SWEET LIFE
r u o Y t o N
NOVEMBER 2009
Grandmother’s
I had heard a lot about Kaļķu Vārti before we went there for dinner last week. It is known as one of the first restaurants in Riga to embrace the concept of locally produced and seasonal foods. Not only is their head chef, Ēriks Dreibants, well-known through restaurant and catering circles, but a number of their other chefs regularly win various local and regional culinary competitions. So I had reason to look forward to a fine meal. 58
NOVEMBER 2009
SWEET LIFE
Latvian Cuisine TEXT: MARC GABER PHOTOS: MĀRIS ZEMGALIETIS
It
turned out that Kaļķu Vārti is more than great food, however. The interior, which I remember as being rather austere and minimalist, nowadays is anything but. The wall panels and ceiling are adorned with lace-like motifs from an ancient crocheting pattern. Our plush semicircular couch was wrapped around a
beautiful natural wood table. The supporting columns look like they have been lifted from an old house, the lamps are made to look like the traditional Latvian straw decorations, still used at Christmas, called puzuri. Everything is airy, blond wood, muted tones – cosy and very stylish. The menu is quite extensive, dipping into Latvian and international cuisines and using healthy ingredients, many of them locally grown
and seasonal. As we found out later, Kaļķu Vārti has mastered the art of using the plate as a palette, playing with the different shapes and colours. Even though the portions may look small on plate, they are pleasantly satisfying. For an appetizer, I ordered a salad, which was fresh and well composed, without making any one ingredient dominant: each leaf, slice of zucchini, baby asparagus, and or cherry tomato 59
seemed to be the perfect match to the one next to it and topped off with just a drop of olive oil. My dinner partner made a more adventurous choice: the texture her crisp, butter-fried asparagus stacked like tiny pieces of cordwood contrasted nicely with the crumbly black pudding, which turned out to be blood sausage minus the casing, and the spoonful of delicate cauliflower puree. Next we shared a portion of fish soup, a dish that I have come to love living on the Baltic coast. The soup had a clear broth whose complex bouquet of flavours was further augmented by the dollop of soft goat cheese, which lent the soup a silky texture. The goat cheese, just like the salmon, catfish, and pikeperch were all local. The wine list that Kaļķu vārti has put together contains many excellent wines of good vintages. Add to this the prices, all well within reason, and you end up with a list that makes your choice quite difficult. Seeing a nice bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape on the list, however, we agreed to look no further, confident that our main courses could only benefit from this great wine. Not to rush ahead, but, the food being so sumptuous, at the end it was difficult to decide whether it was not the other way around. My dinner partner’s grilled beefsteak, ox tongue and chanterelle sauce came to the table steamy with a whole bouquet of aromas.
While I am not a big fan of tongue (too chewy!), our waiter explained that it was best when having a little bit of each ingredient combined in one bite. Since my partner seemed to be relishing each mouthful, I became curious and when I finally succeeded in coercing her to give
- has Kalku , , Varti mastered the art of using the plate as a palette, playing with the different shapes and colours.
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up at least one bite, I could see why. The beef was perfectly cooked – moist and tender, and the tongue, with no chewiness whatsoever, complemented it with a taste that was almost sweet. My roasted duck breast with parsley root puree, pearl barley, and carrot sauce was perhaps one of the most tender duck breasts I have ever had. The parsley root puree was not too earthy tasting, as is sometimes the case when I cook it at home, but the real surprise here was the carrot sauce, which I could have mistaken for a sweet à l’ orange sauce had I not known its provenance. The texture of the meat, the slightly crisp skin, and the sweet tanginess of
the carrot sauce combined to make the quintessential autumn harvest dish of fowl, root vegetable, and grain. Besides the beefsteak and duck, there were many traditional Latvian foods on the menu, each one done with the same modern artistic cooking and presentation that Kaļķu Vārti, and chef Dreibants, have made famous. Latvian menu items include Latvian cheeses, venison with hempseed cream, fava beans and chanterelles, venison with black currant sauce, and one of the most loved Latvian dishes, chanterelles with new potatoes. There is also a special menu that changes every week or two, depending on what is ripe and being harvested in Latvia at the time. But back for the desserts. I had the halvah, which was served with lots of fresh berries. The halvah was wonderful, delicately textured and not too sweet, but I was so full I could only slowly pick my way through it. Yet my partner’s dessert, which came a little later, made me perk right up. It was so beautiful, I was not sure if we should take it home and display it as a work of art, just sit and gaze at it, or actually eat it! A clear caramel base that covered the entire surface of the plate looked like amber and almost had me looking for petrified ants or small flying insects. A long, slender spike emerged just off centre, looking like something an artisan glass-blower might produce in one of the Old Town artists’ studios.
NOVEMBER 2009
As we regained our senses, I started to pick at the berries littered across the glass-like pond, while she dove into the wonderfully creamy cheesecake set on top of it. This was richer and creamier than the famous New York cheesecake, but it was wonderful! To top off a meal I always try a restaurant’s coffee – I find that it is one of the small details that can tell you a lot about a restaurant. At Kaļķu vārti, I could smell the rich aromatic coffee before it was even set down in front of us. It was the perfect cup of coffee, strong but not too bitter, and very, very fresh.
SWEET LIFE
While I do not usually mention a restaurant’s website, which after all is secondary to the quality of the food and the service, I think that the Kaļķu vārti one is worth a look. It has the same aesthetic as the restaurant, soft shades of white and beige, and is well laid out and easy to read. It gives a wonderful overview of the place, its menu and wine list, and includes some fabulous photographs by our own Māris Zemgalietis, whose works we are fortunate to include in the restaurant reviews in this magazine. One can learn a lot about Latvian cuisine from Kaļķu vārti, and it is clear that Latvian
food has a lot going for it, in the hands of the right chef. While I may not be able to have a blown caramel sculpture to serve dessert on, this meal at Kaļķu vārti get me thinking that I should expand my repertoire of foods and methods of presentation. Definitely I should spend more time in the forests and fields. How could one not fall in love with Latvian food, after all this? Kaļķu 11a, Rīga, Latvia Phone: 67 224 576 e-mail: info@kalkuvarti.lv www.kalkuvarti.lv