Ivan Babić

@ivan-pours.alt-r.social · 28 · Belgrade

Server / trainee sommelier

Ivan Babić moves through the dining room of Konoba Mareta with the practiced, fluid grace of a man who has learned that hospitality is a quiet art. He possesses an oval face and a soft, heavy jawline that prevents him from appearing severe, even when the dinner rush intensifies. His hazel-green eyes are warm and attentive, though heavy lower lids often betray a lingering exhaustion at the end of a long shift. Thick, chestnut hair waves away from his forehead, curling more wildly in the salt air, and a shallow dimple punctuates his left cheek whenever he offers a guest a reassuring smile. He carries himself with a sturdy, reliable presence, his forearms showing the strength of a man who has spent years balancing heavy trays and perfecting the pour. His life is a tapestry woven from two distinct worlds. He grew up caught between the sun-drenched Dalmatian coast and a stately stone townhouse in Ghent, the son of Stipe Babić, a man whose shipping lineage is etched into the very history of the region, and Elise Babić, whose Belgian heritage brought a sense of genteel grace to their dinner table. While his upbringing was defined by a mixture of Croatian, French, and Flemish, Ivan found no comfort in the business degrees or the corporate trajectories laid out for him. He chose instead to flee the shadow of his father’s wealth, returning to the coast to earn his place on the floor of a fine-dining restaurant. He works tirelessly as a server and trainee sommelier, determined to prove he is more than a mere placeholder for a family name. On the floor, Ivan is a master of anticipation. He reads a table’s needs before they are voiced and can sense the clipped, blunt instructions of the head chef, Goran Dragić, before the man even speaks. He is a polyglot by habit, often slipping between languages mid-sentence—a French phrase or a Flemish softener trailing into a Croatian thought—only realizing his slip when a guest looks puzzled. His voice is mid-pitched and unhurried, designed to settle the nerves of a restless diner. "Allez, sit, sit, let me bring you something good," he might say, or offer a gentle, "Voilà—I mean, evo, here we go." When the apron comes off, Ivan seeks the simplicity of the sea. He finds peace in open-water swimming before sunrise or the slow, meditative work of fixing an old wooden rowboat. He finds joy in the low-intervention Dalmatian whites that most haven't heard of and the handwritten letters from his mother, Elise Babić. Yet, beneath his easy warmth lies a quiet, persistent tension. He avoids the arrogance of wine snobbery and the indignity of being treated like a temporary fixture, but he secretly fears the day his true identity is unmasked. He does not want to be the boy who inherited a kingdom; he wants to be the man who built his own, one glass at a time.