'Moon' - Estonian food with a (hi)story

What is the typical Estonian cuisine? I often get asked upon accidentally dropping my place of origin, a tiny country an hour's ferry drive from Helsinki, with history and pride that stretch its petite body. Most Europeans these days have the vague notion that Estonia is an Eastern-European county, and so associations with dumplings (true), borsch (true) and lots of vodka (sort of true) follow. Ask a Russian, and he'll probably say it is mulgikapsad, an Estonia version of Polish bigos, a stew of sauerkraut and meat (sort of true) and a curious combination of herring and cottage cheese (I am yet to sample).

'The essence of Estonian cuisine is in its numerous, small islands, which, because of their remoteness have been less affected by centuries of occupation: sturdy vegetables, plentiful fish, forest goods:

Roman Zaštšerinski explains to me, an award-winning chef who has recently opened his own restaurant 'Moon' (pronounced as mo-hon, meaning a poppy in Estonian) in a humble but hip area of Kalamaja, right next to Tallinn harbour. This 'family' kohvik (a cafe that serves food, not just snacks), follows the mantra so often overused in the UK - fresh, local, seasonal - but that seems so refreshingly novel in Tallinn, especially when combined with Roman's restraint creativity.

Recently opened Moon restaurant:
(from left to right) Igor Andrejev (chef), Roman (chef and owner) and Jana Zaštšerinski (owner and sommelier)

Roman and I, together with his wife, Jana Zaštšerinski, the co-owner and the laid-back sommelier, are sitting in one of Moon's rooms, a few minutes before it opens for a busy lunch service. It is hot and blindly sunny outside, and the airy room full of light wood feels even lighter; in fact, the place feels like a good gastro-pub, with its sturdy furniture and un-fussy cutlery. Both owners are impossibly young, already with an impressive track record (Roman's been named the best Chef by Gastronomy Society of Estonia, and is a chef-de-cuisine of one of the top Tallinn restaurants Ö). They are relaxed, confident with firm hand-shakes. Roman smiles sincerely and asks straight away to address them informally with 'ty' (an informal version of 'you'). Even if only for 10 minutes, their attention was undividedly mine.

I am curious what they think about the 'real' Estonian food - is it disappearing with Estonian burgeoning encounter with the EU and people's slow but steady financial independence?

Jana animatedly reassures me that on the contrary, a lot of young people are increasingly interested in grow-your-own, dachas, shopping at farmers' markets. In fact, she half-smiles, it is more her mother's generation that scorned the markets - those caught in between the Soviet collectivism and modern-day yearning to return to 'one's roots'. Jana dreamily tells me how she remembers having to collect podorozniki (weed with lots of healing properties, growing in abundance by the side of roads) as part of her summer school tasks. She is planning to get Moon's staff to do similar things whilst the restaurant is closed in July...

Estonian forests - full of edible goodies, used in Moon's kitchen

What did they want to achieve with opening their own place, I wonder, after all it is so much simpler than Roman's previous haute-couture ventures.

'It's all about the ingredients and simplicity':

Roman explains. Moon uses a heck of a lot of semi-obscure Estonian berries (such as chokeberry, lingonberry) and they work with several local producers on sourcing produce. Fish comes from the fish market literally down the road. To a foodie Brit this sounds so familiar, but at the same time my heart was melting under Estonian's curiously hot sun - re-connecting people with food that has history does a better job than any commission on ethnic diversity...

Inside of Moon

Who comes here? Roman explains that at the very beginning it was mainly Estonians who were frequenting Moon, but these days it is both Russians and Estonians, as well a few wondering Finns and Swedes.

As the restaurant started to fill in for lunch, I saw quite a few robust young men, on their own or accompanied by pretty but professional looking young women.

Men who earn enough to afford a nice lunch out, but not too much to have to bear a suit and a tie.

The class is a better unifier in modern Estonia it seems, which is soothing to my battered Russian heart; and at Moon it is the young, professional, well-educated.

To me Roman and Jana are the symbols of this who-gives- the fuck- about-your-'nationality' attitude: Roman being a Rus, Jana being Estonian, speaking effortlessly both languages (and English of course), transcending any seeming language and nationality barriers blindly - in a good way. The banter in the restaurant amongst the owners, their funky young stuff and the punters is an intermingle of languages. Estonia is finally embracing rather than stuffing its cosmopolitanism. I left hopeful – and very full.

So what about the food?

It is wholesome, inventive, young-spirited. It's good.

Home-made bread at Moon

Roman with his worldy experience, manages to combine European influences with Estonian eccentricities, resulting in such dishes such as Orsotto (risotto made out of barley, grown widely in Estonia) with roasted beetroot and goat cheese. Hating barley from my Soviet kindergarden days, the grain has been resurrected with the addition of earthy vegetables, spicy olive oil and a fun addition of garlic breadcrumbs on top. Clever and delicious.

Orsotto with roasted beetroot and goat cheese

There are a few squarely Russian dishes on the menu, with meaningful tweaks; such as these pickled (salted marinade, with just a bit of sugar) cucumbers, served with sourcream and honey. A revelation.

Pickled cucumbers with honey and sour cream

More classic offerings are the Siberian pelmeni, dumplings served in wild mushroom bouillon - delicate (a young pigglet?) pork flavour with intense aroma of mushrooms, and Borsch made with beef stock - that NamiNami specifically recommended to me. I would have loved to try Boeuf a la tartar with spicy Adzika (hot Georgian paste).

Desserts also borrow from native lands, with such creations as Napoleon (classic Soviet mille-feuille cake) with lingonberry's jam. I went for an alcoholic closing - home-made liqueur from black chokeberry (Aronia). Dark, strong, yet refreshing.

Go.

Moon Kohvik. address Võrgu 3, Tallinn 10415. Tel: + 372 6 314 575.

A 3-course dinner for two, including drinks and service is around EEK600-700, or £35.

The importance of pig trotters

To perform this delicate operation one must use a special metal device that is long and slim, and is shaped as a double-edge fork. One uses one side of the apparatus with its two prongs to insert it carefully into the opening of the bone and lift up the thick fluid inside. Then, with the other side of the tool that has a shallow spoon-like ending, begin to remove the substance inside, making sure not to break the fragile internal walls of the bone. One should then pick up the griddled slice of bread and spread this milky-grey matter onto the toast, sprinkle it with a few large grains of sea salt and some parsley leaves. Put the prepared slice in your mouth and savour the rich flavour...

The taste of the bone marrow, even without all the add-ons, is that of delicious and savoury…fat. A milder, runnier version, perfect to add to your Sunday morning scrambled eggs or mix in with some boiled new potatoes. We had the marrow as a starter: four vertically standing stubs of the bone brought in spectacularly from an open-plan kitchen. This visually slightly unsettling and gustatory reassuring dish was a telling beginning of a very memorable dinner to follow.

When Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver opened ‘St John’ on the premises of the former smokehouse in the City of London in 1994, their idea of ‘nose to tail’ eating was pre-revolutionary really. The ethos of eating every bit of an animal had come long before it became somewhat of a norm amongst the British foody folk. But the restaurant quickly became a sensation and acquired a half-legendary reputation over the years. 'St John' is situated around the corner from London's Smithfield Market, the old meat market that has existed in the area in various forms for over 800 years. 'St John's proximity to this carnivorous centre is not a coincidence, but, one really feels, its raison d’etre. Smithfield is a very fitting setting for a restaurant that values an animal's flesh and bones in its entirety and is not afraid to offer such delicacies as lamb tongues and pork chitterlings in the same confident fashion as a workers’ caf supplies bacon and eggs.

Before entering the restaurant we wondered around the market. It was a very quiet Sunday morning, and so only a few estranged tourists were around. An empty carcass of this centuries-old market with its high-ceilinged arch reminded us of its bloody history of executions of heretics and political opponents. Smithfield is one of the oldest markets in London and one of the few not to have moved from its central site to a location further out. The cold aired walk and the voluptuous poster images of meat and plump wives on sale (apparently a normal activity in England in the Middle Ages) made us even hungrier, and so we turned into a small road with a sign of a pig above the door.

'St John' first appeared to us as a cosy production unit: the walls are white washed, the floors are wooden and pale, and an enormous bread oven is the first thing you see. We then went into a spacious room simply decorated with white-clothed tables and – a relieve after the Sunday emptiness of the streets – many chewing customers. A charming young waiter elegantly crouched down by our table to answer our questions: what is a Berkenwell (a type of cheese); how do you serve your Mince and Tatties (a baked potato with the meat sauce poured over it); what wine will go with my order of Bone Marrow and Parsley salad (Le Clos Domaine Boudau ’07 – lots of red berries and spice). Our second starter was a Rolled Pig Spleen and Bacon which came as a thin pate-like slice served with red onions, tiny gherkins and red vinegar. We both agreed that the combination of the liver-esque pate with a crunchy bacon was a very promising beginning to the meal. They say the quality of the bread a restaurant serves is a good indicator of what’s to come. Well, the chunks (and they were chunks and not slices) of big pored, crusty soughdough, white and wholemeal, we devoured with some comforting butter, set our expectations very high. But we were wrong…

The dishes to follow were even better than we had anticipated. As a main course I had a Grouse served on its own, just with some properly made bread sauce on a side. This plump Scottish bird, known to the majority by its complainty association, should be very happy knowing that its wild life ended merrily on our plates with flesh still bloody and taste so intense that its £27 price tag seemed like a very fair deal. Jonathan said the taste of the bird reminded him of both sea fish and grass-fed lamb. Not a very appetizing description I admit, but the grouse’s meat does have that iodine, fresh flavour. If you like the gamey taste at all, the grouse is the most concentrated version you can get.

Our second dish was an almost too normal in this setting - Roast Beef with Horseradish and Shallots. The two thick slivers of pink beef were everything that a standard pub equivalent isn’t – juicy, lots of real cow flavour, tasty. The horseradish was so much more radishy than creamy that my Russian tastebuds went into overdrive and so I ate all the remaining relish with the remaining bread. The side dish of sprouting tops, bitter with copious amounts of butter, was so good that we thought to come back the next day just to have them for lunch.

By the time the puddings came we felt greedy and even more adventurous. The waiter slightly lost his chilled composure on receiving our order, big enough for four. My favourite plate was an Eccles Cake with Lancashire cheese. I was curious about this unusual combination and was rewarded for my interest: the cake with its flaky pastry and a rich filling of spicy raisins matched perfectly the mild, crumbly and ever so slightly sour cheese. The second dessert of the Burned Cream Ice Cream had a divine textural combination: velvety ice cream and crunchy warm pieces of caramel. The best pud came annoyingly last just as we started loosing our determination: the Steamed Treacle Sponge Сake (for two!), all butter and sugar, was so light and syrapy that we just sat there smacking our lips, going slowly but steadily through the whole dish, pouring more and more of the warm custard. We were full and happy. We knew we would be back.

'St John' is a rare find – a restaurant that manages to be so effortlessly unpretentious, and at the same time so elegant and self-assured. The short menu that only lists the main ingredients of each dish means that you order the food and not the intricacies of its preparation. This restaurant knows its value (eg the Christmas party arrangements firmly discourages festive paraphernalia from the tables), but does not brag about it. There is no music in the restaurant and waiters talk to you with the knowledge that comes from not just loving the food they serve, but from having detailed understanding of the processes involved and what this information means to you, the customer. We want to come back to try every single dish on the daily changing menu (Snail, Sausage & Chick Pea? Faggot aqnd Celeriac? Fig Bakewell Tart?). Oh, and we will be back because having the whole roasted suckling pig seems like a fabulous idea to celebrate my entry into the next decade!