Loving food as much as we do can sometimes be a double edged fork. We tend to put so much pressure on having great meals, it can literally make or break a day and sometimes an opinion of a city or country all together.
In the case of Botako Pizza, it ended up making our night AND our first impression of Belgrade.
We had arrived in Belgrade as a person normally does after an eight hour bus ride: hot, sweaty, and hungry. We checked into our hostel, and among the map and notes we were given about Belgrade, we saw the words: “Best Pizza in Belgrade: Botako”. We were intrigued, as our mantra is always “you can never have too much pizza” and even better was that it was located right around the corner from us. Of course we were going to check it out.To this point, Belgrade hadn’t necessarily made the best of first impressions for various reasons but that was all about to change. Wandering down what looked like a quiet and nondescript side street, we assumed we must have the wrong place.
But then we spotted Botako’s cool and funky brickyard outdoor garden and our spirits lifted considerably.
The design of the restaurant was just an appetizer as their pizza is just as unique and stylish as their garden. Their pizzas feature a woven crust with sesame seeds and a touch of butter. Over the course of several research trips to Botako Pizza (yes, research), our favourite pizza was the Serbiana featuring spicy peppers, bacon, mushrooms, sour cream, and oregano.
One thing I have grown to love about eating pizza in Eastern Europe is that they often provide you with a small jar of tomato sauce (not ketchup, an actual passata of sorts) to pour over your pizza should you wish or to dip your crusts in. This is great for people like me, who love a generous amount of tomato sauce just as much as a generous amount of cheesy topping. It also means that if you have a sour cream and cheese based sauce (on a fish pizza, say) that you don’t have to miss out on the nice zingy tomato taste we have come to expect.
We ended up finding some of our most favourite restaurants of the year in Belgrade, and it all started that first night at Botako Pizza.
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