Kajakas — Restaurant in Tallinn

I've known about this place via online orders for a while (they're known for their pizza). Recently, I visited their restaurant to dine in as well. In short, while it's definitely not a bad place, unless I'd be going just for the pizza, it would not be my first pick for Italian food. In terms of pizza, location, and atmosphere, this definitely deserves 4-5 stars, but the other dishes and the service during rush hour today dropped that rating.

Their pizza is really good, with a lovely crust. They are my top 3 places to order pizza from in the city. But unfortunately their other menu items need to catch up and their owners/managers need to work a bit harder to train their staff to provide more active service (take plates away, offer refills for upsells as well) and provide them with more motivation.

We ordered some king trumpet mushrooms and spinach ravioli. The king trumpets were nice, though a soy sauce glaze in an Italian place did feel a tad random to me, I'd have imagined something with lemon or balsamic or many other even more imaginative flavour combinations. Additionally, they came with no sides, which is not a bad thing but just interesting, and the staff did say it's not a full meal. The spinach ravioli was quite disappointing, however. It was a bit bland in terms of flavour, and the spinach was watery. It felt like it was not squeezed out properly after cooking, causing it to taste watery, and the lack of any other strong complimenting flavours caused it to taste like bland and damp spinach. While it did have balsamic (and stracciatella?) on the dish, the balsamic was quite mild still, and i personally think it was missing some stronger complimenting flavours. A classic would be to add ricotta, lemon, and maybe some tomato sauce? Lastly, balsamic should have been mentioned on the menu as well, as this can be an ingredient someone might not enjoy.

In short, it's not a bad place. The servers are friendly and clearly working hard, but it feels like they might lack support from above, and the non pizza dishes on the menu left us hoping for more. Their menu food descriptions are good, but they are missing some key, strong, flavoured ingredients that can disappoint some more picky eaters. I hope that they get to improve on these few key points and become a 5 star restaurant...

We (me and my girlfriend) picked this restaurant, as it had Google rating 5.0 (with 56 comments, how you ever seen a 5.0 rating?), which sounded too good to be true... And it was :/

Maybe it was bad luck or the cosmic powers were against us that day. At first we ordered appetisers, which consisted of pieces of Italian cheese and ham on a wooden board and 2 pizzas. Appetisers arrived 45 min after the order and pizzas 15 min after that. As promoting themselves as Italian pizza place, they're quite slow. I have never waited for so long for food in a place, where they make the pizza in traditional Italian oven. For example, in Kaja pitsa or POMO restorante, I get my pizzas in ~10 min, because that's what you expect from a fast food place, right?

Moving on... I was fortunately lucky that didn't get a wrong order, as the waitress misunderstood my Estonian, but my girlfriend saw that the waitress wrote down the wrong order. The table next to us wasn't so lucky, they were offered a swap for their actual order after they started eating what they got :/

And finally the pizza... The dough that was making the outer crust was raw and barely possible to eat. Almost all of the crust stayed on the plate. It didn't seem that they had that much people in the restaurant that they should have had to do the pizzas in a hurry, especially after waiting 60min for it... Or the Bolt/Wolt clients got prioritized, because those orders got fulfilled much faster.

The water was great and the water jug...

If you’re in Tallinn and craving truly amazing pizza, Kajakas is the place to go. Nice location when you walking by the sea and want to have a nice Italian lunch or if you want to treat yourself in the evening for dinner. From the very first bite, you can tell they use only the freshest ingredients. Every pizza is perfectly balanced. The atmosphere is just as wonderful as the food. The restaurant has a warm, inviting vibe - cozy but modern. Kids are always welcomed. It’s one of those places you visit once and immediately start planning your next trip back. If you love great pizza and a lovely environment, don’t miss Kajakas - it’s easily one of the best dining spots in Tallinn!

PS Pizza was so good that I only remembered to take a picture half way though it 😅

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5/5 – can’t...