LOWINE - Natural Wine Bar & Kitchen — Restaurant in Riga

Let me be fully transparent with you and start with a full disclosure that I am the one responsible for a wine portfolio at Lowine. However, I believe it is even more important for me to explain in detail what exactly this project is about and what one can expect.

Lowine is wine importer that champions artisanal winemakers who work sustainably, practising organics or biodynamics in the vineyard, and do minimum interventions in the cellar.

That’s a wine shop and a cosy studio with by far the largest selection of natural wines in Latvia. Expect loads of unpretentious yet still achingly cool weeknight sippers.

Current portfolio consists of 250 wine labels from 16 different wine regions and counting. Both classic and natty wines with zero sulphites, a wide range of orange or amber wines. Impressive selections of festive bubbles including pet-nats, easy frizzantes, sparkling wines, natural ciders and of course champagne. Gastronomic whites, low-alcohol easy reds.

Explore the arts and crafts of authentic winemaking and support the mastery. Even if you think you’re not into natural wine, there’ll be a wine here to change your mind. Become a natural wine convert to start enjoying wines with no additives and real people behind them, unlike the industrial wine laboratories producing mass...

Encounter of the unpleasant kind

We were going to have breakfast at Lowine today at around 11 a.m. and were already looking forward to it. After us, an elderly Russian couple entered the shop with a beefy minder (bodyguard). The old Russian was obviously drunk, had a baseball cap on and a worn appearance. He also had a champagne bottle in his hand from which he drank directly. The three sat down and the old man opened his wallet. Then he pulled out two 50s from a thick wad of banknotes, which he thrust into the waiter's hand. When the waiter turned away to get the meal card, he called him back twice with a loud STOP. Two more 50s changed hands. From then on, the waiter was only focused on this table as if Putin himself was visiting and the rest of the restaurant was reduced to an audience. Loud orders through the restaurant and slaps with the hand on the table followed. The Russians had drinks (Vodka and Champagne) and food on the table even faster than we had the menu. Unlike our already eating fellow sufferers, we had a choice and left the restaurant without having ordered. My wife did not miss the opportunity to tell the waitress that we did not like the guests today. This was acknowledged with an understanding smile.

Too bad, we liked the Lowine so far and thought it was a...

This Is was my second time in this place, and the second time when we (me and my friend) did not receive appropriate (good) service. The first time was few months ago, when had to wait for the waitress to take our order for almost 40 minutes, and what is more she added some additional meal in our bill (though we did not order or eat it). This time we have got wrong dish (toast with stracciatella cheese instead of toast with salmon) (and had to go to the bar on our own to make an order again because no one was coming to us). When we approached the waitress with our problem, she offered us to bring just salmon, and that that those toasts are different only by one ingredient- salmon (though I doubt that stracciatella and salmon would be the best combination 😃). We kindly asked to prepare a new toast, what they did in the end. No apologies from the staff, thought me and my friend could not enjoy breakfast at the same time. And the last but not least, they again tried to scam us with the bill - they counted our kombucha with the price higher than in the menu. The food is delicious, no questions to the chefs, but disappointed in the service - so far the worst that I have...