This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).
1. Amandus
Fine dining favourite
In the east of Vilnius’s beautiful, baroque Old Town, an iron bridge over the Vilnia river marks the border with Užipis. This once down-at-heel district turned artist enclave declared itself an independent ‘republic’ in 1997, complete with unofficial president, currency and manifesto. Gentrification in the years since has smoothed its counter-cultural edges, but among the galleries and boutiques, unconventional thinking still has its place.
I climb the hill, passing the Angel of Užipis statue, towards a cosy, warm-lit glow that reveals the entrance to Amandus, the fine-dining restaurant of chef-patron Deivydas Praspaliauskas, which opened in 2017. From the Scandi-minimal dining room, I watch a team of chefs busying themselves ahead of service in the open kitchen. With just one sitting, at 7pm, and no menu in sight, there’s a palpable sense of anticipation ahead of a 10-course journey led by a chef who has done much to drive the city’s food culture.
It’s been a rapid ascent for Praspaliauskas, who, after leaving Vilnius for Denmark at 18, rose from the bottom rung of the restaurant ladder to heights that included a brief stint at Noma. During this period, he was encouraged to return home and enter a competition to find Lithuania’s best chef, which he won, age just 22, giving him the impetus to open his own restaurant in 2011. “At that time, Vilnius had little beyond pasta, pizza and a couple of hotel restaurants,” he says of the city’s limited dining scene following the Soviet occupation, which ended in 1990. “My first newspaper review said, ‘We give this guy three months because of those tiny portions and €9 lunches.’ Three months on and the reviewer wrote, ‘I was wrong, and you need to book a table for that lunch.’ That, for me, was a sign something was happening.” Today, the fine-dining landscape has changed. In 2024, four city restaurants gained Michelin stars, Amandus not yet among them.
A succession of dishes soon emerge from the kitchen, accompanied by flourishes with pipettes or liquid nitrogen. Tender, caramelised root vegetables offset smoked catfish; cognac-accented chicken liver tops dark rye; and a Praspaliauskas calling card, beetroot bread with notes of liquorice.
While he’s no slave to traditional Lithuanian dishes or domestic produce, Praspaliauskas’s cooking celebrates his heritage through star ingredients, including foraged mushrooms and berries from the forest, and techniques such as smoking and pickling. “People often ask about Lithuanian food and the one thing that would see our culture collapse is if you took away soup. Even if you don’t order soup, you get soup,” he says. Here, it appears in various forms, from creamy potato foam concealing pickled cauliflower to a chicken broth thickened with barley and adorned with plump, pink quail breast.
Throughout, Praspaliauskas’s skill lies in his ability to draw out the essence of everyday ingredients. “On any plate, I hope you find distinct flavours that are as pure as possible,” he says of a style that’s drawn comparisons with New Nordic cuisine. “It took me a while to understand whether what I do is Scandinavian or Baltic. But ultimately, we need to create our own story.”
2. Halės Turgus
Delis & DJs
The grand old clock above the entrance to Halės Turgus indoor market shows 9am as I wander past a throng of elderly ladies setting up baskets of foraged boletus mushrooms on the steps. To the south of the Old Town, on the mural-daubed fringe of the Station District, this lofty landmark has been the city’s biggest trading post for more than a century, and today its mix of cafes, bars and food stalls is a charismatic clash of tradition and modernity.
Between an abundance of stalls stacked with staples including juniper-smoked pork knuckles, pigs’ ears and salamis, I meet the mother and daughter duo behind new-wave cheesemonger Roots, who, between serving customers kefir and cottage cheese, slice me samples of their artisanal bestsellers: waxy, caraway-studded kmynukas, and džiugas, a hard, aged cheese sitting somewhere between gouda and parmesan. Onwards, past mountains of cranberries and pickled cucumbers, a growing queue for the oven-fresh wares at Beigelistai bakery embodies the revival of Vilnius’s Jewish heritage, all but erased during the Second World War.
Nods to Lithuania’s globalising tastes, meanwhile, quickly become apparent. At Halės Smokehouse, which specialises in American-style barbecue, team member Kostas pours me a satisfyingly malty glass of gira, the carbonated Baltic drink made from fermented rye bread, which he describes as Lithuanian Coca-Cola. “After the Soviets left, capitalism began and all these strange new products from overseas started to arrive,” he says, as he shows me through the sleek, modern butchery and into a rear hall heaving with apparel, aftershaves and adapter plugs.
After dark, the scene here shifts and DJs play techno as a handful of bars serve amaro cocktails to a boisterous crowd. Stallholders sometimes turn up the following morning with the party still going strong. “There’s a real community spirit and the best part is that you’ve got all the traditional stuff, as well as people trying something new,” says Kostas, adding that while the market is becoming popular with tourists, it’s still full of locals. A constant through German and Soviet occupation, as well as two declarations of Lithuanian independence, Halės Turgus remains a reliable barometer for the city’s evolving tastes.
Lokys’ menu delves deep into Lithuanian tradition by serving medieval classics such as beaver stew and roasted boar.
Photograph by Lokys
3. Dūmu Fabrikas
The new-wave brewery
Life in Lithuania is said to revolve around three ‘Bs’: beer, bread and basketball. While the latter is labelled the country’s second religion, the former has its roots in a proud pagan tradition. Lithuania only converted to Christianity in the 14th century, but evidence of its Romuva past includes a shrine to Ragutis, the Baltic god of beer, on Pilies Street — a nod to a brewing culture that dates back to the fifth century.
Ragutis would likely approve of what’s brewing in Naujoji Vilnia (New Vilnius), a former industrial district flanking the river, just 15 minutes by train from the Old Town. Here, surrounded by dense pine forest, family-owned Sakiškės Brewery has set up shop at Dūmu Fabrikas, a former factory.
It’s in this expansive hall, which doubles as a venue for live events, that I meet Gintaras Bingelis from the Sakiškės Brewery team. Gesturing at the 24 taps that line the sleek bar, he explains what’s driven a passion project that began in 2015. “What we do is so-called ‘modern’ beer — taking traditional styles and making new recipes,” he says, from our mezzanine-level vantage point, overlooking the brewery’s 12 fermentation tanks. “We aim to produce two new styles of beer every month.”
Among the standouts, I sample an excellent IPA — hazy, hoppy and sour — and a coffee- and chocolate-accented imperial stout. Two more unconventional beers, shaped by local ingredients, arrive in the form of an earthy beetroot ale and a pilsner flavoured with pinecones, whose fragrant notes pair well with slices of smoked sausage from a platter of accompanying cheeses and charcuterie.
“Although 85% of [beer] consumption in Lithuania is lager, craft beer is becoming more popular and younger generations are moving to fruitier styles,” says Gintaras. Sakiškės Brewery produces 18,000 litres per month, and its beers can be found in many of the city’s pubs, including Užipis’s excellent dive bar, Spunka. Taproom tastings, meanwhile, are helping more people discover artisanal alternatives to mass-produced lagers. With evangelists like Gintaras, Lithuania’s love affair with beer should only grow stronger.
4. Lokys
Medieval menu
Beaver stew isn’t often found on menus in Vilnius Lokys’ team insists. In the vaulted cellar of this flamboyant family restaurant, waitress Jurgita explains the historical approach to cooking. “Many places that sell ‘traditional’ Lithuanian food focus on potatoes — pancakes, dumplings or kugelis [potato casserole] — but potatoes only became popular about 150 years ago, so we decided to look further back.”
A deep dive through diaries, memoirs and recipe books from the medieval noble classes, when Lithuania was a Grand Duchy, helped shape Lokys’ dishes. Its menu of wild meats and foraged foods doubles as a history lesson.
We begin with beer snacks: fried rye bread, smoked strips of pig’s ear, zingy pickles and aged cheeses with sea buckthorn jam. It was the Karaims (Turkic-speaking Jews from Crimea who arrived at the behest of 14th-century ruler Vytautas the Great) who brought cucumbers, cabbages and preservation techniques to the country, Jurgita tells me. Next, I feast on roasted boar (beloved of the city’s founder, Grand Duke Gediminas) topped with a berry jus that cuts through the tender, fatty meat.
Jurgita explains that the Milan-born Grand Duchess Bona Sforza is to thank for the healthier menu items, with the former first lady having introduced basil, tomato and garlic from her native Italy in the 16th century. “She tried to introduce more greens to the diet of a population that largely ate meat.”
And so, to the braised beaver. After the Christianisation of the country in the 14th century, Lithuania’s love of pork was put to the test during Lent, when the consumption of meat was forbidden. So, Jurgita says, beaver, a skilled swimmer with a scaly tail, would be classed as a fish — and thus, this furry critter became a Friday night staple. Gamey in flavour, with a rather tough texture even after a lengthy period of slow cooking, there’s a reason many Lithuanians switched to more palatable proteins when rules loosened. But as I finish with a sip of Krupnikas honey liqueur, I can’t help but be impressed by Lokys’ staunch commitment to its mission.
Published in Issue 25 (autumn 2024) of Food by National Geographic Traveller (UK).
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