Penzión Turista

The restaurant & setting. On the shore of Lake Počúvadlo, just outside Banská Štiavnica, sits Penzión Turista with its restaurant. The owners stumbled on an abandoned, half-collapsed property, bought it and spent four years renovating, but no sooner had they opened than COVID hit and then a fire from the fireplace burned down and collapsed the entire roof. „Všetci sme si poplakali, ale možno je to to, čo nás všetkých tak nejak zomklo," the family recalls, having decided to carry on. The place lives mostly off the summer season, off cyclists, hikers, bikers and families with kids.

The people. It is a family business. It is run by Michal Zubek (38), who is more out front with the guests and steers the direction of the place; his younger brother Tomáš cooks as head chef, though he is a self-taught cook and a law student for whom this is more of a hobby. Mum Lena (60) spent twenty-five years in Brno, where she felt burned out, and came home with a dream of a guesthouse. Michal's girlfriend Sidonia also helps; she spent thirteen years behind a bar and knows how to mix drinks and pour latte art.

Why they called Martin. A restaurant in a beautiful spot is gaping empty, and during Martin's visit the terrace is completely deserted. The family runs in circles, skips its own wages in the leaner stretches because there is nothing to pay from, and the marketing is essentially standing still. Tomáš called them in, asking Martin to figure out why people do not come and what they should do to bring guests back.

The first visit. Martin orders across the menu and immediately hits the main problem: of twelve mains, eight are pork, „pork schnitzel, ribs, belly and three pork tenderloins", all cut from the same cloth. The meat is roasted decently, the belly soft and pleasant, but bryndza dumplings with pork tenderloin and demi-glace offend him. „Chudáci, Liptáci, čo vám dali," he says, shaking his head at the idea of mixing dumplings with a meat sauce. The food, he says, does not offend, but it is nothing you would climb down that hill for.

The diagnosis. Martin names the root of the problem bluntly: what the family does and how they do it is amateurish, and he marvels that it still holds together at all. They copied what works for others, built a menu full of pork and forgot all about service and marketing, even though Sidonia has huge bar experience and Lena feels she would rather just watch it from a distance now. „Vitaj v gastrobiznise," Martin says, and puts to them the question of whether they want to give up or finally name one boss and properly lean into it.

The reset. Because he senses Tomáš's spark of cooking energy burning out, Martin brings in reinforcement, the Czech legend Zdeněk Pohlreich, whom Tomáš idolises and after whom he even named his own pork belly. Pohlreich puts Tomáš at the stove, shows him the skin on the belly must be properly crisped and that freshness and a contrast of textures are everything, and gives him back his confidence. „Smutný kuchár je vždy na hovno," he declares with a laugh. Meanwhile Martin brings in a marketing professional, Gabo, who explains the family can create content themselves from a phone, and gives them a two-hundred-euro starter package for ads. A new induction stove and a grill arrive in the kitchen, and a playground goes up outside.

New concept & menu. Martin shifts the place towards families, tourists and the season. Onto the new menu go a mushroom kulajda soup, a homemade „treska" salad that is actually made from local zander, a venison ragout in toasted bosniak bread, pork belly from a young pig with cabbage and a bread dumpling, and homemade waffles made fresh. The flagship becomes self-grilling: a guest gets a small smokeless grill with a fan at the table and grills their own meat over a beer. „Za týmto budú chodiť vaši hostia," Martin promises, and buys ten of the grills outright.

The big night. The morning starts in a great mood, but before opening the family is thrown by an argument over where Sidonia should stand: Martin wants her behind the bar, where she has experience, but Lena sends her off to merely polish cutlery, and Sidonia breaks down over everything she has sacrificed for love. With hundreds of orders the kitchen jams, the mains and the self-grilling run late, guests wait, and Martin has to shout for nobody to fall apart. In the end it is Tomáš who pulls it together, catches his second wind, takes command and carries the night through. „Klobúk dole," Martin admits, because without him they would not have made it.

One month later. A month on, Martin returns to Počúvadlo and the car parks all around are full. Boards out front advertise barbecue and self-grilling, the menu still carries the dishes they made together, and Michal has finally got Instagram and Facebook going. Martin orders the kulajda, the zander and the belly and likes it all; the cabbage is balanced, the dumpling pleasant, and guests have taken to the self-grilling. The ladies at the next table rave about the kulajda, saying they are already addicted to it.

Verdict: Martin says the place took steps forward, Tomáš worked with his idea and added his own, and the whole family pulled together. Penzión Turista earns 4 knives. Martin keeps the last knife back as motivation, so he can come and „stick it in" once everything runs even better.