Most visitors to Riga treat the city like a stopover. They walk the Old Town, photograph the House of Blackheads, and catch the next bus to Tallinn or Vilnius. This is a mistake. Riga has the best food scene in the Baltics, and it is not even close. The city combines Soviet-era practicality with medieval tradition and a growing New Nordic sensibility, all at prices that make Copenhagen weep.
Start at Riga Central Market. It sits inside five former Zeppelin hangars on the Daugava River, and it is one of the largest markets in Europe. The hangars date from the 1920s, when Latvia used them for airships. Now they hold smoked fish, caraway cheese, dark rye bread, and pickled everything. Nēģu iela 7. Open daily 7:30 AM to 6 PM, though many stalls close by 4 PM on Sundays. The fish hall is the strongest. Smoked eel, sprats, and salmon line the counters, priced by weight. A 200-gram portion of cold-smoked salmon costs around €4. The dairy hall sells Jāņi cheese, a fresh caraway-flecked cheese made for the midsummer festival but available year-round. It is mild, slightly sour, and best eaten with rye bread. The bread itself matters here. Latvian rupjmaize is a dense, dark rye loaf that stays moist for days. Buy a half-loaf at the market for €1.50 and carry it with you.
For a sit-down meal that does not perform for tourists, go to Folkklubs Ala Pagrabs at Peldu iela 19. It is in a 13th-century cellar with vaulted brick ceilings and wooden benches. The Latvian meatballs are the thing to order, served with potatoes and a lingonberry sauce that cuts the richness. The rye bread pudding is dense, sweetened with honey, and better than it sounds. If you are feeling brave, ask for the horseradish moonshine. It clears the sinuses and establishes trust with the server. Main courses run €8 to €14. The kitchen closes at 10 PM, but the bar stays open until midnight on weekends and fills with locals singing folk songs.
LIDO is a chain, and normally that is reason enough to skip it. But LIDO is different. It is a self-service buffet with over thirty locations in Riga, and it serves the food Latvian grandmothers actually make. The original location on Krasta iela is the best. You take a tray and choose from grey peas with bacon, pork cutlets, sauerkraut, and pumpkin soup. The grey peas are the national dish. They are small, firm peas cooked with diced bacon and onion, served with a glass of kefir. The combination is heavy, salty, and strangely satisfying on a cold day. A full plate costs €6 to €9. LIDO is not refined, but it is honest, and it gives you a baseline for understanding everything else you will eat in Latvia.
Rozengrāls, on Rozena iela in the Old Town, is the opposite approach. It is a medieval-themed restaurant in a 13th-century cellar, lit by candles, with waiters in period costume. Normally this would be a tourist trap. But the kitchen uses original medieval recipes, and the execution is serious. The braised rabbit with prunes and pine nuts is slow-cooked until the meat falls apart. The skewered pork is marinated in honey and mustard, then grilled over an open flame. Prices are higher here, €15 to €25 for mains, but the setting and the food justify it. Reserve ahead in summer.
Riga Black Balsam is the drink you cannot avoid, and you should not want to. It is a bitter herbal liqueur first produced in 1752, made from a recipe that includes ginger, oak bark, and linden blossom. The original version is 45% alcohol and tastes like medicine in the best way. You can drink it straight, but locals mix it with blackcurrant juice or coffee. The Black Magic Café at Kaļķu iela 10 serves balsam-infused coffee and handmade chocolates in a candlelit room that feels like an apothecary. It is theatrical, but the coffee is good, and the chocolates filled with balsam ganache are worth the €4 price.
For something more contemporary, the Michelin Guide arrived in Latvia in 2023, and Riga now holds two one-star restaurants and five Bib Gourmands. Milda, on Muitas iela, is a Bib Gourmand worth seeking out. It serves modern Latvian cuisine with Baltic Sea produce. The herring tartare with pickled cucumber and sour cream is precise and clean, the kind of dish that explains why New Nordic influence has traveled south. A three-course dinner costs around €40 without wine. Shōyu, also Bib Gourmand, is a Japanese-Latvian fusion restaurant on Dzirnavu iela that works better than it should. The smoked Latvian salmon nigiri is the standout. Snatch, on Blaumaņa iela, is a wine bar with small plates that has become the default recommendation for locals who want to eat well without ceremony.
SMØR Bistro, newly awarded a Bib Gourmand for 2026, sits just below street level on Antonijas iela. It serves open smørrebrød sandwiches at lunch and sharing plates like whole turbot in the evening. The terracotta interior and marble tables make it feel more Copenhagen than Riga, but the prices are firmly Baltic. A smørrebrød with pickled herring and egg costs €7.
Breakfast in Riga is a quiet affair. Parunāsim kafe'teeka, at Mazā Pils iela 4, is a tiny café in a courtyard near the Dome Cathedral. It serves honey cake, cinnamon rolls, and strong filter coffee. The honey cake is the draw, a layered sponge with sour cream and honey that improves as it sits. Arrive before 10 AM to get a table. For a quicker start, Big Bad Bagels on Baznīcas iela 8 does proper boiled bagels with salmon and cream cheese, or bacon and egg, for under €6.
The pastry you will see everywhere is piragi, a small crescent-shaped bread roll filled with bacon and onion. It is sold at bakeries, train stations, and airport cafés. The best version comes from Laima, the chocolate company that has operated in Riga since the 1870s. Their café on Brīvības bulvāris sells piragi for €1.20 and chocolate-coated raspberries that are gone in minutes.
For beer, Latvia has a growing craft scene. Labietis, on Aristida Briāna iela, brews on-site and serves experimental ales in a converted warehouse. The hemp beer is interesting, the rye ale is better. A pint costs €4. Ārpus Brewing, also on Aristida Briāna iela nearby, focuses on New England IPAs and sour beers. They do not serve food, but they allow you to bring in LIDO or market purchases. Latvian commercial beers are less exciting. Aldaris and Cēsu are the big brands, drinkable but indistinct. Stick to the craft bars.
What to skip: The restaurants on Jauniela in the Old Town that advertise "traditional Latvian cuisine" in five languages with photos on the menu. They are overpriced and underseasoned. The Russian restaurants near the market that rely on nostalgia rather than technique. And any bar claiming to serve "authentic Riga Black Balsam cocktails" that are just watered-down mixes designed for bachelor parties.
Riga is best visited in late spring or early autumn. Summer brings crowds and higher prices. Winter is brutal but atmospheric, and the heavy food makes more sense at -10°C. The Central Market is less crowded on weekday mornings. Folkklubs fills up after 8 PM. SMØR does not take reservations for lunch, so arrive at noon. Most restaurants accept cards, but the market stalls and some bakeries are cash-only. A single euro is usually enough to get started.
If you leave Riga without trying grey peas with bacon, without drinking Black Balsam in a cellar, without carrying a loaf of rye bread onto your next bus, you have not been to Riga. You have just changed buses in a pretty town.
By Sophie Brennan
Irish food writer and historian based in Lisbon. Sophie combines her background in medieval history with a passion for contemporary gastronomy. She has written for Condé Nast Traveller and authored two cookbooks exploring Celtic and Iberian culinary traditions.