The oldest family-run restaurant in Korčula is still a place where locals gather at shellacked picnic tables to devour mussels dripping with oil, garlic, parsley, and white wine. A high-ceilinged, open-air dining room located inside a 200-year-old stone building within the city walls, Adio Mare has stuck to its beliefs even as the lines outside grow increasingly long: no reservations, fair prices, and delectable food.

Dinner nightly: 5 p.m. to 12 a.m.

This Korčula sweet shop brims with candies, local wines, and liqueurs. The cookies, though, merit many returns. Try a klasun, filled with walnut cream; a handful of amaretti, made with almonds, eggs, sugar, orange, lemon, and rose brandy; or some cukarini, sweet biscuits traditionally dipped in wine. But you need to arrive early or you'll wind up waiting: Owner Smiljana Matijaca seemingly cooks nonstop, but still manages to sell out by midday and then reopens at night after baking another batch.

Closed Saturday. Open 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Vis, 28 miles into the Adriatic from the nearest coast, feels more secluded than its sister islands. Kaliopa echoes this sensibility: Hidden in a garden next to an old villa by the sea, it isn't a place you're likely to stumble upon. The owner, Goran Pecarevic, doesn't like crowds, either; in fact, he says his goal is to get smaller and smaller until he's serving only himself. Metaphysical puzzles aside, the food is delicious. Order a bottle of island-made red Plavac Mali, and start with smoked-fish soup or risotto with mussels and shrimp; next tuck into the tuna carpaccio slathered in domestic olive oil and sprinkled with capers. With only 50 seats outside, reservations are essential.

Dinner nightly: 5 p.m. to 12 a.m.

You know the food is good when the mix of customers includes white-dusted workmen from Brač's stone quarries and rich yachties who venture off the boat to look for this place on the road between Supetar and Bol. What's the attraction? The lamb: Brač has little grass, so its sheep feed on herbs such as sage and rosemary, dusted with sea salt. When cooked on the spit, those herbal flavors luxuriate with the meat's juices. The veal here is also scrumptious, slow-roasted under a peka, a traditional bell-like cover that acts as a primitive convection oven to keep the meat moist. The indoor dining room has a cafeteria feel, so move to the terrace, with its views of rolling, rocky hills.

Lunch and dinner daily: 10 a.m. to 12 a.m.

You can get a decent meal at the traditional, touristic restaurants in Split's Old Town. But Labirint, hidden on a narrow lane past Trg Gaje Bulata across from Old Town's bustling Marmontova Street, is where the locals go. Labirint's raison d'être is beef, serving arguably the region's best steaks. Our pick: the 23-ounce T-bone served with grilled vegetables and potato croquettes, a great antidote to all the fish you've been eating.

Open daily noon to midnight.

Italians love Hvar, and they especially love Luna—one of the few places on the island that might be described as glam. Owner Tomislav Rudan understands that visitors want a break from the standard fare and rustic ambience, so he serves dishes such as smoked salmon, shrimp gazpacho, and beef tenderloin with a truffle cream and mushroom sauce—a welcome break from picking tiny bones out of your teeth (fish in Croatia is rarely filleted). Located in the center of town, the restaurant has a dining room with a swirl of quirky paintings and a moon-shaped rooftop terrace. You'll hear a babble of languages and see many of the same good-looking folks at Carpe Diem later that night.

Closed November to March. Lunch and dinner.

Pupnat is a small village in Korčula's hills, but make the 15-minute drive from Korčula Town for what might be your crowning meal in Dalmatia. The operative word here is homemade: Everything from cured meats to pasta to cheese comes from the family's land. After enjoying a huge appetizer plate loaded with eggplant pâté, liver pâté, pancetta, sausage, goat cheese, and wild capers, move on to the goat-cheese ravioli, and finish off with pastries and juniper or rosemary sorbet. Be sure to check out the smokehouse, hanging with dozens of legs of pršut. A bottle of herb rakija —Croatian grappa—sits on each table along with a clutch of other liqueurs (mandarin, wild cherry, apricot, fig, rose petal, carob). Best assign a designated driver.

Savvy globe trekkers know that to find a good seafood restaurant you head for the local fish market. Split's market is worth a wander, with its singing, haggling, and bantering Croats selling lobsters, eels, and squid ink. While Nostromo isn't quite on the water itself, it attracts Split's upper echelon in an wood-bedecked dining room in the fish market that feels like a yacht's galley. The chefs know to leave well enough alone, using a minimum of spices and sauces to let the flavor of the fish come through. Start with a plate of local oysters before diving into the Nostromo plate, which includes sautéed shrimp, squid, mussels, scallops, and clams tossed with olive oil and parsley.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily: 6 a.m. to 12 a.m.

Tucked away in an alley in the neighborhood of Kut, Pojoda is renowned for its full-bodied interpretations of ancient recipes. Our recommendation: the brodetto, a traditional stew made with tomatoes, wine, olive oil, monkfish, and lobster. Why is it so good? We don't know: When we asked owner and head chef Zoran Brajčić for the recipe, he said, "Nobody can imitate the dish. Even if you know the ingredients, how can you know how big my pinch is? I've got big hands." Couple the brodetto with a bottle of local Vugava white wine.

Lunch and dinner daily: 12 p.m. to 12 a.m.

The owners of the increasing number of impossibly expensive yachts bobbing just off Hvar are lured onto land by this spot in Groda, Hvar town's oldest neighborhood. It's not the simple interior of wooden tables that does it, brightened as it is by the paintings of one of the owners. It's the soup, called gregada, so thick you need a fork and spoon to eat it. Originally a poor man's dish using boiled whitefish, potatoes, onions, and wine, here it's classed up with John Dory and sea bass. As often as not, when customers order something besides the gregada, they'll change their minds when a bubbling bowl wafts by, leaking the smell of garlic and wine.

Open daily: 12 p.m. to 12 a.m. No lunch on Sunday.

Like a young Croatian cousin of Chez Panisse, Yaksa reaches far beyond the average Dalmatian pizza and pasta joint to emphasize the freshest local ingredients served with minimal fuss. Located right in the center of Hvar, the restaurant's seasonal menus can include a salad of arugula with Grana Padano cheese, roast beef seasoned with aromatic herbs, or a fillet of Adriatic sea bass over grilled zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and baby eggplant. If you can handle dessert, there's a wicked rice pudding topped with a thick, sour-sweet cherry confit. The secluded, rock-walled garden is perfect for alfresco dining on a late summer night, when you'll be tempted to linger over your last sip of St. Klement, a buttery white from Hvar's acclaimed Tomic winery.

Open daily 9 am to 4 pm and 6 pm to 1 am.