Lithuania

We are entering the Baltics… the lands of potatoes and cabbage!

Lithuanian cuisine shares similarities with its Baltic neighbours, but it’s food has also been influenced by Germany (with pork based dishes like kugelis - potato stuffed with pork) and France (due to aristocracy hiring french chefs).

While Lithuanians were growing rye and other wheat from prehistoric time, potatoes only came to the country in 17th century. Having said that, it still gave enough time to create lots of incredible potato dishes prepared in many different ways.

Just one example is cepelinai. A national dish for over 150 years, although before 1900s it was called didzkukuliai or dumb-bells (which actually explain their shape). They are dumplings with potato dough stuffed with pork and served with sour cream.

Foraging for mushrooms and berries is a pride and joy of the Baltics. According to our Latvian friend, it’s a national sport. At the crack of dawn, people get dressed head to toe (to avoid mosquitos) and head off to the forest without telling anyone else where they are going to avoid competition. Why buy mushrooms if you can go harvest them yourself?

It was surprisingly hard to find a Baltic restaurant in London, and yes we searched for Latvia and Estonia too!

Berneliu Uzeiga, Shepherds Inn

Bernelių Užeiga, Shepherds Inn (aka the Boys Tavern) is a family run restaurant that prides itself on preserving the heritage of Lithuania cuisine, offering over 40 meals that are acknowledged and certified as products of national heritage. They include options from various regions of the country, both of a rustic and aristocratic nature.

Right from the start, when we had to book using that rare method of talking to someone over the phone rather than an online form, we got the feeling that this was going to be a place with a more personalised touch. This impression was only enhanced as we sat down and our Lithuanian friend started to talk to the waiters in Lithuanian and ordering all the local delicacies.

The staff were super friendly and helpful, particularly taking great effort to try and explain what Kvass tastes like, which, turns out, is unexplainable. We challenge anyone else to try this drink if you go, and tell us what you think it tastes like.

One of our friends got intimately acquainted with kvass before ever tasting it, as the waiter spilled it in her by accident. But kvass is actually a really cool drink which is first mentioned in Russian manuscripts from 1000 years ago, which makes it older than Russia itself. While a non alcoholic drink, it can actually make you tipsy, as it’s a fermented rye bread. Fun fact, in the Soviet times it was rebranded as the Soviet Coca Cola.

The place itself had quite a grand feel to it, which apparently was similar to something you might find in the countryside of Lithuania, away from the busier cities.

At first glance, although there are a lot of options on the menu, you might be forgiven for thinking that there isn’t much variety, as a good percentage of the menu is based around combinations of meat and potato. However, Lithuanian cuisine is an excellent example of how a couple of simple ingredients can be combined in a way that creates such varied and flavourful dishes.

We went for perhaps the most traditional dishes on the menu, the Grated Potato Dumplings with Meat (cepelinai) and the Boiled Potato Pancakes with Meat Stuffing (žemaičių blynai). Both basically potato stuffed with meat, but both had completely different textures and tastes.The boiled potato pancakes were particularly good, with a clever use of herbs and spices to enhance the flavours of the meat.

However, the best food of the day was possibly the innocuous starter; Kepta duona su suriu. This is basically rye bread cut into chunky chips, fried in garlic oil and covered in grated cheese (although cheese is optional). But my goodness… they were little chunks of cheesy heaven on a plate. We would’ve been happy if that was all we had to eat.

It should be noted that these dishes are traditionally prepared as working food, eaten before going out to toil in the fields for the rest of the day. So don’t be fooled by the pictures, which drastically underestimate just how big these full portions are. At this restaurant you get a lot of food for your money.

We weren’t sure what to expect going into this country, but we have been surprised by how wonderful the experience was and would highly recommend you give this place a visit if you are interested in trying some authentic Lithuanian cuisine.

Time to move down from the North and into to Eastern Europe.

Recommendations

While we are only able to go to one place per country, we want to share with you some other awesome places we found/got recommended if you want to try it out and let us know

• Berneliu Uzeiga, E6 5LX - A 2nd location of the same resutuarant