Latvian Food: An Honest Guide from a Riga Local

Short answer, eat these first

If you only have a few days in Latvia and want to taste the country properly, here’s the shortlist I’d send any traveller on. The longer post explains each one in detail, but if you’re scanning, this is the bite-sized version.

Rupjmaize, our dense dark rye bread. Try it plain, then come back for the layered dessert version (Rupjmaizes Kārtojums) and the cold rye-bread soup (Maizes Zupa).
Anything with biezpiens, the Latvian curd cheese. Savoury with dill and sour cream over potatoes, or sweet as a chocolate-covered childhood snack (Kārums).
A bottle of kefir. We’ve been drinking it for generations; the West has only just discovered it.
Pelēkie zirņi ar speķi, our national dish: grey peas with smoked bacon, served with a glass of kefir on the side.
Aukstā zupa in summer (June–August): the pink kefir-based cold soup with beetroot, cucumber, dill and hard-boiled egg. Properly weird-looking, properly delicious.
Anything smoked at the Central Market: sprats, eel if you can find it, cheese, pork ribs. The smokehouse tradition here is genuinely world-class.
Karbonāde with chanterelle sauce, the comfort plate that grandmothers made on Sundays.
Sklandrausis, the rye-and-root-vegetable pie from the western coast. Strange, sweet, and very Latvian.
A shot of Riga Black Balsam at the end of the meal, mixed into hot blackcurrant juice if you’re a beginner.

The bread shelf, where everything begins

Latvian food makes no sense without bread. We grew up with it on the table at every meal. We bring it to housewarmings (the salt-and-bread tradition is still alive in 2026). And we have far more types than the visitor expects.

Rupjmaize, the cornerstone

Rupjmaize (literally “coarse bread”) is our dense, slightly sweet, slightly sour dark rye bread, baked from sourdough rye flour, often with caraway seeds, sometimes with malt syrup. The good stuff is heavy in the hand, dark all the way through, and keeps for a week without going stale. A proper loaf is a serious commitment, you eat it slowly, in thin slices, with butter and cottage cheese and smoked fish, or with honey and quark for breakfast.

Rupjmaize is everywhere because it’s genuinely the engine of the cuisine. It is the backbone of the layered dessert Rupjmaizes Kārtojums (rye bread crumbs, whipped cream, lingonberry jam in a glass), it’s the base of the cold rye-bread soup Maizes Zupa (sieved bread, dried fruits, cinnamon, whipped cream on top), and it’s the silent partner of essentially every smoked-fish or cottage-cheese plate. If you only buy one food souvenir from Latvia, buy a vacuum-packed loaf of rupjmaize from a proper bakery (try Lāči or Liepkalni) and take it home.

Saldskābmaize, the sweet-sour cousin

Saldskābmaize means “sweet-sour bread” and that’s exactly what it is: a softer, lighter rye, more honeyed than rupjmaize, with a complex sourdough tang. It’s easier on the international palate and the version most travellers fall for first. Goes brilliantly with smoked salmon, sliced cheese, or just butter. The Lāči bakery sells it everywhere in Riga.

Sklandrausis, the strange one from Kurzeme

This is the dish I most enjoy putting in front of visitors who think they know rustic European baking. Sklandrausis is a small, open-faced rye-pastry tart from the western Kurzeme region, filled with a layer of mashed potato topped with mashed carrot, sweetened gently, dusted with caraway, baked until the carrot caramelises slightly on top. It is sweet, it is savoury, it is unmistakably ancient (the recipe is documented from at least the 17th century), and it has EU protected status as a traditional Latvian product. It tastes like nothing else you’ve had. Look for it at the Central Market or at autumn farmers’ markets.

Kliņģeris, the namesday pretzel

If you’re ever invited to a Latvian birthday or namesday celebration, expect to see one of these in the middle of the table: an enormous saffron-coloured sweet pretzel, easily two feet across, glossy and golden, studded with raisins and almonds. Kliņģeris is celebratory bread, you bring it as a guest, and the host slices it ceremonially. It’s sweet, soft, slightly cardamom-scented, and impossible to find as a tourist unless you go to a proper bakery and ask. Worth seeking out.

Pīrāgi, the small pleasure

Pīrāgi are small, crescent-shaped, golden-baked buns filled most traditionally with finely diced smoked bacon and onion. They are the snack of every long bus journey, the buffet table at every gathering, and the thing you’ll see piled high in every bakery window. There are also versions with cabbage, with smoked salmon, with carrot, but the bacon version is the canonical one. Three of these and a glass of kefir is a perfectly good lunch.

The cottage cheese cult

If I had to pick the single ingredient that best explains Latvian eating, it would not be rye bread, it would be biezpiens, our cottage cheese. We eat it more days than not. We eat it sweet and we eat it savoury. We eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert, frequently in the same day. There are entire shelves of biezpiens products in every Latvian supermarket that simply do not exist in the UK or US, and once you understand the texture difference, you start seeing it everywhere.

What biezpiens actually is

Biezpiens (pronounced BEE-yez-pee-yens) is a fresh, soft, slightly tangy curd cheese, somewhere between Greek yoghurt and ricotta in texture, but lighter and drier than either. It comes in different fat contents (0%, 5%, 9%, 18%) and gets used differently at each level. The best stuff is made the traditional way from cultured raw milk, slowly drained, and tastes mildly of grass and pasture.

The savoury versions

The classic Latvian summer plate: hot boiled new potatoes, a generous spoonful of biezpiens mixed with sour cream and finely chopped dill, a few radishes on the side, a piece of pickled herring, a slice of rye bread. That’s lunch. Add fresh chives, spring onion, garlic, salt, pepper. The biezpiens is the unifying element, savoury, cooling, slightly tangy, and it makes everything around it sing.

You’ll also see biezpiens stirred into baked dishes (potato gratins, savoury pancakes), used as a filling for stuffed pancakes (biezpiena pankūkas), and dolloped onto soups in place of sour cream.

The sweet versions, where it gets interesting

Here’s where Latvia diverges from anywhere I’ve eaten in Western Europe. We make sweet biezpiens products that don’t really exist elsewhere, and that every Latvian grew up on:

Kārums (and its rivals): the chocolate-coated curd cheese bar. Picture a small, palm-sized rectangle of slightly sweetened biezpiens, sometimes with vanilla or rum flavouring or a fruit-jelly centre, completely enrobed in milk or dark chocolate. Every Latvian child grew up eating these. They sit in the dairy aisle, not the chocolate aisle. They cost about a euro. Try one and tell me why this isn’t global.
Biezpiena sieriņš: the more traditional, less sweet version, often without the chocolate, just a small block of sweetened biezpiens with vanilla or fruit. Often eaten for breakfast.
Biezpienmaize: a soft sweet bread filled with sweetened biezpiens, eaten warm, often with a coffee mid-morning.
Biezpiena pankūkas with jam: thin pancakes folded around sweetened biezpiens, served with sour cream and lingonberry or raspberry jam. The Sunday breakfast of countless Latvian childhoods.
Rupjmaizes Kārtojums, the layered dessert: rye bread crumbs, whipped cream, lingonberry jam, sometimes sweetened biezpiens, layered in a glass. Think Eton Mess, but Latvian and rye-based. You’ll see this on every modern Latvian restaurant’s dessert menu.

The kefir paragraph

Kefir has had a moment in the Western wellness world over the last decade. Whole Foods sells it in glass bottles for £5, “gut health” influencers post about it like it’s an exotic discovery, and Brooklyn cafés put it in smoothies. I find this funny, and so does every Latvian I know, because we have been drinking the stuff every day for generations.

Kefir is fermented milk, slightly fizzy, slightly sour, somewhere between drinking yoghurt and a probiotic buttermilk. The good Latvian stuff is properly tangy, properly thick, and costs about ninety cents for half a litre at any supermarket. It’s eaten cold, drunk straight from the glass, poured over hot grey peas (see below), used as a base for cold summer soup, and recommended by every grandmother as the cure for a hangover. There is no Latvian kitchen that doesn’t have a bottle in the fridge.

What makes Latvian kefir taste of Latvia rather than Sainsbury’s is the milk. We have a huge dairy industry, the cows are mostly pasture-fed, and the cultures used here have been bred locally for generations. Try a small bottle from Smiltenes Piens or Tūja or Latvijas Piens, and you’ll taste a depth and tang the supermarket version back home doesn’t have. If you like it, buy a few bottles, it travels well in checked luggage if you’re mad enough.

Pelēkie zirņi ar speķi, the national dish

The Latvian national dish is genuinely strange the first time you see it. Pelēkie zirņi ar speķi means “grey peas with smoked bacon”, and it is exactly that: large, round, beige-grey peas (a variety almost unique to Latvia and Lithuania), boiled until creamy, mixed with diced smoked bacon and onion fried until golden, served hot, with a glass of cold kefir alongside.

The combination is the point. The peas are starchy and earthy, the bacon is rich and smoky, the kefir cuts everything with a cold, sour edge. It’s peasant food, traditionally a winter dish, the kind of meal that kept farming families going through dark months. You’ll see it on every traditional restaurant menu and at every winter solstice celebration in December (eating grey peas at solstice is a folk tradition, the legend says you must eat at least nine peas to ensure good fortune).

If you eat it once and decide it’s not for you, fair enough, it’s an acquired taste. But try it the way a Latvian eats it: with the kefir glass beside it, alternating mouthfuls of hot peas with cold sour kefir. That partnership is the recipe.

Aukstā zupa, the bright pink summer soup

If you visit Latvia between June and August and don’t eat aukstā zupa at least once, you’ve missed the most photogenic and most refreshing thing in the cuisine. It looks like a Wes Anderson film prop. It tastes brilliant on a hot day. It is somehow both ancient peasant food and the most Instagrammable plate on every modern Latvian restaurant’s summer menu.

Aukstā zupa (literally “cold soup”) is built on a base of kefir, often with a little water or buttermilk to thin it. Into the kefir goes finely grated raw beetroot or pickled beetroot juice (which gives it the electric pink colour), diced cucumber, plenty of fresh dill, sliced spring onion or chives, and on top, a hard-boiled egg cut in half. Sometimes with cubes of boiled potato on the side rather than in the soup. Always served properly cold.

What makes a good aukstā zupa is the dill, lots of it, fresh and chopped just before serving, and the kefir, which has to be properly tangy. The bad versions use sour cream and water and taste flat. The good versions taste like a cold beetroot Bloody Mary made by a grandmother who has been making this every summer since 1955. Look for it on summer menus at restaurants like Bibliotēka Nº1 or Vincents in Riga; the Central Market food court does excellent versions for €5.

The smoked everything

Latvia is a coastal country with a long tradition of smoking absolutely anything that holds still long enough. Walk into the fish hall at the Riga Central Market and the smell hits you before you see anything: hot-smoked sprats, cold-smoked salmon, smoked eel, smoked mackerel, smoked herring, smoked perch. Then walk into the meat hall: smoked ribs, smoked pork shoulder, smoked sausage of every kind, smoked chicken. Then into the dairy hall, where they smoke the cheese.

Why smoke matters here

Latvian smoking traditions go back centuries and predate refrigeration by about a thousand years. The Baltic coast has produced smoked fish for the Hanseatic League since the 1200s, and many small fishing villages on the Kurzeme coast (Roja, Pāvilosta, Ventspils) still operate traditional smokehouses where the wood is alder or juniper and the fish is laid out in racks above a slow, cool fire. The result tastes nothing like supermarket smoked salmon. It tastes of woodsmoke and fish and time.

The ones to actually try

Smoked sprats: small Baltic herring, hot-smoked whole, eaten on rye bread with a little butter and a slice of hard-boiled egg. The classic Latvian appetiser. The tinned version (Riga Sprats) is iconic and well-loved internationally; the fresh, just-smoked version from the market is a different, far better thing.

Smoked eel from Pāvilosta: this is my honest secret luxury recommendation, the one most travellers miss because they don’t know to look for it. Pāvilosta is a small fishing town on the western coast, and its smoked eel is the most delicious smoked fish I have ever eaten in my life. It’s rich, fatty, woodsmoky, slightly sweet, and it costs around €30–50 per kilogram, which sounds dear but is half what you’d pay for inferior eel anywhere in Europe. Look for it at the Central Market fish hall, or buy direct in Pāvilosta if you’re on the coast. Eat it cold, on rye bread, with horseradish.

Smoked cheese: golden-brown rounds of mild cheese smoked over alder. Slice thin, eat with rye bread, a slice of pickled cucumber on the side.

Smoked pork ribs: served whole, eaten with sauerkraut and boiled potatoes. The kind of thing every Latvian grandmother has an opinion about.

Pelmeņi and the dumpling family

Honest framing, because I think it matters: pelmeņi are not uniquely Latvian. They’re the small meat-filled dumplings eaten across the entire former Soviet space, originally Russian or Siberian (depending on which folk history you believe), and you’ll find them in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and Latvia. But they’ve been part of the daily Latvian diet for generations, every supermarket sells them frozen in 1kg bags, every Riga restaurant has them on the menu, and every Latvian household has a pelmeņi dinner once a month at minimum.

The Latvian version is small, thin-skinned, filled with seasoned minced pork or pork-and-beef, boiled in salted water for a few minutes, and served the way every former-Soviet country serves them: with a generous knob of butter, a spoonful of sour cream, a sprinkle of dill, salt and black pepper. Some people add vinegar. Some people eat them swimming in a clear broth. Both are correct.

If you want a true Latvian dumpling that isn’t shared with the rest of the region, look for karbonādes pīrāgi (savoury pasties) or kartupeļu pankūkas (potato pancakes, also called kartupeļu rieksti in some parts of the country). The potato pancakes are crisp, golden, served with sour cream, and they sit on every traditional restaurant menu.

The pickle question

Every Latvian fridge has a jar of pickled cucumbers in it. The jar is always there. When the cucumbers are gone, you do not throw away the brine; you drink it.

The pickle-juice tradition has two purposes. First, the morning after a heavy night of celebrating, a small glass of pickle brine is the universally agreed Latvian hangover cure (the science actually backs this up, the salt and vinegar help with electrolyte balance and the lactic acid soothes the stomach). Second, it’s a chaser for vodka, a small glass of vodka, a small bite of pickled cucumber, a small sip of brine. Some bars in the Old Town will serve you this combination as a “Russian flight” without explaining it.

Beyond the brine, pickled cucumbers themselves are the silent partner of every Latvian meal. Sliced thin alongside boiled potatoes. Diced into the cold salad rasols (the Latvian potato salad with diced ham, peas, hard-boiled egg, mayonnaise, and pickles, which appears at every birthday and every funeral). Whole and crunchy alongside smoked fish. The good stuff is dill-pickled, lacto-fermented in the traditional way, and tastes nothing like the malt-vinegar British version.

The dill question

Yes, dill is on everything. Yes, this is by design. Yes, we know.

Dill (Latvian: dilles) is the default herb of Northern European cooking and Latvians use it on potatoes, on cottage cheese, on smoked fish, on pelmeņi, on salads, in soups (cold and hot), as a garnish for almost any savoury plate. Fresh dill is sold in enormous bunches at every market for around €1, and the average Latvian household goes through a bunch every few days in summer.

What I’d say to visitors who find this excessive: try it on a few dishes before deciding. Dill on cold pink soup is the right answer. Dill on hot boiled new potatoes with butter is the right answer. Dill stirred into biezpiens with sour cream is the right answer. Dill is occasionally overdone (when it’s used as a desperate garnish on a dish that doesn’t need it), and yes, the joke about “Latvian fine dining is just adding more dill” has some truth to it. But the real food has it for a reason: it cuts richness, it brightens cold dishes, and it pairs with kefir and biezpiens in a way no other herb does.

Karbonāde and the comfort plate

Karbonāde is the Latvian take on schnitzel: pork loin, pounded thin, breaded with rye breadcrumbs, fried golden in butter, served with a generous ladle of creamy chanterelle mushroom sauce, alongside boiled potatoes and pickled vegetables. It is the Sunday lunch of countless Latvian childhoods, the kind of plate every grandmother has a slightly different recipe for, and the dish I’d order at any traditional restaurant where the menu doesn’t make me curious.

The chanterelle sauce matters. Latvian forests are full of wild chanterelles in late summer and autumn (foraging is part of the national psyche, more on this in a moment), and a proper karbonāde uses real chanterelles, gently fried in butter with shallot, finished with cream and dill. The cheaper restaurants use button mushrooms; you can taste the difference.

The drinks shelf

Riga Black Balsam

The Latvian national liqueur, dark as motor oil, 45% alcohol, made from a closely guarded recipe of 24 herbs, roots, and spices, in production since 1752. The honest take: it’s an acquired taste, and the way most travellers first encounter it (a shot at room temperature) is the worst possible introduction. The Latvian way is to drink it mixed: a tablespoon stirred into a glass of hot blackcurrant juice in winter, or into hot tea with honey, or over ice with a splash of bitter lemon. The blackcurrant version (called Black Balsam Currant, and yes, the company makes a sweeter ready-to-drink version too) is genuinely delicious and is what I’d serve a first-time visitor. There’s a Black Balsam museum and tasting bar at Riga’s Old Town if you want to dive properly in.

Kvass

Slightly alcoholic (around 1%), slightly fizzy, slightly sweet fermented rye bread drink. Sold in bottles in every supermarket in summer, served on tap from yellow tanker-trucks parked in city squares in July (this is not a joke, look for them, they’re bright yellow and you can’t miss them). Kvass tastes a bit like flat dark beer mixed with lemonade and is genuinely refreshing on a hot day. The brand to look for is Ilgārzemes Kvass from the local brewery, but supermarket Cido is fine.

Beer

Latvia has a serious beer culture, much older than the craft-beer wave (we’ve been brewing for centuries) but reinvigorated by it. The big mass-market brands are Aldaris, Cēsu, and Užavas; all decent, all light lagers. The interesting beers come from small breweries: Malduguns from Cēsis, Brūveris in Riga, Valatas in Liepāja. Most Riga restaurants have a small craft-beer list. A pint costs €4–6.

Latvian wine

Yes, this exists, and it’s having a moment. We don’t grow grapes (too cold), but we make wine from rhubarb, currants, gooseberries, sea buckthorn, and apples, often beautifully. Look for Abavnieki rhubarb wine or any of the small farmhouse wineries in the Vidzeme region. Strange, often sweet, sometimes excellent. Worth at least one bottle as an experiment.

Where to actually eat in Riga

Three or four genuine recommendations, not a menu of every restaurant in town. These are the places I’d send a friend.

For grazing: the Riga Central Market

I keep mentioning this market and that’s deliberate, it’s the single best food experience in Riga and the cheapest. Five enormous Zeppelin-hangar buildings just south of the Old Town, each dedicated to a category: meat, fish, dairy, vegetables, gastronomy. Go for lunch, walk every hangar, taste freely (most stalls will offer samples), and assemble your own meal: smoked fish, rye bread, biezpiens, pickled cucumbers, a piece of smoked cheese, a slice of sklandrausis. Lunch for two for €15. The fish hall is the most photogenic.

For modern Latvian: Bibliotēka Nº1, Vincents, or 3 Pavāru Restorāns

If you want to eat the modern, refined version of Latvian food (still local ingredients, still seasonal, still recognisable, but elevated and beautifully plated), these are the three I’d send you to. Bibliotēka Nº1 is the most relaxed of the three and has the best wine list. Vincents is the most ambitious and the only one that approaches the Michelin-star end. 3 Pavāru Restorāns (“3 Cooks Restaurant”) is the open-kitchen, chef-led, tasting-menu option that locals know about and tourists mostly don’t. Reservation needed at all three; expect €40–80 per person with wine.

For traditional Latvian without the tourist tax: Lido

Lido is a Latvian chain of self-service restaurants serving classic Latvian dishes at honest prices. It’s not fancy and it’s not trying to be, but the food is genuinely good versions of pelēkie zirņi, karbonāde, biezpiens dishes, and rasols, at €8–15 a plate. The Lido Atpūtas Centrs in the suburbs is the famous big one (huge, with a kids’ play area, often full of Latvian families on Sundays), but there are smaller branches throughout the city centre. This is where to go if you want to taste twelve traditional dishes in one sitting without a tasting menu price tag.

The seasonal calendar

Latvian food is properly seasonal. What’s on the table genuinely changes month by month. Quick guide:

Spring (March–May): first wild garlic in April, fresh dill returning, new potatoes by May, the first asparagus from local farms, fresh kefir tasting different because the cows are back on grass.
Summer (June–August): aukstā zupa season, fresh berries (strawberries first, then bilberries, then raspberries, then blackcurrants), foraged chanterelles starting late July, cold smoked fish on the beach, kvass from the yellow trucks.
Autumn (September–October): peak mushroom-foraging madness (chanterelles still going, then porcini, then a dozen others), apple and pear season, sklandrausis at the autumn markets, plums for slivovitz.
Winter (November–February): pelēkie zirņi for the solstice, hot smoked fish from the market, hearty bread soups, kliņģeris on namesdays, Black Balsam in hot blackcurrant juice on dark afternoons.

What to skip, what’s overrated

An honest section, because I owe you that.

Skip the “medieval-themed” tourist restaurants in the Old Town, the ones with serving staff in costume and roast wild boar on the menu. The food is mediocre at best, the prices are double the Lido equivalent, and the “authentic medieval Latvian recipe” on the menu is invented for tourists.

Be honest about Riga Black Balsam at room temperature. Almost no Latvian drinks it that way. If a bartender pours you a shot at room temperature with no chaser, they’re hazing you. Order it mixed with hot blackcurrant juice and you’ll see why we love it.

The pelēkie zirņi thing. I love this dish. But not every visitor will, and that’s fine. If you try one bite and decide it’s not for you, eat a bit of biezpiens and rye bread instead and we’ll call it a draw.

Frequently asked questions about Latvian food

What is the most famous Latvian dish?

Pelēkie zirņi ar speķi — grey peas with smoked bacon — is the official national dish, traditionally eaten with a glass of cold kefir on the side. The combination is the point: starchy earthy peas, rich smoky bacon, sharp sour kefir cutting through it all. Honestly though, the most-eaten dish in Latvian homes is probably some combination of biezpiens (cottage cheese) with boiled potatoes and dill — that’s what you’ll find on Latvian dinner tables several nights a week.

What is rupjmaize and why is it so important to Latvian food?

Rupjmaize is the dense, dark, slightly sweet-and-sour Latvian rye bread, made from sourdough rye flour and often caraway seeds. It’s the cornerstone of the cuisine — eaten with smoked fish, with cottage cheese, with butter and honey, used to make a layered dessert (Rupjmaizes Kārtojums) and a cold sweet bread soup (Maizes Zupa). A proper loaf is heavy, dark all the way through, and keeps for a week. Lāči and Liepkalni are the two most-recommended bakery brands; vacuum-packed loaves travel well as souvenirs.

What is biezpiens and what do Latvians do with it?

Biezpiens is fresh Latvian curd cheese — somewhere between Greek yoghurt and ricotta in texture but lighter and slightly tangy. Latvians eat it more days than not, both savoury (mixed with sour cream and dill, served over hot boiled potatoes) and sweet (as the chocolate-coated bar called Kārums, in stuffed pancakes, or in the layered dessert Rupjmaizes Kārtojums). If you understand biezpiens, you understand half of Latvian food. Every supermarket has a whole shelf of biezpiens products that simply don’t exist outside the Baltics.

Have Latvians always drunk kefir, or is it a recent thing like in the West?

We’ve been drinking it for generations — kefir has been part of daily Latvian life long before it became a Western wellness trend. It’s fermented milk, slightly sour and slightly fizzy, and every Latvian fridge has a bottle in it. We drink it cold from the glass, pour it over hot grey peas, use it as the base for cold pink summer soup, and recommend it as the universal hangover cure. A half-litre bottle costs around 90 cents at any supermarket. Try the brands Smiltenes Piens, Tūja, or Latvijas Piens for properly tangy, properly local versions.

What is the pink Latvian soup called and when can I try it?

Aukstā zupa (literally ’cold soup’) — the bright pink Latvian summer soup, available June through August. It’s built on a kefir base with grated raw beetroot or pickled beetroot juice (which gives the electric pink colour), diced cucumber, plenty of fresh dill, sliced spring onion, and a hard-boiled egg cut in half on top. Always served properly cold. The Central Market food court does excellent versions for €5; Bibliotēka Nº1 and Vincents serve refined versions in summer.

Why is everything in Latvian food garnished with dill?

Dill is the default herb of Northern European cooking and Latvians use it on essentially every savoury dish — boiled potatoes, cottage cheese, smoked fish, pelmeņi, salads, soups. Fresh dill is sold in big bunches at every market for around €1 and the average Latvian goes through a bunch every few days in summer. We’re aware it can seem excessive, but try it on the right dishes — cold pink soup, hot new potatoes with butter, biezpiens with sour cream — and you’ll see why. Dill cuts richness, brightens cold dishes, and pairs with kefir in a way no other herb does.

Is Latvian smoked fish actually special, or is it the same as Scandinavian?

Latvian smoked fish is its own tradition, distinct from Scandinavian. The Baltic coast has been producing smoked fish since the Hanseatic League era (1200s), and small fishing villages on the western Kurzeme coast — Roja, Pāvilosta, Ventspils — still operate traditional alder-wood and juniper smokehouses. Try smoked sprats (the classic, served on rye bread with a slice of hard-boiled egg) and smoked eel from Pāvilosta — the latter is the secret luxury most travellers miss, properly rich and woodsmoky, around €30–50/kg at the Riga Central Market fish hall.

What is sklandrausis and where do I try it?

Sklandrausis is a small open-faced rye-pastry tart from the western Kurzeme region, filled with mashed potato topped with sweetened mashed carrot, dusted with caraway, baked until the carrot caramelises slightly. It’s sweet, savoury, and unlike anything else — the recipe is documented from the 17th century and it has EU Protected Designation of Origin status. Look for it at the Riga Central Market or at autumn farmers’ markets. Most travellers have never heard of it; it’s one of the more rewarding things you can try.

Are pelmeņi a Latvian dish?

Honest answer: not exclusively. Pelmeņi are the small meat-filled dumplings eaten across the entire former Soviet space — Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Latvia. They’ve been part of daily Latvian eating for generations and every supermarket sells them frozen, but they’re not uniquely Latvian. The Latvian way to serve them is boiled, with a generous knob of butter, sour cream, dill, salt, and pepper. For something genuinely Latvian, look for kartupeļu pankūkas (potato pancakes) or sklandrausis instead.

What is the Latvian pickle juice tradition?

Every Latvian fridge has a jar of dill-pickled cucumbers, and when the cucumbers are gone, you don’t throw away the brine — you drink it. Two purposes: as a hangover cure (the science actually backs this up — salt, vinegar and lactic acid all help), and as a chaser for vodka in the traditional vodka-pickle-brine sequence. The pickled cucumbers themselves are also the silent partner of every Latvian meal — diced into rasols (the Latvian potato salad), sliced alongside boiled potatoes, eaten whole with smoked fish.

What is karbonāde?

Karbonāde is the Latvian take on schnitzel: pork loin pounded thin, breaded with rye breadcrumbs, fried in butter, served with a creamy chanterelle mushroom sauce, boiled potatoes, and pickled vegetables. The chanterelle sauce matters — proper karbonāde uses real wild chanterelles from Latvian forests (foraged in late summer and autumn), gently fried in butter with shallot and finished with cream and dill. It’s the Sunday lunch of countless Latvian childhoods and the dish to order if a traditional restaurant menu doesn’t make you curious.

What is Riga Black Balsam and how do I drink it?

Riga Black Balsam is the dark, bitter, 45% Latvian herbal liqueur made from a closely-guarded recipe of 24 herbs, roots and spices, in production since 1752. Almost no Latvian drinks it as a room-temperature shot — that’s how tourists get hazed. The proper way: a tablespoon stirred into a glass of hot blackcurrant juice in winter, into hot tea with honey, or over ice with bitter lemon. The blackcurrant version (Black Balsam Currant) is genuinely delicious and what I’d serve any first-time visitor. There’s a Black Balsam museum and tasting bar in Riga’s Old Town.

Where should I eat traditional Latvian food in Riga?

Four honest recommendations: the Riga Central Market for grazing (assemble your own lunch from the smoked fish, cheese, bread, and biezpiens stalls — €15 for two); Lido for traditional Latvian self-service at honest prices (€8–15 per plate, all the classics); Bibliotēka Nº1, Vincents, or 3 Pavāru Restorāns for the modern refined versions of Latvian food (€40–80 per person with wine). Skip the medieval-themed tourist restaurants in the Old Town with costumed staff — the food is mediocre and twice the price.

Is Riga Central Market worth visiting just for the food?

Yes, and it’s the single best food experience in Riga. Five enormous Zeppelin-hangar buildings just south of the Old Town, each dedicated to a category: meat, fish, dairy, vegetables, gastronomy. Go for lunch, walk every hangar, taste freely (most stalls offer samples), and build your own meal. Smoked sprats on rye bread, biezpiens with dill, a piece of smoked cheese, sklandrausis, pickled cucumbers — €15 for two people, the most authentic lunch in Riga. The fish hall is the most photogenic.

What’s the best Latvian dish for a vegetarian?

Plenty of options. Boiled new potatoes with biezpiens, sour cream, and dill is the everyday Latvian summer plate and is naturally vegetarian. Sklandrausis (the rye-and-carrot tart from Kurzeme) is vegetarian. Aukstā zupa (the pink summer soup) is vegetarian. Biezpiena pankūkas (sweet stuffed pancakes) are vegetarian. Most modern Riga restaurants have at least one or two excellent vegetarian Latvian options. The harder challenge is vegan — Latvian food is dairy-heavy, and biezpiens, kefir, and sour cream are everywhere — but it’s doable with planning.

Is Latvian food good for fussy eaters and children?

Yes, mostly. The bread is excellent and unfussy. Boiled potatoes with butter and dill are a safe bet. Karbonāde is essentially a high-quality breaded pork cutlet that any child who likes schnitzel will eat. Sweet biezpiens products (Kārums bars, biezpiena pankūkas with jam) are a hit with kids. The trickier ones are the strongly-flavoured smoked fish, the cold pink kefir soup, and pelēkie zirņi — these are acquired tastes. The Lido self-service restaurants are great with children: they can see and point at what they want, prices are fair, and there are familiar options alongside the traditional ones.

What food souvenirs should I take home from Latvia?

Vacuum-packed rupjmaize from a proper bakery (Lāči or Liepkalni — keeps a week, travels in checked luggage). A bottle of Riga Black Balsam from the duty-free shop. A jar of lingonberry or sea buckthorn jam. Smoked cheese, vacuum-packed. Tinned smoked sprats (the classic Riga Sprats are an iconic gift). If you have a cool bag and you’re flying short-haul, a chunk of Pāvilosta smoked eel is the secret luxury souvenir. Avoid liquid kefir for travel; if you love it, buy a starter culture instead.

Are kvass and beer commonly drunk in Latvia?

Yes to both. Kvass is a slightly alcoholic (around 1%), slightly fizzy, slightly sweet fermented rye-bread drink, sold in bottles in every supermarket and served from bright yellow tanker-trucks parked in city squares throughout July (this is not a joke — look for them). Beer culture is serious here, both mass-market (Aldaris, Cēsu, Užavas — all decent light lagers) and craft (Malduguns from Cēsis, Brūveris in Riga, Valatas in Liepāja). A pint costs €4–6 in most Riga restaurants.

What’s the typical price of a meal in a good Latvian restaurant?

Riga is genuinely good value. A self-service plate at Lido is €8–15. A solid mid-range traditional restaurant dinner is €25–40 with a glass of wine. The modern, refined Latvian restaurants (Bibliotēka Nº1, Vincents, 3 Pavāru) sit at €40–80 per person with wine. A proper tasting menu at the most ambitious end might reach €100+. Compared to Tallinn or Stockholm, you’re paying roughly half. The Riga Central Market is the cheapest option of all — €15 for two people grazing across the food halls.

Which season is best for trying Latvian food?

Honestly, all of them, but for different reasons. Summer (June–August) gives you aukstā zupa, fresh berries, the start of mushroom season, kvass from the yellow trucks, and the freshest dill. Autumn (September–October) is peak foraging — chanterelles, porcini, a dozen others — and you’ll see sklandrausis at the autumn markets. Winter has pelēkie zirņi at the solstice, hot smoked fish from the market, hearty bread soups, and Black Balsam in hot blackcurrant juice. Spring brings new potatoes and the first wild garlic. If forced to pick one, I’d say September: the weather is still warm, the foraging is at its peak, and the Central Market is at its most abundant.

Daiga Taurīte is a licensed Latvian tour guide and co-founder of Barefoot Baltic, which runs small-group day excursions from Riga. She grew up on this food, in Riga, before two decades in London made her appreciate it properly. Barefoot Baltic is licensed by Latvia’s Consumer Rights Protection Centre (PTAC), holds ATD passenger transport licence PS-01995, and is insured by BTA Baltic for civil liability.