Where should I eat in Plitvice Lakes, and which local food or drink is worth trying?

Plitvice sits in Lika, Croatia's high, hard interior — a land of shepherds, soldiers and long winters — and its kitchen is the opposite of the Dalmatian coast's: meat, potatoes, cheese and brandy, in portions built for altitude. The dish of the region is janjetina: lamb roasted on the spit or, better, ispod peke — under the peka, the bell-shaped iron lid heaped with embers, where lamb (or veal, or octopus on the coast) slow-bakes with potatoes in its own juices for hours. The potatoes are half the fame: lički krumpir, Lika potatoes, hold EU-protected status (PGI), grown in the mountain fields' thin red soil, floury and sweet, and they arrive under every roast in the region. Along the D1 old road through the park's villages — and at the park's own national restaurant Lička Kuća, by Entrance 1, serving the regional canon since the park's early decades — the order writes itself: lamb, Lika potatoes, a cabbage or šopska-style salad, and the corn-and-wheat breads baked for the table.

The cheeses are the second course and the souvenir. Basa is Lika's soft, spreadable cow's-milk cheese, eaten with warm bread or folded into dishes; škripavac is the squeaky, semi-hard fresh cheese of the Lika and Gorski Kotar pastures — it protests audibly under the teeth, hence the name (škripa, the squeak) — grilled until it softens at the edges and served with cured meats. The cured side of the board is pršut and panceta from the mountain smokehouses and the kobasice sausages; the rivers add the Gacka valley's trout, farmed and wild-caught near Otočac, on menus across the region. Inside the park, the Institution's restaurants (Lička Kuća above all, with the hotel restaurants at Jezero and the bistros at the entrances and boat landings) trade convenience for the full menu outside: the villages within a few miles — Korana, Smoljanac, Grabovac, Rakovica toward the Korana river — hold the family konobas where the peka is lit for whoever ordered it two hours ahead. That ordering rule is the region's whole etiquette: peka is never fast, and a kitchen that offers it instantly is telling you something.

The glass is rakija. Lika distils its plums into šljivovica of real authority, served in the small čokanj glass before a meal and after it, with medica (honey rakija) as the softer door. The region's wines are an import (the karst grows little), so the table drinks beer, rakija and the rivers' water, and finishes with coffee and a strudel of the continental pattern — apple or cheese štrudla — rather than anything coastal. Practical law for the park day: the in-park restaurants price for a captive audience and queue at the Kozjak landing at midday; the better plan is the park's own rhythm — a big Lika lunch in a village konoba before a late entry, or the full dinner after the last boat, with the peka ordered by phone at breakfast.

A village konoba at 7 p.m.: the waiter sets down a peka dish still ticking with heat, the lid lifted at the table to a breath of lamb, potato and woodsmoke, and a čokanj of šljivovica already waiting.

Order the škripavac grilled. Fresh, it is pleasant and milky; grilled on the plancha until the edges caramelise and the squeak softens, it becomes Lika's answer to halloumi — and it is the cheese the region's EU-protection efforts were built around (the Lički krumpir's PGI is the headline; the škripavac carries its own protected status among Croatia's registered cheeses). The pairing the shepherds insist on is basa spread on warm corn bread with a thread of the region's honey — two cheeses, one plate, the whole pasture economy in miniature. Shops at the park entrances sell škripavac vacuum-packed; it travels, and it should.

• Order the peka ahead — Two hours' notice, by phone, at a village konoba: the dish cannot be hurried and should not be faked
• Lunch outside, snacks inside — The park's bistros carry the walking hours; the real Lika table is in Korana, Smoljanac and Grabovac
• Rakija with respect — The čokanj is small because the šljivovica is not; one before dinner is the custom, the second is a decision

The signature dish is a timetable. Lamb under the iron bell takes hours and the village kitchens light it only for an order already placed, so a party walking in at 8 p.m. expecting it eats grilled meat instead — and the konobas at Korana, Smoljanac and Grabovac are a drive from the park gates, which makes the booking and the car one decision rather than two. Inside the park the problem inverts: the boat landings and entrance bistros are the only food within several hours of boardwalk, and they are busiest exactly when the circuits converge at midday. Lika is a high interior with long winters, so an off-season visit should confirm that the chosen kitchen is serving before relying on it, and the vacuum-packed cheese from the entrance shops is the souvenir that survives a drive to the coast.

Book a village konoba for the evening, order lamb under the peka when you reserve, and carry a škripavac home from the entrance shops.