Aivar, from The Pelagonia Range

Aivar is the most famous of our regional products. A delicious meze made from sweet roasted red peppers.                             

It was served on the tables of Alexandar the Great and to this day it maintains its popularity.

Aivar (or Ajvar) is well known through the region by locals and visitors alike. Every September you’ll stumble across the smell of roasting peppers all across Macedonia as families make their own Aivar by roasting kilos and kilos of peppers over coals before removing the skins and then grinding the peppers with aubergines and spices.

We make Aivar with our whole sweet roasted peppers which makes it a perfect partner for salty cheese such as Pecarino, Parmesan or Feta.

Crumbs Magazine described it as ‘A red concoction that has a smooth but slightly chunky texture – to the untrained eye, it looks rather like a jar of creamy red pesto –  we devoured an entire jar of Pelagonia aivar on its own with a spoon – it was that good and addictive – and then polished off the second jar with pita and hummus’