Užkalnis used the right of the vaccinated elite to eat inside Neringa, no longer on the terrace

In addition, after vaccination, the taste of food improves: a happiness chip created by Bill Gates is activated in the brain, and everything begins to look more tasty than it really is.

And seriously, after a crazy time, the historic Neringa Hotel and Restaurant (formerly known as the “Café”) opened, thank goodness for finally giving up on the Soviet craze of calling cafes places where people go to eat. : coffee is like caffeine. or Vero Café, and if people come to Kiev chops, it’s already a restaurant). Their repairs took so long that it seems to me that the last time I was there, I still paid in litas (or maybe in rubles, I don’t remember, the age anyway, the memory is not that anymore). And in Neringa you can eat in the hotel rooms, warm and fun. Anyone can, not just the elite.

The restaurant “Neringa” was opened in 1959, when the leader of the Soviet Union was Nikita Sergejevičius Khrushchev, the main communist of Lithuania was Antanas Sniečkus, from the village of Suvalkia in the district of Šakiai, and there was a Lithuanian-speaking minority in Vilnius Lazdynai anei Karoliniškių.

Just six years after Stalin’s death, there was a warming in the Soviet Union and it seemed like a lot was possible, so the architects designed the interior of the Nasvytis Western restaurant, the first of its kind in the country, and were visited and admired by designers. and architects from across the Soviet Union, he was like a crazy western diamond in a country dominated by barracks, slums, prisons, and postwar ruins. The Lithuanians even got the devil from Moscow, who was given such a luxury, he said, you don’t portray too big bourgeois lords here; There was a scathing article in the Moscow newspaper about how Lithuanians imagined themselves as demigods here. I know how architects felt: I too am often criticized for being jealous of talent and success. “Don’t be a continent, a stork will light up”, the Muscovites would have told our architects if they had known Lithuanian.

Today the restaurant and hotel are fantastically laid out, no compromises, good materials, bright spaces – Lithuania is the West.

In ancient times, Neringa was characterized by the fact that the Nobel laureate poet Josif Brodsky visited there (before being deported from the Soviet Union), and even wrote a poem about this restaurant.

And here were the best Kiev cutlets in Lithuania and in the world (there were no better ones in Moscow or Kiev), until the restaurant and hotel Palanga “Pušų paunksnė” began to make even better, but in my childhood and youth “Neringa” It was the place where we went to the Kiev cutlets and another broth with a pie. Who taught me to walk through restaurants? Parents taught. Otherwise, I would not have become as great a critic as I am now.

Before closing for major repairs, Neringa was distracted – trying out a complicated menu that didn’t suit traditional audiences, and younger visitors didn’t go there because they thought there was still a place for mothballs and dahlias listening to concerts and drinking Georgian sweet syrup. instead of wine, an even sweeter mousse with a plastic stopper instead of champagne.

Now the menu has been straightened and optimized: since the past, there have been no befstrogen, the aforementioned broth with a Kiev pie and chop, everything we’ve tried, and some modern dishes like beef tartare. I like this idea: “Neringa” is about Kiev chops, there are and there will be, so it should be positioned.

Let’s start with our baking bread. Bad restaurants do not have delicious bread, and if the bread is baked carefully and you want to try it as a dish, it means that the restaurant will be good. This is the Užkalnis rule, which is almost 100 percent. precise. Here they wanted to eat bread as a plate.

The broth was classic, clear, fragrant, presented in the same dishes as in my childhood, and the cake was also successfully teleported from the past (in a good way) – juicy, smooth, and a bit shiny from the edges.

The tartar was finely chopped, also very classic, and garnishes (onions, capers) were served on the side to mix to your liking, and the broccoli bread (also for baking) was a good sign of modern times. In Soviet gastronomy, brioche bread was not present, like kiwis or sushi.

Beefstrogen was very creamy, and an exact reminder of Neringa’s time, a dish that came from 19th century Russia (Beef Stroganoff, named after the Stroganov dynasty of the richest Russian businessmen and industrialists, only whose last name in French seems more continental) and lived during the Soviet era., it is basically finely minced beef stewed in sour cream and roux sauce (meat broth). At that time the flavor would have been more intense, and here the fries were great, not inferior to McDonald’s, not oily, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The salad left no impression, as if he were out of the office.

The Kiev cutlet was not in the dice (unfortunately), but it was not in the dice cutlet and in my childhood. The uphill way to eat Kiev is to cut a well and soak the white bread in liquid butter. And just when the butter is completely absorbed, I slice the chicken. This is my invention, as far as I know, no one else has invented this. The mashed potatoes was a mediocre but dated side dish that I chose: carrots, peas, and plums from the bitch compote right into the crotch of the story. Very determined and true childhood feelings. She wanted to hug and kiss the waitress Viktor, but he might not have liked it. Also, it is not possible according to epidemiological requirements.

We also chose desserts from a repertoire of nostalgia: Napoleon (whom I hated as a child because it was always offered to me by a relative who did it bad, greasy and too sweet) was neither too sweet nor too greasy, and was still perfectly tinted with jams sour; and Medutis, my favorite Lithuanian cake and mourning and baptism smash hit, was moist and not frozen in moderation. We are satisfied and happy.

We paid 93 EUR for everything, we left another tip of 10 EUR (not visible on the check).

I can say: “Neringa” is back, if not with a bang, but with her head high, solid and dignified. Four out of five geese.

Neringa, avda Gedimino. 23, Vilnius. Tel. +370 5 261 4058. Website: https://www.neringavilnius.com

Ask about business hours by phone.