Food and cakes in Tallinn

Have you had enough of my travel tales from Tallinn yet? No? Good, because here’s another one (a little late, I’ll admit, but health and other issues have kept me from blogging about it). Previously, I blogged about Olde Hansa, and this time I’d like to introduce a restaurant called Le Château. It is a 17th century themed restaurant that we once came across while exploring the old town of Tallinn. 17th century! Musketeers! We had to go in! We dined there on our 10th wedding anniversary in 2013 (a lovely setting!) and now we wanted to go back.

Le Château is located in a cellar of an old house. It has vaulted ceilings, there are candles, music suitable for the setting etc. A great atmosphere. And the food, inspired by the French cuisine in the era of the musketeers, is delicious! They also have lovely, lovely desserts...

Viking raids and going Medieval tend to give one a ravenous appetite, as we discovered during autumn holiday... luckily, Tallinn has numerous wonderful cafés. The only problem is that it's hard to pick just one. Our old favourite is Maiasmokk, a café that has stood in the same place in the old town since 1864 and is actually the oldest still operational café in Tallinn. It does have that 19th century charm! And delicious cakes!

There is also a marzipan museum in the same premises, which we did not visit, but we did stop by in their chocolate and marzipan shop, where there happened to be a marzipan artist at work, painting the products! 

A café I’ve wanted to visit for quite some time now was Kehrwieder cellar café in the old town, and this time we made it there. With its vaulted ceilings, mismatched sofas and colourful cushions it has a certain bohemian air which I love. It is also a perfect place to find shelter from cold weather if you’re visiting Tallinn in winter. The cakes are not the cheapest, but very good. (I just learned that they have delicious hot spiced wine and chocolates – next time, we’ll have to try them!)

During this visit, we discovered a gelateria called Cortile. Actually, my daughter pointed it out and asked if we could go and have some ice cream... well, it’s impossible to say no to ice cream, and I’m glad we didn’t! The portions of freshly made Italian ice cream are generous and they taste absolutely divine!

Medieval Tallinn and Olde Hansa Restaurant

As you may have deduced from my posts from the Turku Medieval Fair and the Häme Medieval Fair, we are something of Medieval enthusiasts. This is one of the reasons we like Tallinn: the old, Medieval part of the city is so beautiful. We always spend most of our time in Tallinn walking around the narrow alleys, admiring the lovely houses and just enjoying the atmosphere.

The old Town Hall Square and the Town Hall (during the day and at night).

You always discover something new. This time we ended up in an apothecary museum. It was a lovely old room with lots of information about medicine in the past. The glass jars on display featured such items as a mummy’s hand, a hedgehod, a frog... These fascinated my daughter endlessly. It was a small place, but very interesting!

 

One of the places we always go to is the Medieval restaurant Olde Hansa. It is a stunningly beautiful place, the staff is dressed in Medieval garments, and there is often live music in the evenings (the ”house band”, Olde Hansa Musicus). Downstairs you can find a Medieval Shoppe with pottery, glass ware, jewellery, soap, leather belts and purses, clothes...

 

As we often do, we spent one night in Olde Hansa. I said one night, because this is a restaurant where you want to order three courses or linger over drinks just to enjoy the atmosphere, it truly is something special. It also gets rather crowded when the night progresses, so it's good to plan ahead and not be in a hurry. The food is very authentic; you will find no potatoes or tomatoes or chocolate here (alas, no mead, either!) but barley, various meats and fish, pastries etc. Olde Hansa is the house of a rich merchant, so you dine like well-to-do people might have done (not everyone had access to expensive spices, like ginger and peppers, for instance). The service is friendly, and you get to hear little stories about the dishes and old dining customs etc.

 

 

We started with delicious toasted cheese flavoured with juniper and herbs which was served with nut bread. This was very good. The main course was chicken in almond sauce. This was also very tasty, although the portion was much too large for me (especially after splitting the cheese thing with my daughter).

 

For dessert, we ordered rose pudding. This dish looked absolutely charming, very romantic – and it did taste like roses! It was a creamy, silky, rich pudding but not too filling. Just the right thing to finish off a wonderful meal.

 

We like this place so much that, three years ago, we chose it as the place (well, one of them) where we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.

Viking Exhibitions in Tallinn

Since I found out about the Viking exhibition in Tallinn earlier this year, I wanted to go. Now, during the autumn holiday, I finally got the chance... and visited not only one but two Viking exhibitions!

The first one was ”Vikings: The Reality behing Legends” in Lennusadam, the Estonian Maritime Museum. The objects of the exhibition come from the Historical Museum in Sweden and include all sorts of things from weapons, jewellery and pottery to (reconstructed) boats, sails and rune stones. You could try on a Viking helmet (no horns! Seriously. No horns.) and try carrying a Viking shield.

There are other interactive and hands-on pieces as well (such as writing your name in runes), which my 8-year-old daughter enjoyed enormously (though she would have enjoyed the exhibition anyway – when she first heard about the Viking exhibitions she asked, ”Can we go, can we go, please!” and when we told her that this was exactly why we were going to Tallinn, she jumped for joy!).

If you don’t know much about Vikings, the exhibition is a good place to learn: the numerous objects on display are accompanied by long, informative texts. You can learn about the Viking culture, beliefs, history etc. If you are a Viking enthusiast, you will perhaps not find a huge amount of new information here, but... well, you're a Viking enthusiast! You will want to see this.

This is a rather large exhibition – it took us about two hours to view it... and I could go back. ;) Catch it before January 15th, 2017.

Here are a few pics (we took many):

The other exhibition was ”Viking Era Treasures in Estonia” at the Fat Margaret’s Tower. This exhibition focuses on Viking Age finds in Estonia and the importance of Estonia as part of the trade routes of those days. This is a much smaller exhibition; still, it was worth a visit. The rest of the tower is dedicated to Estonian seafaring museum.