Seafood Specialities in Montenegro: Mussels, Wine and a Kitchen Full of Sea Air

If Durmitor National Park and the Adriatic coast were the two headline acts of our Montenegro trip, the food was the encore we hadn’t quite expected. Every evening for a week felt like a small celebration of summer: fresh seafood bought straight from fishermen on the shore, a bottle of good local wine, and absolutely no urgency about getting up from the table.

Buying from the Source

One of the real pleasures of staying in Dobrota was how easy it was to eat well without ever booking a table. The local market sold the catch straight from the sea, and it wasn’t unusual to drive by in the afternoon and come back with dinner still faintly smelling of the sea. Prices were genuinely excellent, and the choice on any given evening usually came down to what had actually been caught that day rather than what we’d planned to cook.

That spontaneity suited us particularly well as a couple. There was no need to plan every dinner or dress up for the occasion – we could simply decide what looked good, take it back to the kitchen and see what the evening produced.

Mussels: The Bay of Kotor’s Quiet Speciality

Montenegro isn’t necessarily the country you’d first think of for oysters – we’d argue Croatia, just up the coast, generally has the edge there – but mussels are a different story entirely. The Bay of Kotor’s calm, sheltered waters are well suited to mussel farming, and the shellfish that come out of it are, in our experience, some of the best we’ve eaten anywhere, Scottish mussels included, which is not a comparison either of us makes lightly.

Locally, mussels are often prepared na buzaru – cooked in a mixture of white wine, olive oil, garlic and parsley, sometimes with breadcrumbs added to help thicken the sauce. It’s a simple method, but one that leaves absolutely nowhere for a mediocre mussel to hide. The freshness of the shellfish does most of the work.

Montenegro also produces oysters, particularly around the Bay of Kotor, so they’re worth seeking out if you fancy comparing the two for yourself. We simply found the mussels harder to resist.

A Week of Shellfish, Not Fish

We’ll be honest: we didn’t buy much actual fish during our week in Montenegro, mostly because the sheer variety of shellfish on offer – mussels, clams, scallops and more – kept us thoroughly distracted. That’s not a comment on the fish, which is clearly an important part of coastal Montenegrin cooking too, just an admission that shellfish won every single evening on merit.

Seafood generally isn’t a novelty here; it’s simply what people eat, and has been for a very long time. Along the coast, you’ll find shellfish prepared in everything from simple grilled dishes to buzara, while fresh fish is often cooked simply over a grill.

One practical point worth knowing if you’re buying shellfish yourself: check that mussels and clams are alive before cooking. Shells should be closed, or close when tapped. Any shellfish that remains open before cooking should be discarded. After cooking, discard any shells that haven’t opened.

What to Drink with It

No Montenegrin seafood evening is really complete without a glass of something local. Vranac is the country’s signature red – full-bodied and fruity, and better with grilled meat or cheese than with delicate shellfish, if we’re honest. For an evening of mussels and clams, we’d reach instead for Krstač or another crisp local white: lighter and fresher, and a better match for garlic, olive oil and the natural salinity of the shellfish.

Around Perast, some producers have also experimented with ageing wine underwater in the bay itself, a curiosity worth knowing about even if you don’t get the chance to try a bottle.

Quick and Easy Seafood: Pan-Fried Scallops

If you only cook one thing with a Montenegrin catch, make it scallops. They’re a genuinely easy, feel-good option – light, quick to cook and packed with flavour for so little effort at the stove.

A note before you start: this method really only works well with genuinely fresh scallops. If you’re using frozen supermarket scallops, a different cooking method may work better.

Pan-Fried Scallops in Garlic and Butter

1. Bring the scallops home and rinse off any sand or grit still clinging to the shells.
2. Open the shells and leave each scallop sitting in one half – a good moment to let any curious children get involved, since the empty shells make excellent temporary toys. Trim away anything that isn’t the edible scallop meat before you start cooking.
3. Chop the garlic finely and scatter it over each scallop, along with a pinch of salt and pepper.
4. Place the scallops in a hot frying pan with a knob of butter and cook for just a few minutes, until the scallops turn opaque and lightly golden. They cook quickly, so keep a close eye on them.

A squeeze of lemon just before serving adds a welcome finishing touch. But the real satisfaction is watching them go from shell to plate in minutes, especially when you’ve cooked them yourselves.

A Holiday That Tasted as Good as It Looked

Between the mountains, the bridges, the bay and the beaches, Montenegro gave us plenty to look at during our week there. But it’s the evenings we remember just as clearly: shells piled up on the table, a bottle of something cold and local, and the particular satisfaction of eating something you’d bought – and occasionally cooked – within a few hours of it coming out of the sea.

After days spent exploring Durmitor and driving around the Bay of Kotor, those evenings were a different kind of travel experience. There was nowhere else we needed to be, no route to follow and no alarm set for the next morning. Just good food, wine and time together – which, for us, is exactly what a couples’ holiday should make room for.

Good to Know Before You Go

• Buy shellfish on the day you plan to cook it, and check that mussels and clams are alive before cooking: shells should be closed or close when tapped.
• Na buzaru – typically wine, garlic, olive oil and parsley, with variations depending on the cook – is one of the classic ways to prepare shellfish along the Montenegrin coast.
• Pair shellfish with a local white, such as Krstač, rather than Vranac, which suits heartier dishes better.
• If you’re staying somewhere with a kitchen, buy from local sellers and cook at your accommodation – it can be one of the simplest ways to experience the local seafood without turning every evening into a restaurant outing.

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Travel42 UK is a couples travel journal dedicated to immersive road trips, slow travel, and destination storytelling.

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