Stuart Forster heads to Tallinn and meets Chef Rene Uusmees, who discusses the evolution of modern Estonian cuisine.
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Rene Uusmees has made a name for serving modern Estonian cuisine. Rene started working in kitchens in 1992, one year after Estonia regained independence. He worked in Italy and at leading Tallinn hotels before opening Mekk, a restaurant in the heart of the Estonian capital. He has since gone on to work at the Palace Hotel Tallinn and the city’s new Radisson Collection Hotel.
“There were not so many restaurants in Tallinn that served Estonian food. We had Italian and French cuisine, Sushi places, but not so many places that served Estonian,” he recalls about the dining scene in Estonia’s capital during the first decade of this century.
“We started to think, why can’t we serve the local food? It’s always the best food around you. Italian lasagne is never as tasty outside of Italy,” he says passionately.
“The people who travel here, they have not seen what we do. The idea is to serve nice local food and to develop it, because we are a young country,” conveying the idea that few people outside of Estonia have a clear idea of what Estonian cuisine really is.
Modern Estonian cuisine
“Most people think in Estonia we eat only cabbage and potatoes. But we have nice traditions. We eat plenty of fish; herrings and white fish. We have smoke ovens in our countryside,” explains Rene in clear but accented English for which he needlessly apologises.
He explains how Estonia has come a long way since the 1990s, when the shops were more or less bare. There was a time when chefs had to work hard simply to acquire ingredients such as olive oil.
With conviction, he expresses the viewpoint that chefs in Estonia now need to work with Estonian products.
Forests cover around half of the country. People have the right to go into them and pick berries and mushrooms. Rene explains that going into woodland and harvesting natural products is a national pastime in Estonia.
Traditional Estonian food
As a consequence, cloudberries and lingonberries feature in dishes. So too does a range of mushrooms.
One of Rene’s concerns is how to get berries from forests into restaurants. He buys local mushrooms once or twice a week at the market. He believes that mushrooms are an important ingredient while Estonian chefs experiment and develop specialities.
Rene holds the view that tastes work effectively according to location. What works in one place won’t necessarily work elsewhere. He describes how Ferran Adrià, one of the creators of the El Bulli restaurant, came to Mekk and ate black rye bread and braised pork belly.
“He hadn’t tasted such bread before and he asked how we did it,” explains the Estonian. “The taste works here.”
Rene remains faithful to the traditions of Estonian cuisine and believes his recipes vary little from those used a century ago. “I still use the same products and ideas but in a modern way. The old Estonian food was much heavier and more fatty. I try to use the same ingredients but to be healthier, not so fatty and to use more fresh herbs,” says the chef.
Estonia’s black rye bread
“Everything starts from the black rye bread. I play with the local ingredients but use French cooking techniques,” he explains.
Pork is the most commonly eaten meat in Estonian homes. Because of that, Rene feels obliged to cook his a little bit differently. “As a main course, you have to try our braised pork belly. We also use the pork crunchies [crackling] on there.”
Smoked and marinated herring features among his favoured starters.
If you’re dining elsewhere in Estonia, Rene urges visitors to sample dishes featuring ingredients such as black sausage and mushrooms. He thinks desserts featuring local berries, plums, hazelnuts and honey can be good, because of the quality of the ingredients. For something very traditional he recommends Kama, a typical dessert blending flours and sour cream.
Magnanimously, Rene suggests visitors to Tallinn look in at the restaurant Leib to get a more rounded view of the contemporary dining scene in the Estonian capital. He believes that chefs have a common goal of developing modern Estonian cuisine and making Europe aware of its quality.
Estonian food
Rene thinks that Estonian cuisine still needs to find a flagship ingredient. “You know that the Norwegians have salmon and the Swedish herrings. In Finland it’s reindeer…we need to find our specific Estonian thing. We are still looking. Maybe my children will find it, because they have grown up in a free country but I was born in Russian times and the mentality was completely different.”
He holds the view that Estonian cuisine shares a common base with that of the Nordic nations.
“I’m trying to show our guests the traditions that we have in our homes. The development is going so fast. Everyone is always welcome here; we’ll take care of you,” says the chef, smiling.
Travel to Estonia
KLM operates flights from airports across the United Kingdom to its Amsterdam Schiphol hub. From there, airBaltic codeshare flights continue to Tallinn Airport.
From London Gatwick, British Airways and airBaltic operate direct flights to Tallinn.
Map of Estonia
The map below shows Estonia’s location:
Hotels in Tallinn
Search for accommodation in Tallinn using the map below:
Books about Estonia and Estonian cuisine
Want to discover more about Estonia and Estonian cuisine? The following books are available from Amazon:
Estonian Tastes and Traditions by Karin Annus Karner.
The Food and Cooking of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania: Traditions, Ingredients, Tastes and Techniques by Silvena Johan Lauta.
Baltic: New & Old Recipes: Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania by Simon Bajada.
Estonia: A Modern History by Neil Taylor.
Insight Guides guidebook to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Useful travel information
Find places to dine in Tallinn via the Visit Tallinn and Visit Estonia websites.
Further details
Thank you for visiting Go Eat Do and reading this post about food in Estonia and Estonian cuisine.
Stuart Forster is the author of this post. Stuart is an award-winning travel writer whose work has been published by Rough Guides, Great British Chefs and BBC Good Food magazine.
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A version of this post was first published on Go Eat Do on 27 May 2013.
Rachel Jones
December 5, 2016 at 03:20I enjoyed a meal at the Mekk restaurant during the autumn thanks to your blog post.
Go Eat Do
July 20, 2021 at 15:02I’m glad to read that. Hopefully you tasted several traditional Estonian dishes while in Tallinn and elsewhere in Estonia.
Michael Lueck
April 24, 2022 at 02:40Tere,
I miss the dining which was common during the 1990’s. While driving through the Northern coast forests in the year 2000, we pulled off into a local restaurant. The menu had several choice of proteins… pork / chicken / fish. And all came with a side of either rice or potatoes, and some sort of salad. Each of the three items had its own unique sauce. In my mind, THAT was Estonian cooking… and now 25 years later I find it very difficult to find restaurants still serving such.
We also visited Viljandi that trip… similar meal memory there… and now that restaurant location is serving Oriental fare.
As a funny detail of the fond memories… my wife instructed me that it is not allowed to ask to switch sides in Estonian restaurants. Soooo often I wished to flip flop… one protein with the side from another menu choice. “Ei! Not allowed in Estonian restaurants.
Yes, good black bread… my first visit to Estonia, my family took me to Saaremaa. I fell in love with Saaremaa Borodino leib. While visiting there, that bread and Saaremaa Atleet juust… that was my main diet while tent camping around Saaremaa.
Go Eat Do
May 5, 2022 at 13:58Thanks for sharing your memories of dining in Estonia.