Restoran Olde Hansa — Restaurant in Tallinn

We were lucky to find a table for two on a Friday night without a reservation, so you should book in advance on more popular nights. That being said, it's a big place - spanning over three floors (from what I heard) and the building itself is beautiful from the outside in. The decoration is very traditional, or at least medieval style and the atmosphere is great, dining in candlelight. Although, for some it can be hard to see without extra light.

Waiters are dressed accordingly and also speak according to the theme in some instances ("milady", "magic machine"=card reader) which is a fun addition. Some seats are actually chests, where you can sure your stuff while dining.

It was a busy night, yes, but it shouldn't take 20 minutes from seating us down with menus to taking our order. I had to call the waiter myself. Also, the waiter seemed annoyed by a lady taking photos of her in the medieval costume - come on, tourists want their photos and they're paying for it, you shouldn't mind it working in a place like this.

Food was really good, especially my main dish (Wild Boar stew or something) which was full of herbs and spices, flavors that are by far unusual in modern cuisine. My appetizer (Juniper cheese) was a little disappointment, as it didn't really taste like anything. It was freshly prepared though!

Their own beers are worth a try! We tried the dark Honey and Herb beers and both of us enjoyed them. However, the portions seem smaller than promised - the mugs seem small and my 1 liter mug had a third of foam. I didn't dare to mention this. And be aware, the beer is not light! According to Untappd website (and my state after finishing a liter of it) they're both around 7% abv.

Prices here are quite expensive - I paid 8,5€ for a small plate of cheese and a slice of bread and 30€ for the main dish (that's said to be "wild boar" but I doubt). Their own beer is 12€ for a liter pint (others 10,5€), which would be fairly reasonable I'd gotten the full portion. It does taste like a ripoff, but hey, it's a touristy place. Overall, it's a one-of-a-kind place and you pay extra for...

Olde Hansa is a place that I can highly recommend to any fine dining guest in the wonderful town of Tallinn.

Thankfully, we made an online reservation for a table for two the day before we arrived in Tallinn.

We went for the "Let The Hunger Rise" menu, a selection of extremely tasty starters. I have to say, the combination duck pate and onion jam was a true treat - like having a circus in your mouth!.

The castle cream cheese was an also a nice surprise. We skipped the wine, and instead went along with dark beer with honey.

The main course consisted of flamed salmon with mushroom sauce. The duck leg in saffron sauce was indeed very tasty. My favorite though was the sausage of bear, wild boar and elk. It was perfectly matched by a stingy horseradish puré.

A rose pudding with flower leaves finished off a stunning meal in the surroundings of the 1400th century.

Everything was served by a waiter who did an excellent job taking us back in time (sorry about that moment when I brought you out of character mate). It is my way of connecting to make a food experience even better.

He explained everything into detail, giving my wife and I a feeling of being looked after as guests. Much appreciated!

We were seated in the top floor. This meant that the temperature on this floor rose to a very high level when more and more people arrived. Without proper air conditioning, this meant that the final part of the meal was a bit of a low point. In fact, we wanted to leave early due to this factor.

These details will not spoil the fact that my wife and I had an excellent experience in the Olde Hansa. We´ve visited several restaurants through the years, including two and three Michelin star restaurants.

Olde Hansa have something special. They make you travel in time, and make guests feel like queens and kings did many ages ago, eating food from the Middle Ages

A special thanks to those hard working kings and queens in the kitchen, the extremely attentive waiter and the musicians who did their best to making us feel privileged this...

Olde Hansa is one of the coolest restaurants I’ve ever visited. Walking inside is like stepping back in time into a medieval tavern, and everything from the decorations, the table settings, the waitstaff’s appearance, to the aroma was from another time! The vibe might be kitschy and touristy, but it was definitely fun—and the food was surprisingly gourmet for a restaurant that seems more focused on atmosphere.

Game meat features heavily on the menu (stylized with medieval-looking fonts and texts), and the Garden Greens with Succulent Game Meat was a beautiful salad topped with three different kinds of game: duck, elk, and smoked deer. I was expecting the “salad” to be nothing more than a few wilted greens, but it actually was a colorful mixture of a ton of different ingredients including mesclun, spinach, arugula, radicchio, cucumber, carrots, sprouts, flowers, white beans, jicama, cheese balls, chanterelles, and poached pears—a creative and delicious combination!

From the “Blessed Treasures of Gardens and Fields” menu section, the Five Tastes of Vegetarian Origin was a plate of several different vegetarian dishes of medieval origin, including two different types of stewed lentils (one in a sweet fruit sauce, another in a sweet-savory tomato sauce), spelt cooked two ways (with saffron and with nuts/spices), pickled cabbage/carrots/cucumbers/olives/garlic, poached ginger rutabagas, a cheese pasty, and a creamy forest mushroom sauce. Vegetarian fare might not sound exciting, but the flavors on this plate certainly were! And though I’m guessing that many visitors come to Olde Hansa for its unusual meats, the simple vegetarian fare is probably even more reflective of what most people ate during the Middle Ages!

Overall, this is a must-visit restaurant in Tallinn’s Old Town—while the prices were high, it’s an experience truly...