Restaurant Mano Zagreb, you’ll find at the very top of Tkalciceva street. This is the most popular street in Zagreb. It boasts lots of small bars and cafes.
Located in the old brick building, restaurant has a nice exterior featuring old brick walls, large windows and a nice, small terrace for dining al fresco during the warm summer evenings.
This same building also houses sculpture museum – Gliptoteka. The building originally was a leather factory. The factory closed down in 1938.
Interior of the restaurant is very modern, stylish and sleek with dark wood and exposed brick walls. The kitchen of the restaurant is fully exposed and divided from the dining area only by glass.
At the bottom of the restaurant, there is a nice wine cellar. Wine racks, funny enough, are the same as the ones at my father-in-law’s cellar. Two large armature nets, welded together and fixed to the wall, hold lots of wines. It gives an industrial look to the cellar, it is original and actually cheap to make. I love such ideas.
Restaurant Mano Zagreb is a popular among business people. It is usually very busy for late lunch and for diner. The atmosphere is very convivial. Food in Mano is innovative.
Their specialties are steaks, but they also offer excellent light dishes with a touch of Asian cuisine. You can order your steak fully grilled, or if you like to experiment with your steak and give it a personal touch, you can finish your steak at the table yourself.
Waiter will bring you a cut of meat along with seasonings and a mini grill. It is fun and you can prepare steak completely to your taste.
My experience at the restaurant Mano Zagreb
I went to Mano many times, the most recently a week ago. I am not a big meat-eater, but they also have a good choice of veggies and shrimps dishes. We were six at the table. For starter we ordered a choice of bruschetta (prosciutto, mozzarella and anchovies) and spring rolls.
Spring rolls were tasty and came with an excellent dip. It is hard to find good dip in Croatian restaurants, so I was really happy with Mano’s dip.
We are a group of people from Istria, and wherever we go we like to drink white Istrian wine Malvasia. Yes, we are local patriots when it comes to wine. Waiter suggested Malvasia Medea that none of us actually tasted before. It was nice, refreshing and perfect accompaniment to the meal.
For a main course we all chose something different. I went with shrimps in a wok served with veggies and white rice. The sauce was excellent. I would eat this kind of dish anytime, even if I was full. Other orders included two different kinds of steak, baby beef with a ginger crust, duck breasts with cranberry sauce and risotto.
For dessert, everybody went with chocolate souffle served along vanilla ice cream. Great end to any meal.
Service was fine, but nothing spectacular. When we were ordering our dessert, waiter didn’t want to take an order for coffee at the same time. He was very strict about that funny (and somehow impolite) rule.
However, all together we couldn’t complain. We enjoyed our meal and wine at Mano with good (tough not great) service. And the bonus for all the smokers is a separate smoking room with sofas and small tables. It is warm and better than to go outside on a cold winter day.
The total cost per person was around 35 €. Well done, Mano!