The Best Places to Eat Near Akustika, by the Record
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The Post and Telegraph building's ground floor houses this faux-industrial neighborhood bistro, where three friends built the place they actually wanted to eat in. The menu follows the seasons closely, with pikeperch from nearby Lake Burtnieks and local lamb doing most of the talking. Ask the team about wine pairings; they clearly enjoy that conversation. Live music drifts through occasionally, and the terrace earns its keep in summer.
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A red-fronted building on Rīgas iela hides a sleek modern dining room and a tucked-away back terrace that feels like a secret worth keeping. This regional restaurant earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand for its concise menu of locally sourced cooking and prices that don't make you do the math twice. Housemade sodas and cocktails carry the local philosophy all the way to the bar. Rooms are available if Cēsis turns out to be more than a day trip.
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A former fire station in the center of Cēsis that now runs a two-part evening: a bright dining room for a modern tasting menu built around local produce, then a dark, moody lounge-bar afterward for a post-meal drink and jazz. Two drinks flights are on offer, alcoholic or not, and the team runs the whole thing with enough warmth that you leave feeling vaguely cheerful without quite knowing why.
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Dinner at this village restaurant in Līgatne begins before you sit down, in a nature observation garden where you're invited to slow down and actually look at things. The kitchen pulls from raised beds and regular foraging runs, filling out the rest from local suppliers and shaping the menu around whatever is peaking that day. The sauces are the thing, bright and layered in a way that makes the vegetables the event.
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The kitchen garden behind this small, remote Estonian restaurant is tended by one of three sisters; a second cooks the set menu, and a third runs the dining room. It's the kind of family operation where the honey in dessert comes from their father's hives out back. Modern and playful, but rooted entirely in what the land around it produces, this is the sort of place that makes you wonder why anyone bothers with cities.