Riverside House
Restaurants
By Anatol Steven.
14.11.2013
A restauwith a special location beside the wide and languid River Daugava.
With its rounded edges, porthole designs, circular interior and huge wall painting of a yacht sailing from rough seas toward a calm sunset, this upmarket restaurant on the bank of the Daugava River a few kilometers upstream from Old Riga has the feel of a laidback riverboat. It also has dishes to delight and smart and amiable service. You’ll need a taxi or a car to get here, but it’s an ideal location for a quiet business dinner or a brief romantic getaway.
It can be a little tricky to find, but not if you know it’s in the same building as a flamboyant furniture showroom by the name of Lex Interior – sounds like a mash-up between Superman and The Cramps. The glass-fronted structure is visible as you cruise down the riverside highway in the direction of Daugavpils, shortly after passing the spaghetti road junction of Salu Bridge and a number of posh car showrooms.
If it’s not too cold it’s actually a pleasure to walk. The municipality is upgrading this section of the riverside to make it bike- and pedestrian-friendly. We enjoyed the trek back to the city center after our Riverside House lunch. It took less than 40 minutes.
Menus at Riverside House are in English, Russian and Latvian, with a separate sheet for the business lunch (€10.70). On the day we dropped by the lunchtime choice was essentially tomato-and-fish soup, pumpkin cream soup with crab, or salmon carpaccio to start, followed by pork ribs in a honey-soya sauce, fried plaice fillet, or pasta with mushrooms in a cream sauce, and rounded off with coffee or tea.
The alternative is a bulging broadly international a la carte menu. Among many mouthwatering examples there’s risotto with lobster (€16.80), pan-seared tuna served with celery-saffron puree green beans, dried capers and an olive-almond sauce (€17.70), herb-fried guinea fowl fillet served with stewed apples and vanilla, chestnut puree and creamy cognac sauce (€20.50), and duck baked with porridge and nuts, dark plums stewed in port, red-wine sauce and sundried parsnips (€16.80).
We stuck with the lunch menu and were not disappointed. A basket of homemade bread arrived quickly and a gloved hand changed the cutlery before each course. The fish soup included big chunks of salmon, and the main dish was artistically presented diagonally on a square plate, crisp veggies at either end with two wedges of glazed fatty ribs at the center, all surrounded by painterly splashes of sauce.
This space was a Lex Interior staff canteen for many years. Now it’s clearly a vast improvement, attracting local businesspeople and private parties. The restaurant has its own pier among the boats and jetties outside and boat trips can be organized. Riverside House may be beyond the city center but it’s making as much as it can of its unique location.
