you refer a first-time visitor to Ljubljana?

I love going to Kino Šiška - I have a lot of great memories there, I live nearby, I often meet or hang out with friends there, and I go to a concert every once in a while. I also like the Pivnica Lajbah pub very much, and I think that everyone who comes to Ljubljana should have a beer at Petkovšek. I also like to grab a coffee at Čokla or Cafetino. As far as restaurants go, I would tell everyone - go to Birdie! I had a great experience there, they served us beautifully, but I think the masses have not yet realised how good they are. Besides the fact that I would recommend Veganika to everyone, duh (laughs), Barbarella is great on the vegan scene. I like to go to Trappa for a pizza or burger, and Dobrote vzhoda when I fancy some Chinese food. I seldom go out for a glass of wine these days, but when I do, I like to go for the Wine bar Šuklje and Kletvica wine bars.