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A dining experience
to remember
Superb dining can be enjoyed and
remembered at Desiderata, a richly decorated restaurant at the five-star Royal
Square Hotel & Suites. Indisputably
Michelin-standard cuisine and service
await customers, who will certainly
return home with their visit here as one
of their treasured experiences of Riga.
Desiderata is situated in a spacious
cellar beneath the hotel, and atmosphere pervades the restaurant at every
level. Guests are surrounded by delicate glass ornaments and expensive
furniture fit for royalty. Pristine and polished in every corner, the interior boasts
genteel tableware, exquisite cutlery,
white tablecloths and freshly ironed
serviettes. Great care is taken to delight
the senses.
It’s easy to imagine that the cellar’s rugged 16th-century walls perhaps
once protected a merchant’s prized
wines. On the way to their table, guests
are able to see the centuries-old feature
of a water well, now beautifully and
carefully preserved under glass. On
occasion, the sophisticated setting is
perfected by live music from a gently
tinkling piano, light jazz musicians and
a talented female singer.
The impeccable, highly attentive
service cannot be faulted. The knowledgeable waitresses and waiters can
describe each dish and make recommendations according to your tastes, as
well as pointing out the perfect wine or
beverage to accompany your meal.
Desiderata’s experienced and
award-winning chef Mâris Astiès is a
rising star. He manages to make every
dish a memorable mini-masterpiece.
Even the bread, which is brought to
the table in a basket before the meal,
is perfectly home-baked using olives,
carrots and seeds, and there is a
choice of butter blended using ruccola
or sundried tomatoes.
Mâris has just created the restaurant’s new wintertime menu, which
puts a fine accent on
fresh local ingredients.
Desiderata at the Royal
The emphasis is on
Square Hotel & Suites – Kaïíu
innovative and mod3a, tel. +371 67214555, mob.
ern European cuisine,
+371 22006601, restaurant@
which, given the stanroyalsquare.lv, www.royalsquare.
lv. Open daily 12:00-24:00.
dard, is surprisingly
not expensive.
There are too many standouts on
the menu to mention them all. One
of the superior appetizers is the panfried goose fois gras served with
apple purée, cranberry jelly, shallots
and velouté sauce. However, a vegetarian option that combines whipped
goat cheese from the Latvian region
of Madona with pine-nut tuile, garden
cress, fresh vegetables and herb oil
should also not be missed.
Some dishes that have been popular
on previous menus can also be specially requested if they are available,
such as a wonderful appetizer that
features succulent duck breast smoked
in Mâris’ very own handmade smoking
box, lusciously combined with blueveined cheese, a sweet cherry sauce
and lettuce leaves.
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Among the main dishes, try the sublime fillet of
local pike-perch with truffled
green-pea purée, legumes
and a dazzling crayfish whitewine sauce. Mâris is a well-known
presence at Riga Central Market,
which he visits every morning to secure the best
and freshest produce,
including meat and
fish.
Desiderata’s
desserts
are
equally amazing.
The eight-texture
chocolate
cake
with banana cream
and peppermint oil,
doused at the table in
a hot chocolate sauce,
has to be experienced to be
believed. The sauce melts a layer of
crisp chocolate on top, creating
a hole in the center, the liquid chocolate then flooding
over a selection of fresh
berries.
Suitably, this cake will
be the principal dessert
at Desiderata’s carefully
planned New Year celebration this year – the
climax of a specially composed seven-course menu.
Contact the restaurant to
book a table on this or any other
evening. Awarded “Best Restaurant in
Latvia 2010”, Desiderata never fails to
delight its guests.