About us

Who is behind Ćiri Biri Bela?

People often ask us, where the idea for Ćiri Biri Bela - eat, sleep and shop concept came from. Well, it came from the house itself! But first we have to go back to the beginning of the story… Ćiro, son of Croatian workers from a small village near the city of Imotski located 60 km from Split, he was born in Germany in 1977, during his parents worked there.

Every year in summer the whole family spent their holidays in Croatia, Ćiro never lost a strong bond with croatian people and culture. When he was a child he loved to cook with his grandma, so at a very young age he decited that he wanted to be a cook. After a three years training in a 5*Hotel, he got his diploma with 19 and now can look back on a 25 years cooking experience and a 15 years Chef experience gained while working in some high class hotels and restaurants in Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. During the last few years Ćiro before moving back to Criatia, Ciro was the owner and Chef of the Restaurant „Culatello“ in Darmstadt, the restaurant was 1st on Trip advisor as the best restaurant in town.

In 2008 Ćiro met his wife. She brought traveling in his life. As food lovers they started to travel together and eat all around the world from Brazil to Lappland and collect the good food ideas and tastes from all over the world. It inspired him to start developing his own recipes and ideas influenced by his travel experiences. Today Ćiros wife is responsible for the Design & Marketing of Ćiri Biri Bela & Cucina Mare and Social Media Activity.

So back to the beginning of the story: One day Ćiro decided to go back to his home country and find a perfect location where he can offer homemade, tasty original dalmatian dishes made with love, combining local sustainable and socially responsible products and show people from all over the world what is the real croatian food. He sold everything he had in Germany and found this house or better to say that the house found him, which fitted perfectly with his idea. He got the contract and after six months of hard work opened it in July 2018. He and his wife created a place for food lovers from all over the world & friends to eat, sleep and shop and have fun surrounded by good vibes only. Why it's called Ćiri Biri Bela? It is a old catchy Dalmatian song, every grown up and child knows, so we hope our restaurant and the experience will also be catchy to you!

In the same house Ćiro also runs Cucina Mare a cooking school with cooking classes and catering. The mission: to teach people from all over the world about traditional authentic Croatian food, croatian culture and national heritage. Croatia has a big range of high quality products like olive oil, cheese, ham, and seafood and has a perfect Mediterranean climate for growing all different kinds of fruits and vegetables. A lot of recipes that you can learn attending the cooking classes are over 100 years old and are owned by the family. So if you want to learn more about Croatian food and cook a Croatian three course menu all by yourself and in the end enjoy eating what you've created - just join one of our cooking classes!

Ciro also started also to build an agruculture on the plots from his Parents in Imotski and so we can offer a lot of products from our own farm in organis qiality. We also support the regional farmers and everything what we can get from them, we use for our menu.

Now we go into the 5th season and are since the opening in 2018 in the Top 3 Restaurants in Split. Private life is also successfull - Ciro and his wife are now parents of a small Frida!