Prague is an ideal place to throw off the burden of everyday life and try on knightly armor or even the queen's crown. To the accompaniment of flowing beer and unrestrained dancing of dressed up waiters.
Exclusive Medieval
photo: ad-1471.cz
Just imagine: large wooden doors open in front of you, and you find yourself in a semi-fantastic space inhabited by knights, street musicians and fortune tellers. You will find all this and even more in one of the best themed restaurants in Prague Anno Domini 1471. In this medieval tavern, which takes visitors away to the second half of the 15th century, all sense of time is completely lost from the very moment when the doors close behind you. While you choose a place at solid wooden tables, heroes of medieval stories will greet you with bread and salt. And such a colorful masquerade will continue all evening! In addition to the pleasure that is guaranteed by close "communication" with glasses of ancient wine and dishes traditional cuisine, visitors will find a bonus in the form of a fascinating show with heroes of all stripes: from dancers and violinists to snake charmers and fakirs. Anno Domini 1471, a medieval restaurant in Prague, serves favorite dishes from different classes of medieval society. The menu of commoners is very popular, which includes sausages, cheese, sweet and salty cereals, cakes and bread, as well as dishes of burghers and nobles: chicken, pork, fish, pastries, fruits and vegetables. Noble (royal) menu will please meat dishes cooked with exotic spices, delicious fish and cheeses, ancient wines, mead, beer, etc. Anno Domini 1471 is a truly exclusive place, so the organization of evenings here is possible only by prior arrangement.
Did you order Mozart?
photo: mozartdinner.cz
Immerse yourself in the magical era of Mozart in one of the the best restaurants Prague Franz Josef Restaurant, which is located in the building of the five-star Grand Hotel Bohemia. Here, your table will be served not only fine dining, Michelin-starred, but also the best arias from famous operas Mozart performed by opera soloists. As you sip on your mouthful of dessert, the Amadeus Prague Ensemble (two opera singers and a string quintet from the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra) will delight your ears with scores from Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro and The Magic Flute. All this magnificent musical and gastronomic action will take place in the neo-baroque Boccaccio hall with a noble finish of marble, gold and Bohemian glass. For the first, they serve a salad of apples and celery with a side dish of smoked leg. For the second, wait for the traditional Central European beef confit with mustard sauce and Tyrolean dumplings. Cake "Mozart" with nougat and applesauce will be the last chord of an amazingly beautiful evening at the Franz Josef Restaurant in Prague.
Visiting the Gothic
photo: www.uceskychpanu.cz
Welcome to the enchanting world of the Middle Ages! The restaurant "At the Czech Lords" is an island of medieval culture in the very center of Prague. This themed restaurant, located in an old cellar from the mid-14th century, is ideal for celebrations with a touch of gothic flair. The gothic interior of the restaurant with air conditioning systems allows you to comfortably travel through the centuries without a time machine. A hall with a capacity of 100 people can be ordered for New Year and Christmas parties, weddings, birthdays, corporate parties, etc. At the gothic restaurant u Českých Pánů in Prague, you can choose from a wide range of traditional Czech and Central European dishes, as well as alcoholic beverages(international brands, Moravian wines, etc.). In addition to endorphins produced by attentive contemplation of a dance show to the sounds of old European songs, here you can also let a little adrenaline flow into your blood during a reconstructed duel with swords.
Festivities with a folk scale
photo: folkloregarden.cz
On the beautiful hills of the unfussy district of Prague 5, the property of the Folklore Garden themed complex is spread. The very name of this place suggests that here you will find a colorful atmosphere of Czech folk culture and traditional dishes. Czech cuisine. For the upcoming holidays, the restaurant promises to organize an unforgettable dinner and a festive show with musicians and dancers in national costumes. For 2.5 hours, Folklore Garden guests will be entertained with songs and dances, and the most curious will be able to try their performing talents in playing a musical instrument. All restaurant dishes are prepared in best traditions homemade Czech cuisine. Bread, mineral water, beer, wine and other drinks - in unlimited quantities during the whole show! Next to the restored mansion-restaurant there is a beautiful garden with a wooden house, where you can fill your chest with fresh air after unrestrained dancing and table conversations.
Fist on the oak table
photo: cartouche.cz
Taste liquid gold in the center of Prague to the accompaniment of medieval songs! Thematic restaurant Cartouche is ready to offer visitors the best of the river Czech beer and wine, as well as kilograms of traditional Czech food. As in other historical restaurants, here you can knock with a strong fist on a solid oak table and hold an almost real knight's sword. After a few mugs of a strong drink, you will finally, without a twinge of conscience and sidelong glances of others, be able to enter the role of a king or queen in the company of characters dressed in medieval costumes. In addition, live music and dancing are a must-have bonus for any festive evening at the Cartouche restaurant.
In the Pushkinskaya area, the Japanese bar Neko was launched by the S.I.D.R Group team, known for its Schrödinger's Cat bar. Yegor Stepanov is responsible for the cocktail list, Pavel Maletsky is responsible for the kitchen. The menu includes yellowfin tuna (650 rubles), scallop (520 rubles), hamachi (690 rubles), poke with salmon (520 rubles), udon noodles with seafood (390 rubles) and more than three dozen dishes Japanese cuisine. The cocktail menu turned out to be author's, with a bias towards Asia, and Ekaterina Korchinova was engaged in the interior. The design was made minimalistic, with large panoramic windows, marble and light wood.
"Love and Sweets"
The address: 66th kilometer of the Moscow Ring Road, Vegas Crocus City shopping center
Opening hours: 10:00–23:00
Average check: 700 rubles
Soloist of the group "Hands up!" Sergey Zhukov and his wife Regina Burd opened a family confectionery in the Vegas shopping center. They promise that all cupcakes, eclairs, cakes, cakes, pastries and sandwiches are made from natural products. In addition to the fact that you can go to the cafe to drink coffee with desserts, all products can be ordered in advance for a holiday or corporate party.
"Uzbek" in Domodedovo
The address: Domodedovo airport, Russian zone, second floor, sector D
Opening hours: around the clock
Average check: 1 000 rubles
Cafe "Uzbechka" was opened at Domodedovo airport after reconstruction. The design of the renovated restaurant has completely changed, but the principle of operation remains the same: guests themselves choose and combine dishes on the distribution line. The menu includes traditional Uzbek cuisine: manti, pilaf, barbecue, lagman and fresh bread.
NEWS
Tour Rudy Carraro in Mitzva Bar and telegram bot
On February 20, bartender Rudy Carraro, a former bartender of the London Artesian, and today the chef of Italspirits, arrives at Mitzva Bar. For Moscow guests, Rudy will prepare four cocktails, 600 rubles each. In addition, Mitzva Bar launched the @MitzvaBot telegram bot, which can give advice and select the right cocktail for guests. Until the end of March, ordering a cocktail through the bot, you get a discount of 100 rubles.
Medieval feast in the "Barrel"
Bochka Restaurant launches a series of dinners stylized as medieval feasts. The first one will take place on February 23, the menu will include appetizers, desserts, wild boar, smoked beaver tail, bear ribs and, of course, wine and whiskey. The restaurant promises to light a fireplace, decorate the space with skins and arrange a musical evening on harps and flutes. In general, for fans of the "Game of Thrones" just right. The cost of dinner with wine is 5 thousand rubles.
Big breakfast at the Food Store
This weekend, the Food Store food court will host a big breakfast from the Eggs group, which brunches at Les coffee shop. All participants of the market prepared a special breakfast menu. For example, in Plov.com you can find fried eggs from two eggs and lamb kebab, in Durum-Durum - fried eggs, stewed lamb shoulder and corn porridge, Bang Bang will prepare a grilled shrimp pancake, and the DoubleBy team will be responsible for the coffee. All corners of the Food Store participate in the event, so it will not be difficult to choose a breakfast to your taste.
Photo: cover, 1 - Bar "Neko", 2 - "Love and sweets", 3 - "Uzbek"
We present to your attention a chapter from Mark Forsyth's book "A Brief History of Drunkenness from the Stone Age to the Present Day: What, Where, When and for What Reason".
A Brief History of Drunkenness from the Stone Age to the Present: What, Where, When, and What About / Mark Forsythe; Per. from English. — M.: Alpina non-fiction, 2018.
We all imagine a medieval tavern perfectly. Where do we get this idea - God knows. Maybe from the films about Robin Hood and his merry shooters, who made their way under the cover of Sherwood Forest to the village tavern in the days of the good King Richard. There, ruddy fellows sipped True English Ale from mugs topped with foam caps, which were brought by a puffy hostess. The livelier our imagination, the more magnificent the forms of the hostess and the more cheerful the fellows. A violinist chirps in the corner, a light night breeze shakes a neatly painted sign.
There was nothing of the kind.
To explain why, we must first clarify some of the terms deliberately misused in the previous paragraph. Nowadays, you can open a bar and call it "Shipyard", "Ship's tavern" or just "Ship" - no one will catch the difference. But in the Middle Ages and later, until the end of the 18th century, there was a clear difference between an inn, a tavern and beer.
Inn
The inn was a hotel, and quite expensive. There, as the name implies, there were rooms for lodging for the night and stables for horses. Traveling nobility stayed at inns, as well as merchants and other wealthy people. The poor were usually not allowed beyond the threshold. On the one hand, this was done to maintain the brand of the establishment, and on the other hand, due to the peculiar pricing policy at the inns. The lodging itself was quite cheap, and the owner earned on various additional services - good food, wine, laundry, caring for horses, and so on.
Such a phenomenon as a village inn did not exist in principle - just as the village Grand Hotel does not exist in our time. Hotels of this class were found only in cities, usually large ones. It was an imposing building in the market square, with a spacious courtyard. Court hearings were sometimes held there - perhaps only thanks to this circumstance Robin Hood could visit the inn.
On the outskirts of London, however, there were even simpler inns, because with the onset of darkness the city gates were closed and belated travelers had to spend the night “under the wall.” In a British school, you can hear from a slightly carried away teacher that English literature began with a pub, because "The Canterbury Tales" takes place in the Tabard tavern near London Bridge. However, the Tabard was still not a pub, but an inn. Just the kind where twenty-nine pilgrims with horses who came without warning could accommodate. As Chaucer notes, " there are many stables, rooms in the Tabard / And it was never crowded in it. " Chaucer's guests are received and accommodated by Harry Bailey, the owner of the Tabard, and many readers see him as just a good-natured innkeeper, attendants. But this is not so. Harry Bailey owned an inn, which meant that he belonged to the circle of very successful entrepreneurs.In addition, he was a member of parliament and collected the newly introduced poll tax.
English literature does not start in a pub, it starts in a hotel.
taverns
Wine was served in taverns. And the wine was imported and therefore it was very, very expensive. A tavern is, roughly speaking, the equivalent of today's cocktail bar, and what kind of cocktail bar is there in the countryside?
Taverns were for the rich who wanted to party, which means that almost all of them were in London. It also means that the taverns were sometimes nasty - that is, prostitutes and gamblers hung around there, because those who can afford wine, obviously can afford and other expensive sinful pleasures.
Shakespeare left us the most exhaustive and most beautiful description of a Tudor tavern - because it is in the Boar's Head in Eastcheap that Falstaff spends almost all his time and all his money. Falstaff is often misunderstood: it seems to readers that both he and his company are poor and rootless revelers. But Falstaff drinks sherry, and sherry (which came from Portugal) was the most expensive liquor available in Tudor England. It is as if now Falstaff asked only for champagne in a restaurant. Yes, Quickley's landlady's establishment isn't decent, but it isn't cheap either. In one place Shakespeare mentions that Falstaff, as usual, spent about six shillings on sherry - this is two or three times more than could be earned by physical labor in a week. That is, to continue the analogy, a modern-day Falstaff would sip his champagne in a tasteless strip bar.
Shakespeare himself, I'm sure, drank wine. In his works, there are over a hundred references to wine and sherry, and only sixteen times ale is found. In addition to direct references, there is also a way of thinking: choosing a metaphor, he will oppose the dried-up wine to the life of the bastard, the sediment at the bottom of the barrel. The suggestion of drinking ale is usually taken by Shakespeare's characters as an insult. And this is consistent with the little we know about the poet's drinking habits. We know for sure that he drank at the Tabard because he carved his name into the wood paneling there, and he also most likely visited the Mermaid Tavern and Oxford's Golden Cross. But, as far as one can tell, he preferred the highest rank in everything.
It's a pity, because you really want to represent the literary giants as ordinary people who, like us, rolled into the pub in the evening. Today, only a lazy pub owner hasn't posted Dr. Samuel Johnson's saying: "No human invention gives so much happiness as a good tavern or hotel."
And we know for sure what Dr. Johnson meant to say, since it was he who compiled the explanatory dictionary of the English language, from which I took the definitions of a tavern and an inn. Dr. Johnson deliberately omits mention of a third type of drinking establishment, the forerunner of the modern pub, the alehouse.
beer
And now, having learned all of the above, let's return to Robin Hood and his cheerful shooters, who tumble into the village pub of the times of Richard the Lionheart.
She still wasn't there.
In England at the turn of the 12th-13th centuries there was no such thing as a pub. There were simply no drinking establishments in the villages. At first glance it is strange. England without a pub is like Russia without vodka (by the way, there was no vodka in Russia in those days either). There were no pubs because the people did not need them.
It's interesting, but the more you think about it, the more clearly you realize that there was really no point in pubs. Yes, you can drink there, but you can drink anywhere. And in the Middle Ages they really drank everywhere. At work, for example. There were, of course, monks who were given a miserable gallon of ale a day, as at Bewley Abbey. But everyone drank at work. Drinks were often included in the price - the wagon, in particular, could count on three pints of ale and some food in addition to the money. The landowner, hiring workers, also undertook to put them on a drink. That's how life was. This does not mean that everyone was drunk. A few pints of ale spread over a long, hard day in the fields won't get you drunk. But so satisfying. As they say, ale is liquid bread.
They also drank in the church. The medieval village church was not so much a place of worship as it was the center of social life (yes, worship was added on Sundays). Ball was played in the churchyard, songs were sung in the church hall. Ale was often distributed on holidays, at name days, weddings, baptisms and funerals. At a good funeral, you could have a great party. When the Bishop of Winchester was buried in 1319, a thousand gallons of ale were given to the poor. This, of course, is no longer a typical generosity, and yet the opportunity to receive free drinks at the church was commonplace.
But mostly the medieval Englishman drank at home. Together with household members, including children. Water was still a danger, and only the poorest of the poor were content with it. The principle of Abbot Elfric mentioned in one of the previous chapters - "When there is ale, then I drink ale, and I drink water when there is no ale" - has not lost its relevance. Almost everyone had ale. Cooking was not particularly difficult - there would be barley and water, well, you can flavor it with spices if you can find it. So, while the husband worked in the fields, the wife diligently brewed ale.
Brewing ale, as in ancient Mesopotamia, remained a female occupation. The wife was supposed to cook, clean, look after the children, brew ale and spin. Spinning and brewing of ale was also beneficial in that it provided additional income. In addition, the wife wove fabric for her husband's clothes, and she could also sell the surplus. In the Middle Ages, for a simple unmarried woman, there was essentially no other source of income other than spinning. And this source was so widespread that the "old maid" in English is still called spinster - from the verb spin - to spin. Moreover, -ster in this context is a feminine suffix, a man would be called a spinner. But the men did not spin. By analogy, a woman who brewed ale should have been called brewster - from the verb brew - brew, brew. And there really is such a word.
A woman who brewed ale for sale could also be called an elevaricator. Medieval ale, which had a very short shelf life, spoiled as early as the third or fourth day. Therefore, if the hostess, without calculating, brewed more ale than the household could drink, she hung a special “ale sign” over the entrance - a horizontal stick with an ivy shoot tied at the end. At the threshold, she put up a barrel and sold excess ale to passers-by - anyone who had a container and a few coins with them. A passer-by could drink the purchased ale even in the field, even at home, even in the church. Having sold all the surplus, the hostess removed the sign and went to brew a new batch of ale.
This practice continued until the 14th century, when several circumstances coincided at once. First, people stopped drinking in church. Not because they didn't like it, it was because the church didn't like what they drink in it. Appointed in 1366 as Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Langham, the first thing he did was to threaten to excommunicate anyone who would participate in "drunken gatherings, which, substituting concepts, are called charitable gatherings."
Secondly, the principles of work on the ground have changed. Previously, a noble landowner hired peasants to cultivate his fields, but in the 14th century, the nobility realized that it was much easier to rent plots to peasants and let them plow. That is, now all the peasants who did not have a wife-elevator had to buy ale themselves. It turned out to be only at the hands of the hostesses. Now, however, the thirsty peasants showed up after the day's work—they wanted ale, but they also wanted somewhere to sit down to drink it. The hostesses began to let them into their kitchen. Thus the pub was born.
And thirdly, beer was invented. So far in this chapter, I have talked exclusively about ale, which is made from barley and water. The drink is really so-so. Nutritious? Yes. Alcoholic? Yes. Delicious, clean, foamy, refreshing? No. Something like runny oatmeal with lumps. The only way to somehow improve the taste is to add spices or herbs, and horseradish was most often used. But still, it was nothing more than a disguise of taste, an attempt to make something decent out of slop.
And then there was hops. Hops are the buds of the plant of the same name, and when they are added to ale, they make beer. The Europeans have been using this technique for centuries, while the British have lagged behind. First, hops were brought to London, and from there it slowly spread throughout England. The distribution was uneven - in Lancashire, until the middle of the 17th century, they still drank one ale, and Cornwall held on to it for a long time. There is even a poem about it:
I'm Cornish, I cook ale
He rips his throat like a rabid animal,
A lot is mixed in it with burning and stench,
As if the pigs were bathed in it by the whole herd.
But the majority still preferred the taste of hoppy beer. And beer had another giant advantage over ale—it didn't spoil. Beer can be stored for about a year, and if the barrel is well sealed, nothing will happen to it.
This allowed for mass production. In every major city, breweries appeared, producing large volumes of a wonderful drink, which was then supplied to local pubs (they were still called alehouse - "elite", although the porridge-slurry had long been forgotten). In breweries, beer was filtered, which made it better. The breweries were run and owned by men. The housewives-elevaritelnitsy could be out of work, but they were not, because they still kept their small pubs, only now they bought beer for them, and did not brew it themselves.
pub crawl
Let's imagine that we are travelers and we have around the end of the 15th century in our yard. I want to drink - we have no strength, and, passing through another village, we decide to wet our throats. How can we do it?
First of all, you need to find a pub - you can identify it, as before, only by the "el sign". Signs (as well as their own names) at pubs began to appear only in the 1590s. Inns have been flaunting their names and signs for centuries, and pubs have begun to adopt this symbol of luxury as well. In the meantime, we are looking for a stick sticking out above the entrance with an ivy shoot tied at the end. Another sure sign is the ale bench, that is, as you probably guess, an ordinary bench put up outside at the threshold, on which, in good weather, you can drink beer on the stove. It is possible that they are playing something nearby (balls were most loved in those days) and betting on the game.
The door is open. So the law demanded, and they covered her only in the cold of winter. Any representative of the authorities should have been able to make sure that nothing inappropriate was going on inside, without crossing the threshold and without soiling himself with a visit to a low-class institution. As a result, the pub was constantly blowing, but drafts and cold were an integral part of the Middle Ages, especially since glass windows were still rare. Everyone froze, so one of the main advantages of the beer house was the fire blazing in a large hearth. Few peasants could afford such luxury at home.
One of the main differences from a modern pub is immediately noticeable - there is no bar counter. This native to us, familiar and beloved attribute of a drinking establishment appeared only in the 1820s. So the beer hall we are looking at does not look like a pub at all, but more like an ordinary kitchen. In fact, that's what she is. A barrel of beer was stuck somewhere in the corner. There are also a couple of stools and benches, maybe one or two trestle tables. But all the furniture here is at most a couple of shillings. It's just a residence open to the public.
We almost certainly owe hospitality not to the owner, but to the hostess, the woman. It doesn't matter if she brews her own ale on site or buys beer on the side, keeping alehouses is still an almost exclusively female occupation. Of course, the hostess can be married, and then her husband officially owns the pub. But we still won’t catch him, he does his main job while his wife makes her contribution. It is no less likely that the mistress will be a widow. The pub remained one of the few ways for a woman to earn money, and licenses for the maintenance of such establishments were issued to widows in pre-retirement times out of pity. Otherwise, the parish would have to take care of the widow, and he did not need such a burden.
We cross the threshold, but no one falls silent at the sight of us. Travelers are frequent visitors to pubs; these establishments are, in fact, not to a small extent intended for travelers. Often, the application for a license was justified by the fact that there were many travelers on the road, and there were not enough pubs in the district.
We know a lot about the public that gathered in the pub. Crimes are a true gift for a historian, because the minutes of court sessions recorded the names of all witnesses, indicating their occupation and place of residence. That is, when a crime was committed in a pub, there were some records that could be used to derive some statistics. For example, in our pub, most likely, there are about ten customers, of which five percent are women.
Women in pubs usually sat in groups. You show up alone - gossip will go; if you drink with other sedate married ladies - no one will say anything bad. In addition, dates were arranged in pubs. If a guy openly courted a girl, then going to a pub together was considered completely normal and decent.
However, “decent” is a relative concept here. Beer houses were still the lot of the poorest strata. Owners of some sort of wealth - yeomen, for example - drank at home, like old times. The beer house was an outlet for ordinary people. Servants sat here - for the same reason like lovers. Anthropologists call such places "the third home. Here you are not at work, where you need to please your boss or master, and not at home, where you need to please your parents or other half. Teenagers flocked here for the same motives. Medieval England was a paradise place, before the legal age limit for the sale of alcohol, it remained to live and live.
This does not mean that anyone seriously got drunk - except on Sundays. If we usually go on a break on Friday evening, then in the Middle Ages we walked on Sunday morning. Quite reasonable, if you think about it: after all, then you can relax the rest of the day. But this alignment led to an endless war between the pub and the church for Sunday parishioners. The pub was on top. One dissatisfied with this state of affairs parish priest in Staffordshire tried to somehow drive the poor out of the pub. As a result, he had to flee from the crowd, who "thrown their hats into the air, hooted and yelled for the priest to get away with his knapsack."
We sit down. The hostess pours us beer into an earthenware jug. Inside, it is usually stained with something black, but this is not dangerous, it’s just more convenient to underfill and cheat (just like in ancient Mesopotamia). A conversation ensues. The standard greeting for a stranger entering a pub is "What do you hear?" Before the advent of newspapers and television, travelers were the only source of information about what was happening in the world. Who is our king now? Are we at war with someone? Waiting for an invasion? In fact, pubs soon became breeding grounds for false rumors. In 1619, the whole of Kent was in a panic when the Spaniards allegedly took Dover Castle, and in 1603, the habitues of Leicester's beer houses managed to find out about the death of Elizabeth I two days before the sad event.
So we drink and talk. There are about three pints per person—unless, of course, it's a Sunday. We also play games and place bets. And all this is noted in the bill, which must be paid before leaving. If we were local, we could drink on credit for weeks. The rest, too, do not have to pay with a coin, in-kind exchange is in use, almost anything will do as a payment for a pint of beer - chicken, for example. Convenient, but dubious from a law enforcement point of view: a traveler simply needs to steal a chicken somewhere along the way and exchange it for a drink at the first beer bar that turns up.
But the evening, as is typical for all evenings, ends, and when the locals go home, we can spend the night somewhere on a bench for a fee. And if not stingy, then in the same bed with the owner and his wife. Or we can take a hint from Shakespeare (the only scene where the action takes place in a pub and Mr. Sly is kicked out for non-payment at the beginning of The Taming of the Shrew) and take a nap right on the street at the doorstep.
Buy the complete book
Today we have prepared an acquaintance with the elite in oriental style.
Its interior is inspired by the richness and chic of Japanese culture. Sophisticated and opulent, it has a modern ambiance and cozy ambiance. A simple palette of materials creates an unforgettable impression. Asian motifs will give you a good mood and positive emotions.
The establishment used organic materials, wooden accessories, metal and glass, together they create an aesthetic harmony. Bronze tinting, mirrors and natural stones formed a proportional national flavor. The original partition is admirable: the old doors seem to have been taken from an old medieval castle.
Exclusive designer furniture complements the style direction. A variety of shapes and decor, colors and textures help to avoid monotony. Tables and chairs, which are completely different from each other, are used to create a spirit of intimacy and privacy.
Due to the use of dark shades, the inside is a little gloomy, but the use of spotlights and unusual pendant lamps, the restaurant is beautifully lit with soft light and complements the atmosphere of the room.
In addition to the unique design, it is worth noting the amazing panoramic view from the windows, which opens on Jakarta from the 46th floor. The luxurious spectacle is breathtaking; few restaurants of this kind can boast both such exquisite decoration and the amazing landscape of a modern city.
Project: Metaphor Interior Architecture.
In this article, I will talk about our experience of visiting the very hyped medieval restaurants of old Tallinn. We got this experience on two weekend trips to the capital of Estonia. The first took place in 2016 on the holidays of March 8, and the second in 2019 on the New Year holidays. During the New Year holidays, all the restaurants of Old Tallinn were packed to capacity, queues stood in the street all over the old city in the evening, the March 8 holiday is less popular, there are much fewer people.
On the Internet, opinions about restaurants in the Old City are divided in two. Some people believe that the prices there are too high and it’s not worth overpaying, while the second part of the city’s guests believe that eating there is just part of the fun, the main thing is the atmosphere of the establishments – medieval waiters’ outfits, interiors, show programs in some restaurants. That. if you are interested in a purely utilitarian problem of satisfying hunger, then it is better to go to the Baltic market or to the Kalamaja area for lunch, and if you want to feel the flavor of medieval Tallinn, then welcome to the restaurants of the Old Town.
All the institutions described in this article, except for Lido, are located in close proximity to the Town Hall Square, they are separated from each other by a distance of 50-100 meters. If you just look at the photographs of their facades posted in this article, identification will not be a problem. Under each last photo of the restaurant there is a link to the official website of the institution. All the mentioned restaurants, except Beer House, have a menu in Russian with prices on their website.
OLDE HANSA and DRAKON III have been shown more than once in the program "Eagle and Reshka" and in the high tourist season there is a live queue for both of these places and not only in them. Table reservations are highly recommended.
I will start with the DRAKON III restaurant, everyone can afford to visit this catering establishment and entertainment for city guests, everything is on a budget.
This institution is located in the Gothic building of the Town Hall, which is almost 600 years old. If you stand facing the town hall building, then the entrance to DRAGON III will be on the left. In fact, I would not call this place a restaurant, many people call it a medieval tavern and I think this name is closest in meaning to DRAKON III.
Probably many are wondering why this place is called in such a strange way? Everything is simple with this, if you take a closer look at the town hall building, you can easily find two ancient dragons on its facade, these are forged copper spillways. They were installed in the 17th century, about a hundred years after the installation of the weather vane in the shape of Old Toomas.
Wrought copper weirs in the form of dragon heads And accordingly, the restaurant DRAKON III installed a third dragon on the facade of the town hall, this time in the form of a sign for the institution.
Signboard of a medieval tavern in the town hall building In the summer, you can sit right under this sign at the tables, and in winter, welcome to the darkness of the Middle Ages. The place is quite crowded, but very entertaining. The owners tried to create the atmosphere of a medieval tavern: the saleswomen are dressed in ancient dresses, the usual cutlery is not provided, there is no electric lighting, the hall is lit only by candles.
The interior of a medieval tavern. It feels darker in the tavern than it turned out in the photographs. Of course, this is a tourist establishment, they don’t go there to eat, but to look, enjoy the color, food is secondary. The menu is very modest, only what could be prepared in the Middle Ages: several types of pies for 1€, elk soup 2€, beef ribs 9€. The ribs are served with a knife and two sticks, but there were no forks in the Middle Ages!
Beef rib from a medieval tavern. Soup can be drunk over the edge, in ancient times everyone had their own spoon and always carried it with them, remember Brueghel's paintings, there you can find characters with a spoon behind the lapel of a hat. Any drink costs 2.5 €, so the medieval tavern is a very budget place, it is ideal to use it for a lunch snack in the center of Old Tallinn.
Pickles in DRAKON III are provided free of charge, provided that you yourself fish them with a special stick from a barrel, this is another attraction in a series of immersion in the Middle Ages.
Set lunch of the day 4.80€. Alcoholic drinks can be ordered separately.
Peppersack Restaurant - sword fighting
While we were choosing where to go to eat in Tallinn, we paid attention to two more establishments. This is Peppersack restaurant, located next to the same Town Hall Square. Its facade is decorated with a bag of pepper. The main feature of Peppersack is sword fights every evening, we didn’t go there ourselves and didn’t see fights, but such an offer sounds very tempting. If we go to Tallinn again, we will probably look there.
Peppersack restaurant, white sack house The official website of the Peppersack restaurant is just one page, scroll down and you will see everything, the anchors do not work. Reservations are recommended during the high tourist season.
Meals 5.50 - 35€.
Balthasar Restaurant - garlic restaurant
We also drew attention to Balthasar restaurant located in the building of the Town Hall Pharmacy. Firstly, the town hall pharmacy is a very old building, secondly, a wonderful view of the town hall square opens from the windows of the restaurant, and thirdly, it is a garlic restaurant, they say even ice cream is served there under garlic sauce. Garlic, of course, is not for everyone, but I consider myself more of a fan of garlic than of its opponents. Fourthly, Baltazar Russov himself wrote his legendary Livonian Chronicles in this house.
Restaurant Balthasar, entrance under the arch The official website of the Balthasar restaurant - table reservations are possible.
Meals from 11 to 23€.
I wrote about that in a separate article, I especially advise you to pay attention to the border crossing in Narva upon returning to your homeland, a preliminary appointment is required.
You may be interested in reading with links to specific hotels and apartments and photos. Find out the algorithm for finding cheap parking near the center. In the capital of Estonia, you can stay in a house with a 14th-century wall and a fireplace, or rent an apartment in the building where Dovlatov lived, and it won't be fantastically expensive. ( 1
ratings, average: 5,00
out of 5)
