Some time ago, I visited Tallinn. In this lovely little town, you will find some lots of restaurants, including Art Priori. As is the case in other cities, some restaurants are located in a hotel where others are….. well, not. The restaurant we will tell you about in this post is not located in a hotel and can be found in the northern part of the historic city centre. When you enter the restaurant, you’ll be greeted by staff, who (at first glance) seem very friendly and ready to facilitate an evening of fine dining.
Looking around, the city’s old charm is extended into this building. It feels a bit like an old church, which in no way is intended as a complaint or anything. The beautiful high ceiling is decorated with nice little lamps that I am sure would resemble stars if the lamps directed at the paintings would not be so very bright. The paintings on the walls do fit in with the setting in this historic building in an old town. One of these paintings hangs on a small balcony, and this balcony (which I really do like) is one of the things making it feel a bit like a church.
The restaurant did not offer any set menus. Where this is my preferred choice when available, today I will simply select what appeals to me. Since I do have a couple of food allergies, the bottom line on the menu suggests that the waiter can help. Well, the menu lied to me. Telling the waiter what the allergies are, as a guest you hope that the reply is which dishes are best avoided. It worked a slightly different here, as all I was told is that I needed to carefully read the menu and not select any dishes were allergens are mentioned. Hoping for the best, I selected some caviar to kick off the evening, then whitefish tartare, grilled venison and almond ice cream.
As the evening progresses, it would turn out that the food is pretty good. It was seasoned well and nicely presented. Another plus was that it wasn’t presented and flavoured the same as we see in western Europe. Honestly, the only negative thing I can say about the food is that the tartare was a little too cold to my liking. Having said that, the flavours were there and it really is just a personal preference. Coming back to the positive, the prices are very reasonable.
Good as the food was, the service was not meeting expectations at all. Staff seemed pre-occupied and was paying more attention to their phones than the (few) guests that were having dinner. Result was a very slow service and on two ocassions I even had to walk to them to request service. It wasn’t that they were not friendly when at the table, but they just were not attentive and were not paying attention to their guests. Of course I have sent the restaurant an email to raise this issue, but even though it has been a while since my visit, the restaurant has not responded.
The visit left me with mixed feelings about this restaurant. Service does really require attention and I really do hope to notice significant improvements if or when I visit again. The dinner here cost me around EUR 150 (excluding drinks). If you’re not willing to spend that much, leaving out the caviar means you’ll spend only half this amount. The food was definitely good enough, and the price you pay for the food makes it good value-for-money.
