Good Food Festival Dubrovnik 2026: 5 to 18 October, two weeks of tables

From 5 to 18 October 2026 Dubrovnik runs its Good Food Festival, and the timing is the whole point: the cruise crowds thin out, the sea is still 21 degrees, and the city's restaurants have their own kitchens back after the summer. The tourist board's programme is built around three things. Restaurants across the city serve festival menus at set prices, usually three courses built on Dalmatian dishes; guest chefs cook one-night dinners in selected houses; and a series of workshops and excursions takes visitors to the oil mills, the oyster beds of Ston and the vineyards of Konavle and Pelješac.

The Dubrovnik Table on Stradun

The image everyone takes home is the Dubrovačka trpeza: a single table laid the length of Stradun, from the Pile gate to the clock tower, with the city's restaurants, konobas and families cooking for whoever sits down. It is the festival's community evening, residents and visitors on the same benches, and it fills within minutes of the first plates. Come early, walk the whole table before choosing, and bring cash: the stalls are small producers, and the queue for the black risotto moves faster than the one for the card reader.

How to plan two weeks around food

• Book the guest-chef dinners the day the programme goes online; they seat forty to sixty people and sell out first.
• Use the festival menus for lunch: the same three courses cost less at noon in most houses, and the terraces are in the sun.
• Take one excursion inland: Ston for oysters and the salt pans, or Konavle for oil and wine, both under an hour from the city.
• Stay in the old town or Ploče in October: prices drop by a third against September and the walls are walkable at four in the afternoon without a queue.

The full 2026 programme with dates, prices and booking links is published by the Dubrovnik tourist board on experiencedubrovnik.com; we will add the confirmed schedule here once it is out.