La BOTTEGA

Trattoria Enoteca La Bottega opened this past Wednesday night and considering that places are closing left and right, opening a new restaurant right now could be considered either an act of madness or courageous endurance. So of course I couldn't help myself and I stopped by for lunch.

First of all it looks great. The medieval space has been meticulously renovated, then everything tastefully designed and decorated, theme being that of a trattoria. Don't be fooled though it's a real nice restaurant with some simpler trattoria style dishes on the menu.

It's not cheap, but they consciously set the price limit. Nothing on the menu is over 300 EEK's, some do come close... as close as 290 EEK's close. I think a lot of people will appreciate the fact there are quite a few things that are affordable on the menu. Once again it's not cheap. For example only one pasta dish is less than a 100, most of them are around 150-160.

Now to the food. Chef de Cuisine Nicolo Tanda deffinetly knows his stuff and thank god his not one of these "I'm an ARTISTE" chefs. He's a mechanic, but a truly great one at that. I had Bruscetta, then Gnocchi with Sweet Pepper sauce and then Grilled Sardines. All of it simple, all of it delicious and all of it good looking. No silly looking little sculptures on the plate here.

The staff was friendly, polite, maybe still working things out a little bit, but then again they've been open for two days. Plus they apologized to me in case everything wasn't perfect. Perfect.

Best Italian food in Tallinn right now. Possibly my new favorite place. What it needs now is people, that of course will not be an easy task to accomplish these days. Go now, who knows for long we will have this chance to enjoy high quality culinary offering without any of the bullshit that seems to come with it in Tallinn.

NB! The address is VENE 4.