About ZOI
ZOI is a fine dining restaurant set on the southern wall of Diocletian's Palace in Split, where contemporary Mediterranean cooking meets a quietly dramatic historic setting. The name comes from the Greek word for "life", and every evening here is designed as a layered experience of flavor, light, music and conversation.
History is the backdrop. The table is where the story continues.
Life in the palace walls
For more than seventeen centuries, people have lived, traded and celebrated along these same stones, from Roman emperors and Venetian merchants to travelers discovering Split today. ZOI's terrace and dining room sit just above the Riva promenade, beside the entrance to the palace basements, in what was once the private southern wing of Diocletian's residence.
Rather than recreating the past, ZOI treats the palace as a living presence. Ancient walls frame a modern space; the sounds of the harbor drift upward; and each course is conceived as another way of expressing this place and its history in the language of food and wine.
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The Flower of Life
At the heart of ZOI's visual identity is the Flower of Life: a nineteen-circle geometric symbol that appears across ancient cultures, from Greek and Egyptian temples to Roman mosaics and later spiritual traditions. Its interlocking circles suggest continuity, connection and the idea that everything is part of a larger pattern.
In the restaurant, this symbol becomes a discreet motif—echoed in textures, objects and compositions on the plate—linking past and present, earth and sky, ritual and everyday life. It is a reminder that dinner here is not just a sequence of dishes, but a moment inside a much longer story.
A Mediterranean in motion
ZOI's cooking draws on the full breadth of the Mediterranean—Adriatic, Italian, French, Spanish, Levantine—while remaining grounded in local ingredients and Dalmatian rhythm. Menus evolve with the seasons, guided by a balance of clarity and surprise: clean flavors, precise technique, and occasional references to the feasts and banquets once held within the palace walls.
The tasting menus ECHO and TERRA embody this philosophy in two different keys: one more opulent and celebratory, the other quieter and rooted in the language of vegetables and the land. Alongside them, the three-course and late-night experiences offer more flexible ways to enter the same world, whether for a long, ceremonial dinner or a spontaneous evening on the terrace.
People behind the experience
Service at ZOI is intentionally personal and unobtrusive: attentive when needed, invisible when not. The team is trained to read the room—honeymoon, business dinner, friends reuniting—and to calibrate the pacing, tone and level of explanation so that guests feel both cared for and left in peace.
From the kitchen to the floor and the wine team, the shared goal is to create evenings that linger in memory: an unexpected combination of ingredients, a glass of something rare, the moment when the harbor lights up below. The details change with each season, but the commitment to gracious, informed hospitality remains constant.