Rooftops of Tallinn - Lounge 24 & Terrace of Vertigo

This was a fun night. Somebody came up with an idea that we should go somewhere high up and since there were no other suggestions, that's what we did. It turned out to be an excellent idea.

We started with the rooftop of SAS Radisson Hotel. The place is called Lounge 24 and the weather was good, the view even better and the company - good friends = excellent.

I had a salmon wrap and a fresh salad. The wrap was pretty damn good, but seriously on the small side. The salad was indeed fresh and except for the fact that they forgot to toast the pignoli nuts really enjoyable. Pignoli nuts untoasted are just an addition of protein, not taste. Still like I said I liked my dinner.

My friends were split down the middle when it came to a verdict. The salad with roasted duck got a thumbs up, but a Caesar's thumbs down. Well really, it was Iceberg lettuce. Desserts were a big hit. For whatever reason I skipped them, so I truly shouldn't say anything.

Now to the service. The girl waiting on us absolutely hated doing that, hated being there, hated her job and quite possibly hated us. Even that did not ruin the experience.

The night was young and we decided to walk across the street for drinks. Vertigo's terrace is way lower than the top of the neighboring hotel, but the views are still great. We were lounging on the couches enjoying the setting sun. Beautiful.

So we went for the Mojitos and staying with Cuban feel I decided to order a nice cigar. I was pleasantly surprised, after checking their menu, that they had my favorites - Monte Cristo #2's. EXCEPT...they had just had a party who smoked all of them. Hmmm...OK, I'm not saying anything. So I opted for a Cohiba Robusto. It was not well kept, the wrapper was broken in at least three places. But guess what, another Moijto or two and the still setting sun raised my tolerance to an unheard of level.

Beautiful.



P.S. At some point I also had dessert at Vertigo's terrace - NY style raspberry cheesecake. Nothing about it was New York Style, but it was good - real good.

Three Sisters

Well, there's another hotel restaurant, by now you should know how I feel about the whole concept. When it comes to hotels in Tallinn, Three Sisters is considered to be one of the most exquisite and their restaurant wonderful by a lot of people.

Since the weather has been summer-like and they also have a courtyard, I managed to visit them twice in this past week. Once for lunch and then later in a week for dinner. I've always been little suspicious of their menu, mainly because of my dislike of pretentious cuisine and when you read their menu you could get a feeling that the chef insists on recherche ingredients not because of their qualities but their snob value.

First - lunch: I ordered a glass of Sangria Rose and a BLT and it was great. Sangria was nicely on the dry side and BLT almost the real thing. What got me thinking though was the simplicity of a sandwich offered in the hotel that likes to charge around $1000 for some of it's rooms. In any case I enjoyed the simple lunch with good company in a pleasant environment.

Now for the dinner visit - I have to admit that once again I kept good company, but the environment and some of the other components of having a great dinner out were lacking of ....something. They really try to be a first grade establishment, but even though the waiting staff was very quick and polite, almost ninja like, I found the way of sommelier's behavior to be too familiar for my taste. I need to point out that the head sommelier was not present that night and the guy helping us was all proud of becoming a certified sommelier just a week ago.

That doesn't change the fact that when looking for a perfect wine pairing he paid no attention to our personal preferences and then ended recommending a much more expensive choice than what I personally would have chosen.

Now the food - I started with a Waldorf Salad and it was just OK, everything was fresh and all the necessary ingredients were present on the plate, but for whatever reason they were really sliced and diced fine. Just too fine, almost shredded. Not the way it really should be.

I continued with PAN-FRIED DUCK FILLET WITH CARAMELIZED CHICORY with kumquat-ginger compote and green pepper-red wine sauce. I would call it endive instead of chicory, but I know that there's some serious confusion going on with naming this leafy vegetable that doesn't like daylight on some menus. Anyway it was good, I mean the caramelized endive. The duck was prepared to my liking when it comes to doneness, but it was little chewy. The sauce was a disappointment.

Then I got a bite from my companions plate, she had ordered SLOW ROASTED VEAL CHEEKS IN RED WINE SAUCE served with sweetbread, spinach and green beans. Man, that sweetbread just melted in my mouth. Not that many places serve heart thymus gland in these parts and this was a wonderful surprise. Definitely the high point of the experience.

All in all it was a pretty nice evening. Not great though, and considering what they think they are or try to be and what they cost I would expect little more.

Controvento

I think it's safe for me to say and most people will agree that Controvento is the most popular restaurant in the city of Tallinn. Why? I guess there are many reasons. The obvious one - the location, it does not get much better than that. St. Catherine's Passage smack in the middle of Old Town. Then again that pretty much only works with the tourists. For whatever reason most of the locals are not as fond of the picturesque medieval part of town.

Then again, locals have a even better reason to love this place. See, Controvento is one of the very few if not the only place that has managed to stay popular for the last decade and a half and because of that most people have their very own emotional attachment to it. Almost every one I know has some kind of tradition involving this homey restaurant located on the coziest street in town. For some it's a weekly Saturday afternoon thing, for others a New Year's Day tradition and guess what, no amount of clever advertising or marketing magic can top that. Something like that is embedded in the subconscious.

I have to say that I am an unfortunate one, for not having any deep emotional affection or feeling of loyalty towards this place and because of that I can remain absolutely objective. Here it goes - their pasta dishes stink and I don't mean that in a scent type of way. Their pizzas are just barely OK. See totally objective.

Don't worry it gets better from now on. First of all Controvento serves some of the best steaks in town and their fish is usually fresh and nicely prepared. Wine list adequate and not horribly over-priced. Unfortunately the vegetables that come as a side are just too plain and boring. All the plates are quite big and I guess because of that I've never had dessert here. Lets assume that their desserts are great.

All in all Controveto is a pleasant little restaurant with lovely atmosphere and a decent menu. I just personally love all the simple things of Italian cuisine. Food that doesn't cost much at the market, takes a long time to prepare and tastes wonderful because of that.

Controvento has been around for a while and will be around for a long time.

daVinci

Let's get the good out of the way first. Restaurant daVinci serves good Italian food in a setting that...qualifies... as nice, little sterile, but nice. Most of the food is good and some excellent. My personal favorites are Verdure alla Parmigiana for appetizers and Filetto Grigliato con Polenta su Salsa di Madeira for main dishes.

What makes daVinci special for me is their Gelato - best ice-cream in this city, no questions about it. Love the Frutti di Bosco and Pistacchio. Let's not forget that I am a person who remembers the street corners in Paris, Gordes and Lucca where he had the absolute best ice-cream in the world. I could still find these places today, maybe even blind-folded.
So take my word for it - you are not gonna find better ice-cream over here.

Another enjoyable thing about daVinci is their wine-list, a lot of good wines meant for drinking over lunch and a pretty good selection of fine wines for special occasions, with almost every region of the beautiful country of Italy represented. I don't like when restaurants fill their wine list with trophy wines and can't stand when they try to make a killing with their wine offering. daVinci doesn't do either.


Now here comes the catch. daVinci is divided in half - the cafe side on the left and the a la carte side on the right. Also daVinci is one of the few places in Tallinn that has a decent pizza oven... Are you ready - you can only get pizza on the cafe side. Did you get that? OK. But this is not even the funny part, their pizza oven is located in the a la carte side of the restaurant. So if you wanted a pizza, but were told that you can't have it, you can still get a whiff and a looksy when the waiter passes your table carrying it to the cafe side.

I'm sure somebody at some point figured this to be a logical solution. Maybe they think that they will not make enough money on something that cheap like pizza on their A LA CARTE side or maybe they think that when people sit down at a table that has a cloth on it, they forget that they love pizza. I don't know.

But imagine this - you are having a fun dinner out with friends, let's say a group of eight...wait for it - plus let's say people brought their kids with them. Five of them to be exact. You think that you are going to take a chance on a Carpaccio for a starter for 150EEK, follow it with a steak with truffle sauce for 280EEK and finish with a Tiramisu for 70EEK. 150+280+70=500. And you had a good day at work and decided to award your-self with a bottle of Amarone della Valpolicella 2001 for a whopping 1425EEK. And your friends are just as hungry and also had great days at the office.
Now 500+1425=1925x8=15400EEK. I'm sure you already know where I'm going with this - kids want pizza, and who's to blame them, everybody loves pizza. What do you do? Let me remind you ...NO PIZZA. What do you do? Do you ignore the kids request? Risk having to put up with five very unhappy youngsters, who are able to ruin your night out for much less that not getting pizza for dinner? Do you relocate to the cafe side? Or do you walk out the door?

I would use the door and I have personally seen other people walk out of daVinci for the same exact reason. Well hey, I'm sure whoever made such a radical reason as refusing pizza for their clients, is probably a Marketing Guru or a Customer Service Genius or both. He or she had reasons. Reasons good enough to make 15 400 EEK's walking out the door meaningless.

Baby Back

OMG, why is it, that everybody outside of US thinks that Americans eat ribs, burgers and nothing else? All this, when for example there's more Chinese restaurants in the States than McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's restaurants combined.

Anyhow if you want to see and taste a comical stereo type of what the rest of the world thinks US looks like and what it eats - this place "Baby Back" is perfect. Unfortunately it doesn't come close to offering a sampling of American cuisine, not even of the stereotypical one.

The steaks are horribly over-cooked and over-priced, this pretty much goes for the rest of the food too. My personal funny favorite from the menu is Creole Gumbo. Boy, they must really know their stuff, since they actually make a distinction between Creole and Cajun Gumbos outside of Louisiana. But...it turns out they think Creole Gumbo is a spicy creamy soup. Yep, they put cream in Gumbo. Believe it.

I don't think I'm going to make a mistake of visiting them again. Not good food, not at all, but you don't have to take my word for it. Go ahead, I dare you.

Now here, this is the way to make Gumbo, yes it takes forever, specially if you make your own roux. I do. It's worth it. There's nothing like a great Gumbo.

http://www.gumbopages.com/food/gumbo.html

TOP 10 worst restaurants of Tallinn

In no particular order

Buenos Aires




Fellini

La Vie

Paat

Elevant

Bossanova Corallo

Lucca

African Kitchen

Mercado

Mack Bar-B-Que


Off course there's no really objective way of putting together a list like this, so
I tried to take into account what kind of places the restaurants on the list are trying to be. Obviously I don't think they've accomplished their goals.

As always I'm open for your suggestions, let us know your absolute worst dining experiences. Everybody likes crap like that.

Cafe Pushkin

Quite possibly the ugliest eating establishment in town and get this, the building it's in - is beautiful and the space gorgeous. So what's left, it's the furnishings and design, well in fact - the total lack of design. You walk in the door and seems you have stepped into a time machine and traveled for a decade or two.

So why am I talking about this place? It's a single dish. They call it on their menu :
Fried potatos and mushrooms and bacon. Yes it's simple, sautéed bacon with mushrooms and home-fries. It is delicious though. Absolutely perfect. Every time I sit down at Cafe Pushkin I tell myself, this time you gotta get something else, but it just doesn't work out that way. Absolutely perfect.

I'm sure their other dishes are lovely and right now you can sit out-side, not see the ugliness and people-watch.(One of the very few places in Tallinn suitable for this activity). So hey, bacon anybody?

Tchaikovsky

Black walls, antique leather bound books and thick picture frames may not be everyone's take on design that feels comfortable, but it's my take on that. No worries, even if you don't like that sort of stuff, you will be pleasantly surprised - the space is not stifling or over-whelming. Could be the solarium style glass ceiling that gives the whole place an airy feel.

I do have a reservation about restaurant Tchaikovsky and it is this. Once again a Tallinn restaurant is in a hotel and even though it's staffed with polite competent people and designed nicely enough to dress up for the occasion you'll always end up with big group of hotel guests in jeans and polo shirts. I'm not blaming them, they're probably here on business and just walked down from their rooms.

But it does ruin the whole eternally enjoyable symbiosis - the fusion of French and Russian cuisine. That last one is a quote mash-up originating from their own website.
I just long for elite restaurants that are not with a hotel.


The food is good, pricey but good. For a chef's welcome treat we got a foie gras and black truffle mousse that left us wanting for more. There was something else, but I don't recall what it was. It doesn't matter, the taste of that mousse is still with me.

Now here comes the best part - their soups... and the soups are served with pirozhki, well you need to order them. All together they only have two soups they serve:
Cold Okroshka with veal tong, sorrel dock and apple and Borsch with sturgeon and herbs. TCHAIKOVSKY PIROZHKI are a must, they used to offer one with duck liver and raisins. That was heavenly, I don't know why they stopped. In any case the Sauerkraut and smoked mackerel ones are also excellent.

I love the borsch here, but if you're ordering it to be taken back in time and expect something that grandma made, you could be little disappointed. This is not your typical thick hearty soup that you could be used to. No, this is a modern classic with a twist - the salacious way they serve it. The bowl arrives without the broth, so that what you see in the beginning is beets, herbs and sturgeon neatly stacked. Then they add the broth from a pitcher and the color of it...it looks like Pinot Noir.

The main courses are little on the expensive side, but just wonderful. It seems the main guy in the kitchen loves foie gras and so do I. The person in charge of all the sauces definitely knows his or hers trade.

When it's time for desert I'm usually stuffed and oh yeah look out for their Vodka shot glasses - huge - sneaky. One thing, I'm not a big fan of their wine list pricing policy, since I shop at the same whole seller and can do basic math.


Tchaikovsky is one of the best restaurants in town.