MEKK

MEKK has been dictating Estonian culinary trends ever since chefs started making concerted efforts to update our traditional cuisine. For the longest time, novel fashions were expressed in new techniques. After that came the notion of fusing local and strange, exotic flavors. Today, chefs can hardly function on their own, as being innovation means developing new products and dishes in partnership with local farmers.

MEKK shines at its brightest when you put away the menu and ask what they’ve been up to with the Kolotsi and Hõbekala farms. What are they currently developing and with whom? The Kolotsi farm goat cheese cream, soft and luscious, showcases how different goat- and cow cheeses really are.

If you prefer to steer clear of forward-thinking creations, you’d do well to try the traditional, clear fish soup in a less-than-traditional arrangement. The soup brings together smoked eel, zander, cod liver and trout roe, along with parsley root, coriander and quail egg. Fish soup only becomes uhhaa (that is: fish soup made at home by the fishermen themselves) with the addition of a shot of vodka. At MEKK, this means a shot of birch juice-infused hootch.