It won 'Best Restaurant' at the Romanian Hospitality Awards 2026, where Alex Petricean was also named 'Best Chef', and it has 4.7 on Google from 1,000 reviews.
About the place
Chef Alex Petricean opened NOUA in May 2019 in a modest house built in 1915 on Strada Popa Nan, in an area once home to merchants and to communities of several ethnic groups. Inside are ceramics, wood and other Romanian symbols, and the house's emblem is the salt block (drob de sare), an old symbol of hospitality. The restaurant won 'Best Restaurant' at the Romanian Hospitality Awards in both 2025 and 2026.
In the evening it serves a tasting menu of 17 small dishes, which takes about three hours and can come with wine or juice pairings. The cooking starts from Romanian ingredients, their producers and the places they come from. On Google and Tripadvisor, guests praise the originality of the dishes, the explanations given with each course and the wine pairings, while some say not all 17 courses were to their taste.
Good to know
- It is open Wednesday to Saturday; guests arrive between 18:00 and 21:00, and the menu takes about three hours.
- Book ahead, online through ialoc.ro, by phone or at contact@nouarestaurant.ro.
- The Școala Iancului tram stop is about 150 m away and Piața Iancului metro station (M1) about a 15-minute walk; from Piața Universității it is about 2.3 km on foot, roughly 30 minutes.
Opening hours
| Monday | Closed |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | Closed |
| Wednesday | 18–21 |
| Thursday | 18–21 |
| Friday | 18–21 |
| Saturday | 18–21 |
| Sunday | Closed |
Hours may change on public holidays. Check before you go.