In this region two styles of cooking, the Friulan and the Triestina, co-exist and sometimes even intermix. In both styles there is ample use of beans, corn, rice, barley, sauerkraut, turnips, and fresh vegetables in general, that show up in specialties that reflect the influence of Venetian, Hungarian, Slavic, Jewish, and Greek cuisine, but that have, nonetheless, acquired an unmistakable local character.

Most distinguished among these dishes are Hungarian goulash, Greek rice, Bohemian hare, and Viennese cutlets. The soups such as thejota and Friulan bean soup, born in the countryside as foods of the very poor, have become very refined foods. There is a large variety of soups made with pasta or rice in which, from time to time, lard, beans, turnips lentils and sausage are also used.

Risotti with fish, tagliatelle with tuna, bread gnocchi with ham, bigoli with anchovies, and "cialzons"(a type of ravioli) are the most characteristic first course dishes, while main course dishes are equally divide between meat and fish. There are many sweets that range from the "gubana" to the "pinze".