Chef Slavko in front of his Harbor Walk Grill at the Perth Amboy Marina *Photo by Paul W. Wang

By: Katherine Massopust

PERTH AMBOY – The Amboy Guardian sat down with Chef Slavko Petric to answer some questions about himself and the Harbor Walk Grill.

During World War II, Yugoslavia (now known as Croatia) was a fascist nation. Germany attacked the north and Italy attacked the south. Yugoslavia remained a communist nation after WWII.

“Under communist rule, there was no freedom of travel. I left Croatia, a communist country when I was 18 years old (1964). The first time when I was trying to escape, the border guards caught me. They put me in prison where everything is hard. The bed is chained to the wall. In the morning they wake you up and chain the bed up on the wall. The bench which you sit on is made of marble. You don’t know what it’s like when 24 hours a day, everything is a hard surface. I stayed in prison for 3 months. They transferred me from me from prison to prison until I was back in my hometown, Zadar, Croatia. They made me walk to the Police Station in chains which made you look like you’re some sort of criminal and all I did was try to cross the border. My mother found out I was in prison and she came in and yelled at them to let me go. Eventually they let me go because I was young.”

“I told my parents I wanted to cross the border again. They weren’t too happy about it, but I went anyway. The second time I tried to cross the border, I went with someone (my friend, Sjaus.) We took the bus and got off 40 miles before the border. From there, we walked 3 days and nights with no food and a little water which was from a brook or a stream. We saw a well on a farm and  drank the water. In Yugoslavia, when you’re a farmer, you get a tax credit if you report someone. We saw a farmer and we knew within 10 minutes he had called the police. I climbed a tree and saw the whole area. They (the border guards) were waiting. The road was U shaped and you had to go across. We could see the mountains ahead of us which were cut up. This is a neutral zone between the two countries. We came to an open field and said to ourselves, “What are we going to do now?” We saw them watching us in the tower. We took a chance and ran for it. We ran like crazy and they didn’t see us. We came to a stone wall that was 3 feet tall. When we went over the wall, we saw a man who was speaking Italian. We had made it over the border into Italy. It was a small town called Trieste. We went from that spot to a refugee camp or campo profuso. Later we walked to the refugee camp in San Saba.”

“We stayed in San Saba for a few months and they shipped us to another refugee camp in Lutina, a City that  Mussolini built. It was all flat and a decent size. I then was transferred to the southern part of Italy in a city called Capua, which was a place where there were a large number of refugees. Back then, the French had the Foreign Legion, which were paid soldiers. If you were from Yugoslavia and had joined the Foreign Legion, you couldn’t go back to Yugoslavia. You had to go to the refugee camps. A lot of people went to live in Australia.”

“I had two uncles in the United States: Rado Petric (younger) and Miro Petric (older) who had come to the United States during World War II. Miro was a Merchant Marine and joined the army during WWII and was stationed in the Philippines. Rado sponsored me into this country. I came over in 1965.”

Slavko explained, “My parents came to visit several times. My father lived to be 92 and my mother lived to be 86. My sister, Mileva came to the United States later and died from Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS).”

Slavko was married in 1968 and has two daughters and a son. “My oldest daughter is a CPA. My middle daughter is a Teacher and my son is in college and is presently teaching as well.”

“I learned to cook at the Swiss Chalet in Ramsey (located off of Rte. 17 in Bergen County, New Jersey). My cousin was a chef there. I did a little of everything: clean, bus tables and at the same time I learned how to cook. Within 5 years, I became a chef and then went on to another job in Windsor Bay, Berkeley Township, New Jersey.”

“I later worked in the Old Time Tavern in Toms River, New Jersey. I heard they were looking for a chef at the Royal Yacht Club in Perth Amboy in the late ‘90’s and worked there for 10 years. Mike Zylka, the Director at the Yacht Club and Mike George who was in charge of the Marina asked me about the need of someone selling food to the fishermen and people who were walking on the Marina. So, they asked if I would put a food truck on the Marina.”

Slavko chose the menu at the Harbor Walk Grill as the most requested and most convenient to make. When asked the secret of his famous crab cakes, Slavko answered, “I use fresh real crabmeat in my recipe.”

When asked what young people should expect when pursuing the culinary arts, Slavko’s advice was this: “If you decide to pursue a career in the food industry, it’s very demanding. You work all holidays and weekends. You really have to be motivated. If you want to get married, make sure your spouse understands the requirements of the job.”

Chef Slavko says of America, “It’s the land of opportunity, a nation of immigrants who have come here to make their life better.”