Pepi’s Skopje Guide
This blog is my little love letter to Skopje. Before I move forward, I feel obliged to give the reader two disclaimers. First, I grew up in Gostivar, about an hour southwest from Skopje. I’ve lived in Skopje for some time though, for two summers during my undergrad, and a little over a year during the covid pandemic, so while I am by no means a native to the city, I like to think I have some authority to speak on the matter. Second, I moved from Skopje back to Chicago in 2021, so some places I write about here might have closed or changed, some might have become better or worse, and this guide does not pretend to be most up-to-date. With that in mind, here’s what I recommend to do if the road takes you to Skopje:
Eat
If the French have their bistro and the Italians their tratorria, the Macedonias have their kafana, an iconic institution where you can sit to eat, drink, listen to live music, and socialize for hours. During long stretches in the US, it is the kafana culture I miss most desperately. Debar Maalo is the neighborhood that probably has the highest concentrations of kafanas in Skopje, and has a few of my favorite places to eat in the city. Antica is a great place with a chill vibe and excellent food. My favorite dishes here are the sirenje vo kora (feta in phyllo dough), the zucchini chips and veal liver, but you won’t make a mistake with any other choice. Nadzak is an inexpensive and down-to-earth local staple with an old kafana vibe. My favorite things to eat here, and the best hangover cure ever, is the shkembe chorba (tripe stew).
Pictured below are the tripe stew from Nadzak (left) and a selection of dishes from Antica (right).
Beyond Debar Maalo, whenever I am in Skopje I always make the point to visit Galerija 7. A slightly hidden joint in the Old Turkish Bazaar, this restaurant doubles as a gallery that highlights local artists — ask the owners about the paintings on the wall! Only two items on the menu: pide and lahmacun, spectacularly made (pictured on the left below). Ask for the special ultra hot sauce and a cold ayran to mitigate the burn. I also love Granche Bistro. Simple rotating menus with seasonal dishes that blend traditional and modern, like the candied roasted carrots with hazelnuts pictured on the right below. Savory pastries and a yoghurt drink is a staple in Macedonian cuisine, especially early in the day, be it for breakfast or post-club cravings. Silbo is a famous and reliable bakery in Skopje with a wide array of options. My go-to’s here are dupli kolbas pastry and the silbo gjevrek (think: sesame bagel, but softer, wider, and thinner, and also wrapped with bacon). This is the place that you could try some burek as well, but I really recommend going to Gostivar for that, where the craftsmanship for burek is unparalleled (but that’s a different post).
Go Out & Drink
While I haven’t haven’t explored the club scene in Skopje, I can recommend my favorite bars for a cocktail and conversation. Kotur is one of my go-to cocktail bars. It is movie themed, with a screening room in the basement, and original cocktails named after iconic Macedonian films or characters from them. It nestled among buildings slightly off Street Macedonia, with a an outdoor patio and a super dope 80s Yugoslav décor inside. Another one of my favorites is Che. It has good cocktails, craft beers, fresh juices, and a super cute interior (left picture below). I also like its diverse clientele, from the Gen Z freelancers to the local retirees. Makka (below on the right) and MKC will occasionally have a fun weekend program, with concerts, DJs, and other cool events, and they tend to have a more stand-up-and-dance vibe than Che and Kotur. When everything closes around 2am, if the rakija is driving and you wanna keep going, Balet is the place for you. It peaks at 4am, with a dense cigarette fog, a crowd that makes you ask if this country even has venue occupancy laws, and good ole rock and roll music…if that’s your vibe…I have friends who left their livers at this place.
Sightsee
The main nature spots to visit around Skopje are Vodno and Matka. Vodno is the mountain on the south of Skopje with hiking trails and great views of the city (below on the left). A walk from the center of Skopje to the summit should be no more than 3 hours, but there are buses running to Sredno Vodno, and you can catch a cable car from there to the Vodno peak. Matka is a gorgeous canyon just outside of Skopje — if you wanna kayak, hike, visit old churches, or just have a nice meal in nature, this is not to be missed. A detail of the canyon’s texture is pictured below on the right.
I do love Skopje urbanism from the Yugoslav era. Say what you will about the communists, but they can execute an architectural aesthetic that fits their ideology. Modernist Brutalism is all over the city: Makedonska Poshta, Platoto na UKIM (University square), UHMR building, Gradski Trgovski Centar, Muzej na Makedonija, Goce Delcev student housing, NBRM (Central Bank). The 1963 earthquake was an opportunity to re-image city dwelling and how humans relate to their environment. The best example of this is the Gradski Zid (The City Wall) complex, designed by the studio of the iconic Japanese architect Kenzo Tange, and stretches around the city center in a semi-circle. It has a tree-lined walking trail with commercial stores in the bottom and residential apartments and towers above; between the buildings is a quiet area envisioned as a shared public space for socialization and play.
The Old Turkish Bazaar is one of the cutest places to walk around, maintaining its authentic look in the face of fast urbanisation, with bricked streets, antique stores, old hamams and ans, craftsman stores, and churches alongside mosques. If you find yourself in Skopje in May or June, you have to stop and smell the linden. Skopje is lined with linden trees, along Partizanska and Ruzveltova streets, and the Vardar river bank. One of my favorite memories is walking around the city after a late spring rain and just taking in the smell of linden.
Below, from left to right, are Makedonska Poshta, UHMR, detail from The City Wall, and a street in the Old Turkish Bazaar.
Enjoy the arts
Skopje is small, but its museums carry their weight. Muzej na Sovremena Umetnost (Museum of Contemporary arts) is the one I always go back to when I’m in Skopje. It’s housed in a gorgeous modernist building that sits on top of the hill above the Old Turkish Bazaar with great views of the city. It’s exhibits are usually very interesting and it often hosts cultural events. Daut Pashin Amam is an old Turkish bath at the entrance of the Bazaar that is turned into a gallery. Its permanent collection features premier Macedonian art from the 19th and 20th centuries, my favorite of which is Simon Shemov’s Child Stealing in an Apple Tree Garden, pictured below. The Natural History Museum is a gem in my eyes. It’s a modest collection, but the museum is virtually untouched since the contemporary building was open in the 1970s after the previous one was destroyed by the 1963 earthquake, so it’s as much of a testament of Yugoslav Era architecture and design as it is a museum of natural history. A true blast from the past, be it mammoth skulls or its modernist furniture and hand-drawn graphs about bird migration and temperature patterns.
Beyond museums, I recommend visiting Kinoteka, an art/indie cinema club with great movies on the program. I’ve been there for film festivals, as well as for a Andrei Tarkovsky and Miloš Forman retrospectives. The National Opera and Ballet (Philharmonic) has orchestral performances on Thursdays and it is housed in a beautiful building (below on the left). St. Pantelejmon in Gorno Nerezi is a 12th century Byzantian monastery with iconic fresco art and a great view of the city. The most famous fresco is the Pieta (The Lamentation), which is featured on the Macedonian currency. It is said that it is a predecessor of the Renaissance, in that the figures have very expressive and emotive faces, breaking with then-traditions to draw them solemnly. A picture of the monastery’s dome above it’s cross-in-square naos is on the right below.
Listen
To complement my suggestions, I curated a little Spotify playlist to be listened to as you stroll the streets of Skopje.
