Eat ćevapi where locals queue for them

Ćevapi (also written ćevapčići) belong to a family of grilled minced-meat dishes found across the Balkans and the wider former Ottoman world, and they are eaten everywhere in Bosnia & Herzegovina. What makes Sarajevo’s version distinctive is less the recipe than the setting and the culture around it. The city’s ćevabdžinice are small, specialised and often decades old; they make ćevapi and almost nothing else, and they are judged on the grill, the bread and the kajmak. Names like Željo, Petica and Ferhatović are spoken almost as institutions, and the question of which is best is a standing local debate that no visitor needs to settle.

The dish itself is simple. The meat is minced, shaped by hand into small sausages without a casing, and grilled over charcoal or coals; the lepinja is a soft flatbread that is usually toasted on the grill so it picks up the fat and the smoke. Kajmak — a kind of clotted cream with a salty tang — is spread inside the bread, and chopped raw onion is served on top or beside. You eat it with your hands. A portion is normally ten to fifteen ćevapi, and a half-portion is common for a lighter meal.

For a visitor, eating ćevapi in Sarajevo is the easiest way into the city’s everyday food culture. You do not need a reservation, a guide or much language — point, order, eat. The ćevabdžinice of the old bazaar are within a few minutes’ walk of the Sebilj, and the meal fits naturally into a morning or afternoon of wandering the lanes. It is also the dish most locals will tell you to try first, and the one most likely to send you back for a second visit before you leave the city.