Discovering Le Dome: a Michelin-starred restaurant in Riga, Latvia

Famed Michelin-starred restaurants have to have certain qualities, such as top-notch ingredients, great technique in cooking, standing out among other noteworthy restaurants. Le Dome in Riga, Latvia, takes you on an gastronomic journey with some unexpected moments. It’s listed in the Riga Michelin guide. I was happy to be hosted to experience it!

Old Town Riga dates back to the Middle Ages, so it’s not laid out in grid pattern like Chicago or D.C. Le Dome is on a hidden, curving ancient path-road. Even locals have trouble describing how to get there, so give yourself a little extra time to arrive.

Le Dome has simple, clean decor, almost what used to be called “Danish Modern”. I later learned that Michelin focuses on what appears on the plate, not so much the decor.

I went with the tasting menu, which gives you less control over what you’re eating — that might excite some people and intimidate others.

I’ve known that cabbage and related kale and collards can come in gorgeous colors, but you may not have seen it at the local grocery store. After a glass of Champagne, I received an amuse bouche of dried collard leaf with bluefin tuna tartare.

Vintage jazz and pop plays in the background.

The bread course is served on a cheese board with a comte popover, as well as “their” rye with cocoa and maple syrup on top, accompanied by sea salt butter. You have to remind yourself that there are many courses to come!

Part of what can tip in favor of getting a Michelin star is having rare, exotic ingredients. The next course was sea scallop tartare from Japan. It was delicate with sea flavor. It had a tangy sauce and herbs.

Mediterranean Sea Bream had shrimp paste and Normandy sauce. Not being familiar with this particular sauce, I researched it: it’s a fish veloute’ or fish stock thickened with cream, butter and egg yolks. Theirs also had white wine and dill oil. This dish had a more powerful seafood flavor, the fish being cooked perfectly.

As you can see, Le Dome sauces their dishes tableside.

So, I suppose that earning a Michelin star requires some element of surprise for the diner. I was not prepared for the palate cleanser being sea buckthorn sorbet topped with . . .ants! ANTS! If I was a little drowsy eating and drinking, I certainly woke up then. They were foraged from “the forest”. There wasn’t an explanation, either. It wasn’t like, “Chef’s grandma survived the war eating these,” or some such. I couldn’t do it. I actually tasted some of the tangy sea buckthorn sorbet around them, which is probably more than most of my friends would ever do. It felt like eons for the server to take the glass away. ANTS!

Then, we went back to decadence and I was glad. Wagyu bavette steak with reduced port wine sauce, salsify chips and puree’, rhubarb chutney were a well conceived combo. Bavette is known as “the butcher’s cut”, because of its rich flavor and marbling. I also learned that since bavette is near the liver, it picks up some of those flavors. The rhubarb brightness balanced the richness.

There was a “pre-dessert”: dried strawberry around a chocolate-cherry cordial. This is the right size for a wetter dessert such as this — I’m not big on big lava cakes, for instance.

The main dessert had a lot of hidden complexity. It was creme brulee’ in puff pastry with mango, reduced rum, raspberry, hazelnut. It was plated with white chocolate crumbles and what they called, “elegant ice cream”. The dish had lots of textures, with a mix of tangy, creamy and floral notes.