What to Eat in Romania in 2026: The Best Food and Drink

Romanian food is root vegetable, pork, and fermentation cooking with a Balkan-Ottoman overlay that shows in the use of olive oil in the south and the Habsburg influence in the Transylvanian mountain cooking of the north. Sarmale — cabbage leaves stuffed with minced pork, rice, and herbs, slow-cooked in tomato and sour cream — is the Romanian national dish eaten at Christmas and Easter in quantities that require advance preparation. Mici (small, unskinned minced meat sausages, grilled, eaten with mustard and bread) are the Romanian street food and the barbecue tradition shared across the Balkan region. Ciorba de burta (tripe soup with garlic and sour cream, eaten as a hangover cure and as a restaurant first course) is the Romanian dish that visitors approach with the most caution and often return for. Romanian plum brandy (țuică), the general-purpose rural spirit, and the wines of Dealu Mare, Cotnari (producing the Grasa de Cotnari sweet white wine), and the Dobrogea steppe region are the drinks traditions. It really hits differently.