WINYL restoran — Restaurant in Tallinn

Taratari Kook was a special ocassion restaurant with impeccable food. We used to host 12+ people dinners with clients and partners often. So when we decided to head there for dinner on a cold evening, I couldn't be happier.. ecstatic.

But the food was extremely disappointing. The Prawn lollipop was in a tasteless unseasoned batter with the prawns clumped together and fried which made them uneatable. At the bottom was what can only be described as a McDonald's cheese sauce with no flavour. No spice, no acidity in the dish just a glooop on low cost ingredients.

The parmesan tartar was the same. No balance, hardly any tartar, sweet figs as filler, another huge glooop of the McDonald's sauce and I can guarantee not a single sliver of actual real Italian parmesan went in there. It was extremely poor

Finally the burger.. the burger was everything a burger should not be..and for once where the McDonald's glooop sauce was needed,was missing. The beef was over cooked grey, guaranteed industrial super fine. None of the coarse nice homemade beef mince with fat. The whole thing was drizzled in green and brown sauce with zero flavour. The bun was good but fell apart in the sauces. Making the whole thing tasteless. Again I think the chef's need to learn seasoning and resign from glooop sauce school.

The fries we're 100% store bought deep frozen... 100% again unseasoned. And to think it's €9 for frozen fries, the restaurant menu designer is smooking some strong stuff.

I ate 1/4th of the burger and left it. The waitress picked it up, no question asked. No.."Was it ok?", can I make it right? "Was all the frozen,overcooked, unseasoned food good? "... you can get food wrong and you can make it right. Not caring is not an option

What kind of restaurant has this become?

260€+ bill with friends and a vow to not return and never do events there.

With restaurants like Peagasus, R14, Radio, Olu for great food, Frenchie and R14 making incredible tartars, literally anyone including McDonald's making better burgers and your freezer making better fries ...

Don't go here.. just don't.

The owner and chefs need to have a hard think about what starters and frozen fries, meat and gloop sauces they need. Not to mention ask customers why they leave more than 3/4ths of their uneaten food. There is only one reason I can see this...

I'd give the food 4-5 stars for sure - - they know what they are doing. The menu is extremely creative even in the context of a town filled now with restaurants trying to out-creative their neighbours. The flavour combinations are intriguing and risky but work. Their prices are not outlandish. Their concept is tight, cohesive, yet playful, their portions by no means small. So, for those who like this kind of menu - bravo! Atmosphere is great. Sure, service is a bit Russian icy-style but not rude or unfriendly.

The only reason I'd take away stars is 1) sadly, it's the kind of place that will bring you water if you ask for some and charge you for a bottle of it without forewarning you (and this was not a language issue). It seems like a small detail, but it's the kind of outmoded trick that leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and implies sneaky motives overall, a bad attitude if you will. As if they'd like to fool you into spending more (though they don't try to be pushy for you to order drinks etc). Just a few words warning that 'Our water is charged, is that still ok?' would be sufficient to score as polite and fair.

And 2) for a restaurant that is so meat heavy and obviously oriented towards quality, they make no mention of where their meat comes from. For some clients at least, provenance would be important - is this usual steroid-feed beef, or one that has had to travel thousands of KM to get there, has it been frozen before, has there been any attempt to control for quality here and if so what...

I think most everyone will still be pleased with their experience...

Food: 4/5, Service: 2/5 The service staff unfortunately didn’t give any feeling of being welcome at all. Talking was reduced to a minimum, hardly any smile. It was clear their only job will be taking orders and delivering orders. Nothing more. They hardly knew which beverages were in stock that day so they had to go have a look and come back to tell us. Also after all they forgot one of our three beverages. Their dirty outworn shoes spoke for themselves as well. Anyway…. The food actually was good! Super buttery and finely chopped fresh beef tartar with fresh ingredients, herbs and spices. The „Frenchie“ one with tarragon-mayonnaise, foie gras and black truffle tasted really well. Although it was a little disappointing and misleading to read „black truffle“ which actually was „black truffle paste“. Like you can usually expect from these products the taste of truffle was very strong and overpowering most of the other ingredients. Unfortunately it was impossible to taste the most expensive ingredient of the dish, the foie gras. That’s usually the case because they use a lot of truffle aroma in those products but of course i can’t tell that for sure in that case. Experience all in all: Meh. Quite pricey for the delivered service. Not sure if we...