Baltic Country's Dining Scene Punches Above Its Weight

This Baltic country may be small, but its dining scene punches above its weight. Gerrie Lim takes a bite out of Riga and beyond

- Gerrie Lim

Latvia’s capital, Riga, may be most well known for its stunning Art Nouveau architecture – about a third of its buildings are built in this dramatic, ornate style – but it’s its burgeoning dining scene that may soon be pulling in the tourists, as I discovered when I visited in August.

After hopping off a Finnair flight, we checked into the Pullman Riga Old Town in the heart of Riga’s historic centre before taking to the streets with our guide Agnes Murnice, who shared titbits as we explored Old Town. Riga, when spelled with a “j” instead of a “g”, she offered, means “treasure barn, which was what it was like in the old days. All the travel that went from West to East passed through this city, so it was like a warehouse trade or storage.”

Indeed, we found our first “treasure” when we ventured just outside Old Town, onto Elizabetes Iela (or Elizabeth Street in English). There, amid buildings decorated with figures of lions and gorgons stood Vincents RestorÄns, where we had what’s possibly our best meal. Its co‑owner and head sommelier Raimonds Tomsons shared with us his belief that the restaurant’s modern European food – which has delighted luminaries such as Sir Elton John, Angela Merkel and Prince Charles, just to name a few – is best enjoyed with beverages that “complement and underline the pure, unique and high-quality products used in the dishes prepared by our chef, Oskars Sprukts”.

To start, Tomsons, who has a slew of sommelier awards under his belt (among other things, he was named Best Sommelier of Europe and Africa in 2017 by the Association de la Sommellerie Internationale), poured us a red and a white – a 2010 Szepsy Tokaji Furmin from Hungary and a 2005 Sidonio de Sousa Vinho d’Autor from Portugal.