Where you are now
Osteria
It starts with wine and a glass, and the kitchen follows. You can come for a little or for a lot: a board of cold cuts, a plate of pasta, a whole dinner. Nobody minds if you order one thing only.
Triestine osteria
A Triestine osteria, on Via Giulia.
A counter with a full display case, a small room with the tables laid, and the door open from eight in the morning. In Trieste that is called an osteria, and this is exactly how it works.
A word that carries weight here
What a Triestine osteria is
An osteria is not a restaurant with linen tablecloths, and it is not a bar. It is the place you walk into for a glass of wine and end up staying for dinner, where the dish of the day needs no introduction and the bill holds no surprises.
Trieste has turned places like this into categories of their own: osterie, buffets and trattorie each work by different rules, and locals tell them apart without thinking. What they share is the food you would cook at home, eaten in company.
Osteria La De Jure is on Via Giulia, away from the café tables of the centre. It has the counter with the caldaia and the breaded snacks, a room with tables and, when the weather allows, a few tables outside. The management is new since September 2026, but the way people sit down to eat is the old one.
A short dictionary
Osteria, buffet or trattoria?
In Trieste these three words mean three different places. They are easy to mix up: here is how they differ.
The quick cousin
Buffet
Not a hotel self-service: it is the place of the caldaia, of boiled pork, mustard and grated kren (horseradish). You eat at the counter, often standing. We do have that counter: it is described on the page about the Triestine buffet.
Home cooking
Trattoria
More tables, more dishes, less counter. The border with the osteria is thin and everyone draws it where they like: what matters is that the cooking is the kind you would do at home. Ours is.
How to use it
How our osteria works
The photos are of our own room and our own kitchen. What is in the display case changes from day to day.
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At the counter, even just passing by
The counter is the first thing you meet on the way in: the display of breaded snacks, the coffee machine, the beer taps. People stop for a coffee in the morning, a meatball mid-afternoon, a glass before dinner.
No booking and no table needed: you walk in, pick from the display and eat right there. In Trieste that odd-hour snack even has a name, rebechin.
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At a table, in the room
The room sits under a brick arch, with the tables close together: the kind of place where you end up talking to the table next to you. This is where the real plates arrive, from land and sea, from Triestine classics to seafood pasta.
At lunch there is almost always a free table. For dinner, especially on Saturdays, a phone call first is wiser: we only take bookings by phone, on +39 040 265 0413.
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A board and a glass
The middle way between the counter and dinner: cured meats, cheeses and something to drink, at a table, with no commitment. It is the oldest way of being in an osteria, and still the best one when there are two or four of you and nobody wants to decide.
Outside, when the weather holds, there are a few tables as well.
A review
“An osteria the way they used to be: excellent food, simple, traditional, tasty dishes. […] Great value for money.”
Before you come
Where we are and how it works
Via Giulia 51: look for the red sign above the awning. The bus stop is a few steps away; full directions are on the contact page.
- Where
- Via Giulia 51, 34126 Trieste, Italy
- Opening hours
- Monday–Saturday 08:00–23:00, closed on Sunday
- Bookings
- +39 040 265 0413, by phone only
- Come for
- A coffee, a snack, lunch or dinner
Book
There is a table.
A phone call is enough to sit down for dinner; for a snack at the counter, just walk in.