Domini Canes — Restaurant in Riga

This was our first visit to Domini Canes and we chose it because of the excellent reviews on Trip Advisor and Google. I have to say that we were disappointed. Very often restaurant reviews are highly subjective so I will try and be as objective as possible.

We visited on a cold Thursday night in January and to our surprise it was full. This I thought was an encouraging sign. On entry there was a nice comfortable feel to the restaurant. The service staff were welcoming, knowledgeable and attentive but not overly so. To start we both ordered mussels although prepared differently. Both dishes were lukewarm at the best although the flavour was good. For main course I ordered venison burger and my wife ordered Teriyaki salmon. The burger was unfortunately very dry but not overcooked. Venison is a very lean meat so a burger will need the addition of some fat. The salmon was ok but as a previous reviewer mentioned, there was too much garnish. For dessert I ordered Sea Buckthorn Panna Cotta which was too firm although again delicious flavour. My wife ordered Creme Brulee. Again the flavour was good but there was far too fruit for the quantity of creme.

We raised our complaints with the service staff and they responded very positively. I suspect we were just unlucky as this restaurant has many many excellent reviews. We will try again sometime...

Situated in the heart of the city centre is Domini Canes restaurant in Riga. For a restaurant within a stones throw distance from St Peters Church you might expect it to be touristy and overpriced. Luckily for us it was neither.

We dined al fresco as the sun had decided to come out on our final day. The staff were friendly and happy to answer questions on the menu. We had an Aperol Spritz and Latvian white wine to begin which was a refreshing treat in the sun.

We had the most delicious Penne Pasta with beef tenderloin, homemade tomato sauce, parsley, onions and parmesan cheese. As I was hungry, I asked for bread with it but our waitress suggested that the pasta was enough and perhaps to wait and see. Lo and behold I was presented with a generous portion of this al dente goodness. An absolute steal at only 9 euros, this dish was flavoursome and plentiful and no bread was required!

We also had the Elk Burger (deer) with onion marmalade, cucumber, tomato and spinach served with sautéed wedges. The onion marmalade complimented the burger but sadly it was a little dry but perhaps we are not used to that type of meat.

With two main meals and three drinks coming to just under 40 euros, it was good value for money and definitely...

Im assuming the fish dishes was their strong side. Unfortunately we ordered the cauliflower vegetarian dish and a tasteless vegetarian pasta. The daiquiri was not a daiquiri, also far too strong. The traditional Latvian drink with Balsam was good though. Tastes a bit like Gluhwine. The Creme Brulé was quite good, best of all the dishes we ordered. The service was slow, not too friendly but ok. We paid 33 Euros for everything which I guess is a decent price. Maybe we were there during a bad day. But there wasn't that much enthusiasm in their approach to guests. I'm only being this harsh in my review because this is after all the Old Town and there are tourists eating there all the time, plus the fact they did get many awards from TripAdvisor and its fair to say the expectations were not met. We had to ask them to turn on the heat 2 times and then we waited 15 min for the bill, which we didn't get so we went in to take cover from the rain and asked for the bill again. Then we waited another 10 min and then we finally got to pay our food so we could leave. Anyhow, maybe someone else will have better luck at this place then me and my...