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Bites Blues Club
Bars
By Anatol Steven.
12.02.2014
Enter the fantastic new digs at Bites Blues Club on a night with a live performance and you’ll be hit by a magnetic atmosphere.
Join the throng of attractive young and not-so-young people surrounding a dramatically illuminated stage, which dominates both the floor and a horseshoe-shaped balcony. TV screens add to the intensity of the experience by showing singer and band.
If there’s no live music on the night you visit, the screens broadcast a steady flow of jazz and blues concerts and dance films. The Latvian and US flags are displayed behind the permanent fixture of the drum kit, and countless framed photos of musicians adorn the club’s walls. So you don’t have to worry about your coat, a cloakroom is by the entrance door.
Bites Blues Club recently relocated from its longstanding location at the far end of Dzirnavu Street to these bigger, much more prominent and central premises immediately behind the towering Radisson Blu Hotel Latvija.
Artists who have already played the new venue include larger-than-life US bluesman Big Daddy Wilson and the raunchy Chicago-born blues diva Angela Brown. Toe-tapping local bands are regulars on this stage, among them the Latvian Blues Band, the Bites Blues Band and Coolman Report.
The club opens at 9am for breakfasts – eggs, porridge and the like – and from noon until 3pm serves a set lunch for €5 that might include, say, a delicious pumpkin soup or a salad with sprouting seeds and seasonal veg followed by penne pasta with chicken and bacon cream sauce or butter-fried hake fillet and mashed potatoes and apple salad. The price includes fresh bread and water.
Favorites on the a la carte menu include grills – rib-eye steak (€15.40), lamb, chicken, salmon, zander, etc. – and mains such as the house burger with homemade fries (€8.30) and smoked pork shank with mash, onion jelly, veg and three types of sauces (€14).
There are easily manageable snack plates if you’re in company and a range of reasonably priced starters, salads, soups and desserts like pumpkin cake and warm apple pie with ice cream.
Bites Blues Club is the only proper blues joint this side of Helsinki – the owners were recently approached to set one up in Tallinn. Sometimes there’s also jazz and a little bit of rock, and most of the patrons are 30-somethings.
Reserve one of the candlelit tables and splurge on a bottle of decent wine while enjoying the music, or head upstairs and just grab a stool for a great view. The lighting creates a thousand types of effects. In one corner you can screen off the rest of the crowd for a private party of 30 or 40 people, and there’s even a small conference room for up to 15 people with TV screen and waitress on call.
The club’s popular with politicos, artists, couples and singles, all mingling in a party atmosphere, and all with a shared common interest – a passion for the blues.
