Aquachem magazin Pool & life - Magazine - Page 125
AQUACHEM magazine
The Kezele Rural Tourism Estate opened its
doors in 2001, so it has been 23 years since
it all began. However, our family tradition
in the hospitality business goes way back.
My grandparents had been preparing the
traditional kotlovina meat dish at fairs around
Ivanić-Grad back in the 1960s, and my father
and uncle continued the tradition later on. It
was an additional source of income for my
father, something he did alongside his day
job, and it was then that the idea of starting
a restaurant, i.e. a rural tourism estate took
shape. A place that would include rural activities, winemaking and a rich hospitality
offer. During the first years, we worked only
over the weekends and on demand, keeping
things in the family, but as interest grew so
did our offer, and we have been working every day for over 10 years now. I took over the
management of the estate 12 years ago.
What were the main challenges
you encountered when starting
and growing your estate?
A strong impetus to expand our business
activities came from the co-financing provided by the Zagreb County. The Ministry of
Tourism and Sport of the Republic of Croatia
also implemented many programmes to
develop tourism offers in rural areas. All of
this made it easier for my father to decide to
expand the estate business. There are always certain challenges, and the major ones
at the time were how to fit into the legal
framework which was insufficiently defined
with regard to the activity of rural tourism.
You are well-known for your culinary offer. How important is it
for you to use local and homemade products when preparing
the dishes?
Our estate is best known for the culinary offer
that we try to base on the food we grow ourselves, and anything we don’t produce ourselves we get from trusted family farms in our
area. Our estate’s star product is wine, but we
have also registered a small distillery where
we produce about a dozen types of brandies
(rakija) and liqueurs.
We breed our own black Slavonian pigs. Most
of the pork meat and processed products
served at the estate is of our own production.
We make our own meat products, grill sausages, small minced meat skinless sausages
(ćevapi), blood sausages (krvavice) and
garlic sausages (češnjovke).
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An opportunity for a
unique team building
experience at the
Kezele Rural
Tourism Estate.
Try your hand at:
• team cooking competition
(kotlovina meat dish, goulash,
strudels)
• rural Olympics
(tug-of-war, broom relay race,
horseshoe throwing, sack race,
egg-and-spoon race…)
• treasure hunt
on the estate, through the forest
and vineyards
• wine story
(Moslavina wine tasting, introduction
to the winemaking tradition)
• wine quiz for wine lovers
• creative clay workshop
(dip your hands in clay, let the
creativity take over and create your
sculpture or everyday item)
