Polpo

Every town has a “restaurant street”. That is: a street with a disproportionately large number of food and drink establishments jockeying for customers. In Tartu, it’s Rüütli Street, or Knight Street.

The name is apropos as Tartu’s restaurant scene used to be chivalrously faithful to dull, staid monotony. The last two years, however, have witnessed a real awakening. The entire street has changed.

Now, new concepts are springing up left, right and center and people can be seen cruising from the one to the other. Polpo is a place of relative peace in this hullabaloo, a classic restaurant with a modern ambiance, with a nod to the times as the white tablecloths are gone and the food is fashionably contemporary. Estonian sturgeon is smoked in-house and, rather delightfully, paired with salted cucumber; beef tartare is served with sauerkraut.

Their version of time-honored, Estonian semolina mousse sees the semolina served à part. And these are no flashy experiments, rather they are well-designed dishes with pure, balanced flavors. Polpo continues to offer a good old-fashioned restaurant experience, something that’s quite distinctive on this spruced-up restaurant street.