Caviar Club
Restaurants
By Anatol Steven.
11.12.2013
Whether it’s the height of summer or the depths of winter, a number of restaurants in the sandy – or snowy – beach resort of Jurmala are working all year round. Rounded off with an expertly created meal and fine wine, an evening can end perfectly.
One of Jurmala’s best dining experiences, we discovered recently, is the five-course tasting menu (€35 per person, or €56 with a glass of wine for each course) at the upmarket Baltic Beach Hotel’s Caviar Club restaurant. Guests and non-guests alike are free to walk in and sample its culinary delights and panoramic sea view.
The tasting menu is an alternative to the a la carte menu, whose signature dishes range from Queen scallop carpaccio with capelin roe and wasabi (€14) to 28 grams of Mottra black caviar served with steamed asparagus and eggs Benedict (€114).
Visitors occasionally take advantage of the coastal location to order the “royal seafood plate”, featuring pan-seared scallops, tiger prawns, salmon caviar, green and black mussels, fresh shrimps, oysters, calamari and mini-octopus (€157).
We didn’t feel quite that rich tonight. But, like the above feast, the tasting menu shows off the versatile skills of resident executive chef Kristaps Jokmanis – the first chef in Latvia to attend the exclusive hospitality and restaurant school Institut Paul Bocuse in France.
Kristaps cut his teeth at the legendary Otto Schwarz, once revered as the best restaurant in Riga. Today he concentrates on Caviar Club’s contemporary Mediterranean cuisine, blending in the finest ingredients from Latvia’s gardens, forests and fields.
We launched into the tasting menu with the first dish – beetroot layered with Philadelphia cheese, walnuts and green asparagus. The wine poured to accompany this juicily healthy tumble of favors was Calinda, a fruity and aromatic white from Spain’s sandy soils.
Next up was a thick pumpkin cream soup with a big, soft, crisp tiger shrimp and a mouthwatering ball of goats’ cheese. The homemade breads brought to the table – rye with seeds, cheese muffins, dill buns – were perfect to break with this, and a glass of floral Grand Noir chardonnay-voignier from Languedoc soothed the palate.
Duck confit, a specialty of Gascony, was next on the table served with glazed chestnuts and braised red cabbage. The gently cured, slow-cooked duck’s leg tasted heavenly – especially together with a glass of deep plum-red Delas St Esprit rouge from Cotes du Rhone.
Now the smartly dressed waiter brought in a wedge of lightly glazed salmon filet bathed in a pungent lobster tail sauce and served with a dash of parsnip puree. With that the wine of the night was poured – a glass of Louis Jadot Chardonnay, a bright, refreshing, appley and citrusy Bourgogne blanc.
Rounding off this extraordinary meal was (complete with a fresh-tasting strawberry) a mini crème brûlée, the glazed top of which was cracked while swilling a delicious sweet wine, Prince de St Aubin from Sauternes. The waiter assured us of the high quality of this dessert wine, but by this time its undoubtedly delicate flavors were going a little bit astray. The memory of such a magnificent meal, however, will last for some time.
