About Ana Roš

Ana Roš is a polymath. She speaks five languages, skied for Yugoslavia from the age of seven and has studied both dance and diplomacy. But it’s food that’s she dedicated her life to, inspired by the spices, aromas and fragrances she first discovered during childhood family holidays.

After meeting her husband Valter while studying in Italy, the couple embarked on a gastronomic trip that took them to the best restaurants in the world including el Bulli, The Fat Duck and El Cellar de Can Roca. After an intense period of experimenting in her own kitchen, Roš opened Hiša Franko with Valter (taking the restaurant over from Valter’s parents) in a country house outside the town of Kobarid in the thickly wooded and stunningly beautiful countryside of the
Soca Valley in the far west of Slovina, the region where she and Valter both grew up.

‘Roš has emerged as a leading national and international culinary figure’

At various times over the last century, Hiša Franko has been a roadside inn, a village mill, a First World War hospital and an agricultural estate. For the last 16 years, it’s been home to three generations of Roš’s family in addition to being an idiosyncratic restaurant with rooms complete with herb, flower and vegetable garden and trout creek. Inside, the dining room is decorated in warm, earthy tones while outside, the large terrace overlooks the breathtaking valley. 

The completely self taught Roš says she takes an ‘almost scientific’ approach to dishes like mountain dog-rose with fermented cottage cheese, millet and roe buck that focus on local ingredients sourced from within walking distance of the restaurant, but that also incorporate influences from nearby Italy and spices from her travels. Pasta might be topped with sheep’s milk cottage cheese, langoustines, black trumpets and bone marrow or foie gras, smoked apples, tonka sauce and long pepper. Foraged ingredients pepper the menu such as fallopia japonica (Japanese knotweed) that Roš serves with trout accompanied by wild berries and buttermilk; or pimpinella (a plant in the carrot family) that complements a dish of langoustine and watermelon. 

Roš has emerged as a leading national and international culinary figure with her own series on Slovinian TV and a number of documentaries about her and the restaurant including an episode of the acclaimed Netflix series Chef’s
Table. She is the only female chef to have participated in the international Cook it Raw experimental culinary programme.