Restaurant Šadrvan — Restaurant in MZ Donja Mahala

Deeply disappointing – rude and discriminatory treatment

We visited Restaurant Sadrvan in Mostar and unfortunately had an extremely unpleasant experience. As a visibly Muslim family with a baby in a stroller and two hungry children, we immediately felt unwelcome and ignored – unlike other guests around us, who were treated far more politely.

When we asked whether we could lift the stroller onto the platform (which would have required temporarily moving one chair), the waiter simply said, “Wait,” with no further explanation or offer of help. My husband ended up standing on the sidewalk with the stroller for over 10 minutes while no one attended to us. Eventually, he moved the chair himself, placed the stroller, and respectfully set the chair aside near another table.

Nearly 30 minutes later, a waiter finally approached us – only after new customers were seated in front of and behind us. Instead of welcoming us or taking our order, he reprimanded my husband for moving the chair and insisted we should have “waited” – even for 40 minutes, as he claimed. When my husband explained the situation calmly, the waiter remained rude and dismissive.

Other guests even expressed their support and said there was nothing wrong with moving the chair temporarily, but the staff still insisted we were in the wrong.

Meanwhile, our two older children were sitting at the table hungry and visibly upset by the situation. What was meant to be a family lunch turned into a distressing and humiliating experience.

We left the restaurant feeling disappointed and deeply hurt. Sadly, this place is not recommended for families with young children – and especially not for Muslim guests, who may be treated unfairly based...

This was my first time having Bosnian food so I went for their National plate that had a little bit of everything, at least that’s what I thought. It actually had a LOT of everything.

There was so much here I’m not even sure I know what everything was so I’m going to try my best here:

The Ćevapi was great with the onions inside and the bread that this came on was incredible. There was a separate bread basket with a denser bread provided for the rest of the dishes that I didn’t really care for, I wish it was more of this ćevapi bread instead.

There was also the kebab style Grilled Ćevap which was so tender and delicious, especially with the fragrant rice!

The Japrak was pretty tasty, I liked the filling and the grape leaves were soft.

The Dolma was okay, the peppers were cooked well and I loved those but the filling felt off to me in these. The Ðuveč I also thought was fine.

The Bosanksa Kolačića was interesting. Pretty dry but had a really good flavor that was slightly sweet so I loved that.

The extra toppings of the potatoes, sour cream, rice, and ajvar were all nice as well.

I also got a homemade pomegranate juice which was good but it tasted like it was a premade syrup mixed with water, just because Ive bought fruit syrups and mixed with water plenty of times before and it has this distinct background taste.

Then for dessert I got the Tufahije. A whole apple soaked in syrup and stuffed with walnuts - wow!!! Very good but veeery sweet like there is soooo much syrup so make sure to have some water on hand.

The ambiance of the restaurant was really nice and traditional, had a fountain in the middle that was relaxing. However the service was pretty slow. Overall...

I never write bad reviews, but I just spent the last 20 minutes cleaning vomit out of my hostel sink, so I think I need to. I want to give credit where it’s due- the man who served me was extremely kind, and the food was very tasty- until it came back up about 6 hours later. The girl at the front of the line was frankly awful at organising people- she waited until we’d been there about half an hour to tell us it was cash only and she wouldn’t give anyone definite answers they could work with. I waited about 45 minutes in total. When I ordered, nobody told me the meal I ordered was for two- it was not marked on the menu-, so I spent a lot of money on something I could barely finish. I am a positive kinda person so I tried my best and had a laugh about it- and I enjoyed it, so I just thought it’s fine, I’ll eat the left overs tomorrow. My walk home was less than 20 minutes, and by the time I was home, I could feel my stomach turning and ran to the toilet. I thought the diarrhoea would be the end of it, but 6 hours later I woke up and vomited absolutely everywhere- and because I’m in a hostel, I had to clean it up. Not really something you want to be doing after spending 65 marks on a meal. After the wait, paying as much as I did for it, and knowing the behemoth of food in the fridge is now going to end up in the trash- I can’t wilfully leave this one without a review. There is SO much good food in Mostar. Perhaps give this one a miss if you don’t want to end up with your head...