GastroPub Abbey — Restaurant in Riga

Came in on a whim after seeing decent reviews in the opening days. While most people might be awed by the atmosphere and quality of service certain issues are still present.

The good: Decent beer and other drink selection. Tap options are slightly limited and full of commercial beers. The bottled options however are plentiful and have some gems in them.

Service: Nice and attentive waiters, however definitely not trained properly. No check-back, had to call someone to give me a menu and take my order. Severely understaffed as well the personnel on site was barely enough to handle the terrace. They have two indoor floors mind you, though that’s points from management rather than staff. When present however there is no fault with the waiters themselves, they’re just stretched thin.

Decor: Fun and atmospheric place with plenty of life to it, comfortable seats and overall pleasant to look at interior. The bathrooms look nice and are clean. There is no paper near the sinks however only an air dryer which is somewhat of a nitpick, but still an inconvenient thing to note.

The meh: The positioning of seats leaves a lot to be desired, with an empty hall you will be fine and the terrace is passable, however the positioning of tables was clearly not designed with a full seating in mind. Small tables crammed everywhere to make as many seats available as possible without any care for the clients comfort. Their table for two is barely fit for one person and full of unnecessary clutter that leaves no space for larger dishes. Additionally if all the tables were to be occupied everyone would be cramped together. I was touching the seat behind mine constantly and a similar issue is present at all tables that are positioned back to back.

Food: Started with their garlic bread, what should have been a Latvian classic. 7.50 for 6 pieces of fried bread, barely any taste to them served with a side of cheese sauce that you’d get a local cinema with nachos instead of something homemade. Edible, not worth the price. Seafood as admitted to me by my waiter (thanks to him) is all frozen and yet their menu has an abundance, I’d say around 70% of seafood dishes which is a travesty.

Only after I ordered a stake was I brought some local additional snacks. The piece of bread that you can see in the third picture is what they call focaccia))). I was also served fried lavash. Certainly a unique and interesting snack served with a side of what was meant to be hummus and pesto. Hummus that tasted nothing like hummus and was whiter than me for some reason, closer to sour cream honestly. The pesto cheap and oily. These snacks are stored in the open sauces olives and all. Just sitting there in a small alcove hidden from sight. Make your own conclusions.

I ordered their steak to verify the overall quality of the kitchen. Medium rare. The middle of it was passable, but it was obviously overcooked and closer to a medium, the edges were straight up dry and chewy. Not to mention that all of it had a slightly oily taste to it which completely ruined the experience. Fortunately the waiter noticed my issue was very receptive to criticism and was kind enough to offer take it off my bill without any arguments. Afterwards I decided to check out the dessert and give their tiramisu a shot. Sadly as often is the issue with any place that serves tiramisu nowadays it’s what they called “homemade” tiramisu. Not layered, the cookies were almost dry and definitely not soaked properly. Essentially just mascarpone in a glass. Powdered with cheap coco powder and covered in chocolate trimmings to hide that.

Conclusion: A nice enough place if you want a drink or two in the summer heat, but until they fix up their kitchen and recipes I wouldn’t recommend ordering anything more as the ratio of quality to price is inconsistent and makes the place overpriced. Nice...

We searched online for a place to have dinner and saw the good reviews in your restaurant so we tried it. From the time we entered and was warmly welcomed and led to our seats by Raymonda, we already know we chose the right place because she is to nice and friendly. The atmosphere is so elegant. The drinks and food recommendations by Raymonda were very good as well as the bread, butter and olives that were given to us to start with. We enjoyed our dinner so much that the next day, we came back again for dinner and this time was attended by Darja, who is also cheerful and welcoming and always smiling. Raymonda was also there and she also said hello to us too. A very nice surprise as well is when the 2 of them have given my friend, a very sumptuous surprise birthday cake dessert, such a lovely and sweet gesture. A place that not only serves top quality food and drinks but more importantly, the place can be proud of having good and welcoming servers. Thank you for 2...

Very cozy place, in the old town, good view and great atmosphere. The waiter took the order, - we ordered seafood soup, garlic bread, Laffe burger, fish and chips, but he didn't write anything down, Pleasantly surprised, Pub snack, bread, with sauces and olives (the olives tasted amazing), so the beginning was promising. I was surprised when they brought Garlic bread, it was local black fried bread with garlic and cheese, it was not quite what we expected. The soup was very tasty, before we could taste it, they brought other dishes and they barely fit on the small table, but my burger was not here, instead of the burger they brought another dish, which he was very surprised about. After that, we didn't see this waiter anymore, he was replaced by another waiter. The food is really delicious. but it took a while to wait for the bill. Finally, when we got the bill, it turned out that it wasn't ours. After a while, the new waiter, Limonchela, fixed the problems, and...