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A ‘bombe surprise’ is about to land upon the culinary world. And , in the nature of surprises, its provenance is largely unexpected. Only an intrepid few know that all three capital cities – Tallinn, Riga & Vilnius – have memorable restaurants. Most people don’t; most restaurants aren’t. So I made it my mission to seek out the best restaurants in Estonia’s Tallinn, Latvia’s Riga & Lithuania’s Vilnius. The bomb, by the way, is set to go off in 2004. New boys on the block of The European Union by then, this disparate, beguiling & relatively unfamiliar trio will surely see that tourist phenomenon of the early 90’s: boom a la Prague. Read on to enjoy the secrets ahead of time.

Not that it’s been easy for The Baltic Republics to acquire good restaurants. You’d think with their coastlines there’d be fish restaurants a gogo, but no. Soviet-era pollution means oysters expensively flown in from France, salmon sold to them by Norway, leaving, apart from pike-perch and sea eel, really only the Baltic sprat as a starter – albeit a smokey,pungent little one with a velvety texture which is highly recommended. Another drawback for restaurants is that the clientele indigenous to all three countries have hardly been reared to pose sharp questions to chefs. Agricultural societies weaned on pork, bread & potatoes, which colonisation by the Germans, Poles & Russians would have done little to improve, doesn’t make for picky standards about sourcing and cheffing when you dine out. Accordingly, there are too many restaurants which are still allowed to get away with long menus of pre-frozen food, banally over-cooked and eventually under-delivered by skeleton staff who’d much rather be doing something else, in fact anything else.The places I’m about to nominate have, of course, moved beyond all this. They source assiduously, cook outstandingly and serve professionally. One of them is, by some way, the best restaurant in the Baltics.

It is Tallinn, though, which top scores in both the high number and deep variety of its quality restaurants. Unsurprising perhaps, in that its proximity to Finland and popularity as a port of call for cruise liners has seen more wealthy and demanding western tourists pacing its cobbled streets than any other Baltic city. What’s more the restaurant elite have all conspired to congregate conveniently in The Old Town, within easy walking distance of one another, should you wish to compare. Whatever you do, whether it’s at The Nevskij or The Stenhus, don’t miss the cooking of Tonis Siigur, 28 year-old Estonian Head Chef to both restaurants. He’s unassuming enough to be embarrassed by that sentence, but he’s a real talent. His food has an astonishingly uplifting effect on you, so perfectly balanced and flavoured is each mouthful, you just go ‘zing’ when you eat it. And that, if you’ll excuse the lack of technical jargon is exactly what I wrote, lost for words, in my notebook. The two restaurants are very different. Nevskij (Rataskaevu 7, Tel: 628-6560) is the intimate drawing room of a cultured C19th century Russian aristocrat, full of paintings, statues, books and flowers, warmly and satisfyingly flickered over by an open fire. You’ll probably photograph it. But you’ll just have to remember the taste sensations of, for example, Minced Herring a la Tartar served with Toast, Cucumber & Trout Roe or Rabbit Ragout in Cocotte(baked in pastry). Lurking in similarly perfect circumstances, underneath a C15th monastery this time, is his other restaurant, Stenhus(Puhavaimu 13/15, Tel:699-7780). Above is the 5-Star Hotel Schlossle, home of choice to Prince Charles, endless Prime Ministers & Sting. Below, as you’d expect, is right on the money. Ancient grey limestone walls, arches and low ceilings, candles, cushions and exquisite tableware in front of a roaring hearth successfully seal you into a cocoon of medieval luxury. Complimentary amuse bouches & petits fours aside, why not go for the Gravadlax Carpaccio with Hot Potato, Rocket Leaves & Artichoke Caviar followed by Grilled Estonian Elk Fillet? They will even serve you rare vintages(89/91) of 14% Estonian Apple Wine. What they serve you at Olde Hansa(Vana turg 1,Tel:627-9020) is even more out of the ordinary. This is an authentically researched medieval restaurant in a C15th merchant’s house, making almost no concessions to the C20th. Be it piping hot dark honey beer, Hansa claret or light cinnamon beer, it’ll come in a ½ litre clay pot to a background of period music from, inevitably, a wench. It’s dark, wooden and infested with candles, but not at all kitschy. Ask for black pepper and it’ll come, as was their habit, in a tied leather pouch. Request bear, and you’ll find this restaurant takes most of Estonia’s legally culled quota. So if you want to get one over on a bear, even at £34 a pop, this is the place. Like most exotic animals, you can see why the others ultimately proved more popular. All dishes are cooked and spiced to original Hanseatic recipes in this very welcoming and truly unique place. Go there.

South to Vilnius now, where you should check out restaurant Lokys(Stickliu 8, Tel:2629046), tucked once again down a rumpled alleyway in The Old Town. Funnily enough, although its name means ‘bear’, Yogi is not on the menu this time. But just about anything else is because the hunting-mad, empire-building Grand Dukes of Lithuania didn’t miss much. Game platters abound – thigh of roe-deer, flank of boar, wild duck and Lithuania’s very own curve ball, rustic beaver stew. I’ve never before eaten a beaver with plums, but then maybe I’m just not getting out enough.Estonian bear arrived well-done, with lumps of winter storage fat and tasted vaguely like venison; Lithuanian beaver pitched up stringy, stewed till soft and pretty much tasteless. Still , just for their novelty value, you’re going to try them anyway, aren’t you? Lokys requires you to limbo down an improbably tight little staircase to get in, so good luck on the way out. You’ll find a maze of alcoves in a candle-lit cellar, bricked, arched and genuinely antique. You’ll also discover that restaurant prices in Lithuania are amazingly cheap – Beaver at £2.50, Chilean Chardonnay at £8 a bottle – making Tallinn and Riga look, by contrast, ruinously unchristian rip-offs – which they aren’t. Service in this country can be dreamy and naïve, background music too often some type of anodyne international singalong stuff, unsuitable even for a lift, but dining out in Lithuania is always a financial pleasure. There are,too, more restaurants in Lithuania serving up their traditional kitchen than any other Baltic state, and nowhere better than at the splendid Rita’s Smukle(Zirmunu 68, Tel:2770786). Despite having the location from hell – 10 minutes in a taxi out into the Soviet part of town, hidden behind a car-park and next door to a bowling alley, Rita’s is the real deal. Everything is strictly Lithuanian, to the extent of banning all else. No coca-cola, no sprite, no coffee from coffee beans (it’s made from acorns here) although smokers might be relieved to know that the only exception to this rule is a packet of Marlboro, rather than something horrendously combustible one of Rita’s rural mates concocted. The interior is a delight, a beamed, strawed, trestle-tabled, dimly lit farmhouse attended to by waiters in sashed smocks. The music, for a change, is echt Lithuanian Catholic folksiness– communicating even to the linguistically challenged that life is looking up. From Rita’s vast menu, go for the Saltibarsciai(boiled potatoes in cold beetroot soup); a Cepelinai(a Zeppelin-shaped parcel of potato dough filled with meat, covered in a sauce of onions, cream, butter and bacon bits) best taken in half-portion or your centre of gravity will sink alarmingly; do what you like with the Cow’s Tongue but ask to see the Smoked Hog’s Ears first, and then you’re on your own; savour the acorn coffee with Lithuania’s Special Honey Mead Balsam – 50% Suktinis or Zalgiris at 75%, if you don’t care who knows you had a good time. Which you will, in this winningly inexpensive, happy and honest place.

Staburags(A.Caka 55, Tel:729-9787) is Riga’s answer to Rita. Again, it’s out in the metropolis, wanders over three floors of farmhouse alcoves and does all the woodwork, national costumes and peasant dishes you’d expect. It’s not so convincing as Rita’s, unhelped by a self-service section(albeit in the basement), the presence of a telly(if only on one ceiling) and Latvian food, despite Riga having the largest and most vibrant Central Food Market in the Baltics, conjuring up fewer bolts out of the blue. Still, Staburags scores on atmosphere, which its rivals would only recognise as oxygen. In fact Riga is, with one spectacular exception, disproportionately short of restaurants that get it right. It’s great on bars, casinos, music venues, massage parlours and escort services – so much so that if there ever was a Eurovision Thong Contest Latvia would win it every time, hands down. Traktieris(Antonijas iela 8, Tel:733-2455) is another worthwhile location, best located by 5 minutes in a taxi from the Old Town. This Russian cellar, floored in oak and alight with vividly swirling wall paintings of yokels en fete, offers good live music; live Russian diplomats with their predictably gayer entourages; and Russian classics the like of which you won’t see again in Riga. At least, I hope you won’t. It’s all too perilously easy to slip the leash on the vodkas, soon no longer knowing your Borscht from your Bliny and suddenly finding yourself one step from Riga Mortis. Approach with caution.

Approach Vincents (Elizabetes 19,Tel:733-2634), on the other hand, with the utmost speed for here, against the general run of play, is the finest restaurant in the Baltics. Since first opening its doors in 1994, Vincents has been the dreamchild of one man, chef Martins Ritins – a name so heavily spiced with accents it’s no surprise when the man himself appears, as on the Damascus Road, in a shimmering riot of big glasses twinkling earnestly, trademark yellow trousers loud enough for a canary on heat and blindingly pristine chef’s jacket, regimentally piped and buttoned in the colour of the day, henceforth known, because he’s Anglo-Latvian, as Martin. Born, after the war, of Latvian parents into a British refugee camp , he trained in England, set up catering companies in Canada, returning to Riga in 1991 where his catering successes led, organically and inevitably, to his final destiny as a restaurateur three years later. All the corporations, embassies, government institutions and private clients who’d enjoyed his cooking now flocked to Vincents. Almost overnight it became a joke in Riga that the best place to get political asylum was Vincents at lunchtime. A TV series led into a book, “Meals With Martin”(Xmas,’97), which promptly sold out in three days. And what, by the way, do Pierre Cardin, B.B. King and Mstislav Rostropovich have in common, to say nothing of Elton John , Prince Charles and Montserrat Caballe? Yes, they’ve all eaten at Vincents,”Where the Stars Come Out At Night”.

Unusually for such an astute self-publicist, the only man in the Baltics to play the celebrity chef, Martin Ritins is no prima donna. Neither is it in his ingratiating nature, nor does he have time to be. He works God’s hours in his restaurant(Vincents is open 11-12, every day of the week), cooking alongside his protégé chefs(who habitually win Latvia’s National Cookery Competition and have just helped Latvia to triumph in the very first Pan Baltic Cookery Competition); promoting organic farming(he’s Director of The Institute) and charitable foundations in addition to his media work(2 more books are on the way) in a driven quest to bring ‘haute cuisine’ to Latvia and beyond. Nowhere else in the Baltics will you find a restaurant where the chef is confident enough to propose his signature dishes over an eight-course Gastronomical Journey – which of course you should take, especially at only £25 a head. As befits a workaholic, Martin won’t let Vincents sit on its laurels. He’s eclectic, doesn’t like labels and changes his menu constantly. Martin’s latest novelty is to offer tumblers of sweet, slightly cloudy 100% birch sap - but he might have moved on by the time you get there. What won’t have changed though is the Vincent ambience: bright, cool, airy and modern yet still managing to convey an intense chumminess through warm colours, generous linens, soft jazz classics haunting its basement configuration and waiters in black clothes offering discreet obedience in perfect English. Like all good restaurants, it makes you feel the world is a better place when you step outside. Working on all levels, Vincents has no rivals in sight.

That, mind you, didn’t stop an English publication, The Restaurant Magazine, from recently nominating Bocca, an upmarket but unastounding Italian locale in Tallinn as – wait for it – the 15th Best Restaurant in The World! That, primarily, tells you they wanted to show off their international savvy by selecting somewhere in the Baltic Republics – an indication in itself that this is a region people are beginning to notice. I doubt if any other nomination will provoke such scandal and howls of protest from the cognoscenti.You , at least, will now know better.

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