The best Baltic herring dishes have been chosen

November was Baltic herring month in fifteen Estonian restaurants. At the end of the month, food critics from Finland, Sweden, Russia and Latvia had been invited over in order to pick out the best Baltic herring dishes together with their Estonian colleagues.

The Baltic herring isn’t an easy fish to cook. It takes a lot of time, handiwork, skills and knowledge before it becomes a dish that tastes and looks good. And often it doesn’t – the Baltic herring is that picky a fish.

The cooks’ imagination lit up while preparing the herring dishes. It travelled both back and forth in time, visited the neighbours as well as more distant countries. Once the judges’ points were tallied, it turned out that the five best dishes were completely different. But at the same time they complement each other so marvellously that they could easily be put together in one menu.

In order to taste that menu, you would have to go on a small food tour that should start with an appetizer at the Ö restaurant. This small bite did not quite qualify because the contest was meant for dishes. But several judges considered this treat to be a remarkably good introduction to the Baltic herring.

No need to leave the Ö restaurant in order to continue with the tour. The symbolic menu of the five best herring dishes also had room for their hors d’ouvre – fresh cucumber slices with slightly pickled fresh Baltic herrings.

The taste and looks of that dish made such an impression on the judges that some of the comments bordered on poetry.

Fresh, like spring water. A dish full of aromas and tastes of the sea (Maria Pirogovskaya, Russia).

In order to enjoy the next dish, you will have to walk a few hundred meters to the main square of the Rotermanni quarter, to the Platz restaurant. The herring’s journey, however, has been significantly longer. The chef of Platz, who comes from the island of Sardinia, has served it while bearing in mind the customs of his homeland.

The Mediterranean Baltic herring mille-feuille consists of bruschettas with lightly pickled herrings placed on top of each other, with added freshness by hashed tomatoes and green salad.

A fun and peculiar dish that shows that the Baltic herring is capable of competing with Mediterranean delicacies (Mattias Kroon, Sweden).

Really fresh and “youthful”, looks even “cheery”. There’s something international about this dish that makes it comprehensible for different food cultures. (Sakari Nupponen, Finland).

After that, you will need to head from the square in modern Tallinn to the square in the Old Town – the Kaerajaan restaurant in the Town Hall Square. This is where roasted Baltic herrings on rye bread with thyme, salted cucumber and crème fraîche await.
Fittingly for the historical location, there has been no adventuring abroad here. The food is genuinely – compared to the dishes so far, even fundamentally – Estonian.

The only “good old” taste of the Baltic herring out of all the dishes tried here. Honest and tasty, this is what the Baltic herring is like (Stefan Wettainen, Sweden).

The next stop, restaurant Nero in Tallink Spa Hotel has also created a dish that lives up to the location. A harbour is a gateway to the rest of the world. Even Japan. Its traditional dishes include tempura, among other things. Is it possible to make tempura out of Baltic herring? Of course it is! For example – Baltic herring tempura with asparagus and wasabi foam.

Pure taste of fish in a crispy batter, well pickled vegetables (Kenneth Nars, Finland).

Slightly sour vegetables with well-fried fish in a crispy fluffy coat, an incredible combination (Jers Linder, Sweden).

And in order to come full circle, we need to return to restaurant Ö to have the main course – fried Baltic herrings with veal, Jerusalem artichokes, herbs, chanterelle velouté sauce, a drop of dill oil and pickles.

As you can see, a good imagination and skilful hands can turn a simple herring into incredible dishes. Evaluating those dishes was not an easy task. Sometimes the incomparable had to be compared. If the judges would have had to reach a consensus in naming the five best dishes, they would still be working on it.

Deciding who the best is by counting the judges’ points is a merciless system that dryly and often undeservedly leaves those without attention who were just one point short.

But you do not enter a competition in order to worry about those who do not win. The best five dishes of the Baltic herring month are:


The three restaurants that gained the most points were: Ö, Nero and Platz.