trieste guide

food, shopping, food shopping.

I used to think Trieste was unexciting compared to other Italian cities. It reminded me of teenage shopping trips with my parents, when the city was still recovering from a decline in visitors from neighboring countries following the split of Yugoslavia. It took me a couple of trips to start appreciating, loving even, this multinational, multilingual Austro-Hungarian-Italian town, a unique mix of cultures, languages, and foods that had developed so beautifully over the past years.

Since I rediscovered it, I’ve been visiting Trieste often, and have assembled an extensive list of places to eat and shop. It comes as a dose of sunshine, sea, krapfen, food shopping, Mittel-European-meets-Italian vibes, historic cafes and bookshops, and Italian-meets-Slovenian food, very beneficial for one’s well-being. Closing (or continuing) the loop my parents started in the seventies.

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Pastries, coffee, gelato:

Pasticceria La Bomboniera - Bomboniera is the first place I go to whenever I come to Trieste, without exception. If it’s not January or February, I take one apricot marmalade-filled krapfen (doughnut) and a croissant (the filling chosen on a whim). If it’s January or February, it means it’s fritole season, and then I take a krapfen and two fritolas (one with chocolate, one with pistachio).